When Brazilian-owned mining company Vale invited the 50 or so residents of the village of Willisville to hear about its plans for nearby Willisville Mountain and more than 100 people attended the meeting, the company realized it had a situation on its hands.
The mountain and all the land surrounding it, excluding the village, is owned by Vale, which operates nearby Lawson Quarry. But artists from all over the country, including members of the Group of Seven, have long felt drawn to the mountain, at the entrance to Killarney Provincial Park in central Ontario, for its natural beauty.
Village residents, who live just a stone’s throw away and treat the mountain as their backyard, also feel they have a stake in it. And both these groups believe the mountain is at risk.
In mid-May, Willisville resident Jon Butler bumped into a Vale employee who he says told him the company had plans to build a new aggregate site next to Lawson Quarry, edging near the base of the mountain.
View from Willisville Mountain BEFORE new Quarry, Photo taken by Jon Butler, May 16, 2010.
Three days later, said Mr. Butler, a retired president of Thomson Newspapers, Vale began clearing an area about half the size of a soccer field. Mr. Butler said the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources told him that Vale has a licence to quarry the mountain, and can do it without public consultation.
At the June 2 community meeting, Vale said it has no plans to build a new quarry. Spokesman Steve Ball told The Globe and Mail on Friday that the clearing was made to crush and store waste materials from the existing quarry, which produces 300 tons of silica a day for the company’s Sudbury plant.
This was a temporary measure, said Mr. Ball, and was meant to last until the end of June. The company agreed to move the portable crusher into the existing quarry, and promised not to expand the operation for the next 80 years.
But residents say this isn’t enough. They’re asking Vale to surrender the land so there is no possibility the mountain will ever be mined or quarried. The vocal Vale operation has not responded to this request, saying that the decision needs to be made at the parent company.
“It was a real wakeup call,” Mr. Butler said. “People knew that Vale owned the property, but we were always under the assumption that, if it ever came up, there would be some sort of new licence required.”
Carol Currie, a 43-year-old artist, first hiked the mountain with her father at the age of eight. In the past three years, Ms. Currie has sold more than 300 paintings of the mountain, and said that her livelihood depends on it, along with those of at least 100 other artists who regularly paint the area. The mountain was the subject of paintings by members of the Group of Seven, including Frood Lake in Willisville by A.J. Casson.
“For that history to be lost is a crime, in my opinion – just for a corporate dollar,” she said.
Jim Waddington, who lives six hours away in Hamilton, has written to the ministry, asking it to reconsider Vale’s licence. Over the past 30 years, he and his wife have made the drive to Willisville more than 20 times to camp, hike and canoe.
“I think people should be allowed to mine,” he said. “It’s just that this particular place is a very special one.”
