Save the Environment Stop the Gravel Pit!

The small, agricultural village of Maryhill that is rich in ecological diversity and cultural heritage needs your help. Please help us stop the proposed gravel pit that is threatening our community.

Maryhill is a picturesque village in southwestern Ontario nestled between the cities of Kitchener, Waterloo, Cambridge, and Guelph. It is a very small community in population and size, yet it has been targeted by an aggregate company to house a gravel pit. A gravel pit that would serve as an extraction, processing, and recycling site. The village of Maryhill lies on the Haldimand Tract and has been designated as prime agricultural land. Rich in culture and heritage, it is not uncommon for a family to have lived on the land for several generations. It is incomprehensible to the locals that Maryhill is being targeted as a viable location for a gravel pit considering it is a clear danger to the significant agricultural land, groundwater, wetlands, habitats, and flora that the community has worked so hard to nurture and preserve.

While the presence of a gravel pit in such a small village will have grave effects on the living conditions and safety of its inhabitants, the effects will also have far-reaching consequences. The silica, dust, and by-products emitted into the air, leaching into the groundwater, and flowing into the Hopewell Creek waterway means that anyone who shares these resources or frequents the businesses and schools located in Maryhill will also be impacted.

It is long understood that large corporate entities with power and deep financial pockets can tip the scale of justice so it is no longer equal for all. In fact, the applicant, Capital Paving, in an undignified move in an unprecedented year, has taken the application to the Ontario Land Tribunal (OLT) without waiting for the final stages of community input and expert testimony opposing the pit. This has forced the community to retain a lawyer to take our concerns to the OLT as well.

The Hopewell Creek Ratepayer’s Association (HCRA), a residents group formed to fight the proposed pit, is in the process of raising funds to pay for the legal costs associated with continuing this fight. Please consider donating.

Check out the HCRA Facebook page to learn more - https://www.facebook.com/hopewellcra.