Despite the intense passions surrounding many environmental issues, major protests to help green causes have been so rare in recent years they might as well be on the endangered species list.
But amid the corn and alfalfa fields of this bucolic corner of Ontario, a battle harking back to the blockades of an earlier time is being waged over a proposed landfill lying atop an aquifer said to hold some of the world's purest water.
For much of the past week, dozens of protesters have blocked construction workers from entering the site of the partly completed landfill, which the County of Simcoe is planning to open this fall.
"We don't feel that our water should be contaminated. There is no reason for a dump here," says Vicki Monague, one of the protesters.
Ms. Monague, 28, says the county has asked her and others to stop the blockade, but she has refused. "My response was, 'Over my dead body.' We're not leaving. ... There are people here who are ready to be arrested."
The decision to stop workers from entering the site follows two months of peaceful rallies, marches and encampments at the site of the proposed landfill.
These activities have involved hundreds of people in the largest ongoing protest in Canada in recent years over an environmental issue. The site is located in a rural area of farm fields near the Georgian Bay community of Midland.
Protest tactics were once common in environmental disputes. They were prominent in high-profile battles decades ago over the fate of rain forests in British Columbia, acid rain pollution, and clear cutting old-growth white pine forests in Ontario.
Rather surprisingly, conservation advocates haven't protested in a sustained way against current contentious projects, such as the oil sands in Alberta and logging ventures in Canada's relatively undisturbed boreal forest.
But civil disobedience and threats of arrest over environmental conflicts may become a more mainstream part of the conservation movement once more. Along with the protesters in Simcoe County, other environmental activists are considering dusting off this form of protest.
Greenpeace is considering applying civil disobedience on a larger scale to pressure the federal government in the lead-up to this fall's international climate change negotiations in Copenhagen.
In the past, small groups of Greenpeace activists would risk arrest through non-violent protests, such as chaining themselves to gates at buildings or unfurling banners from smokestacks, but the group plans to make a broader appeal to Canadians to join them in such events.
"We think there is an appetite for it," says David Martin, climate and energy co-ordinator for Greenpeace. "What we're shifting towards is a more public appeal to civil disobedience."
Spurring this type of action is the "tremendous frustration that's mounted over the last few years" on the pace of Ottawa's action on climate change, he said.
Protests at the Tiny Township landfill began in May and have some unusual features.
Natives from nearby reserves have joined with non-native residents living close to the project to oppose it, a reversal of the many instances in Ontario in which natives and non-natives living in the same community have come into conflict. Native women took the leading role in setting up a blockade that shut down construction at the site last week.
The water under the proposed dump was tested 2½ years ago at the University of Heidelberg in Germany and found to be as clean as the purest water drawn from glaciers in the Canadian Arctic. The samples have since been used as a reference for purity in scientific research investigating contaminants in bottled water.
The county wants construction to resume, but hasn't asked police to remove the protesters or sought an injunction against their activities.
County warden Tony Guergis said the community needs the dump. "We've gone to extensive lengths to try and find any other alternatives and I can tell you with all certainty there is no other alternative."
Maude Barlow, head of the Council of Canadians, an advocacy group, has spoken out against the selection of the site.
If police move in to arrest those blocking the proposed dump, she predicted it will only encourage more protest. "You'll see people coming from across the province and across the country to support them," she said.
