Proposed pit has 20-year resource.

With an industry hungry for aggregates for road building, a plan is in the works by OCL Custom Crushing and Quarrying to develop a gravel pit north of Hanmer on Highway 69, with a projected resource of more than 20 years.

Land surveyor David Dorland who represents OCL Crushing says he will be going to the City of Greater Sudbury Council in May to ask for a rezoning on the 50-hectare property to rezone it from rural to an M5 industrial extractive zone. A number of public meetings and an open house will be planned in Capreol.

If the plan is approved by the city, he says the second phase will be to seek a license from the Ontario government under the Aggregate Resources Act. If all goes according to plan, production could begin at the easternmost portion of the property by the end of the year.

"The challenges are that certain area residents will benefit from the westerly expansion of the pit and some, at least, won't feel that they do," says Dorland. "The reason we feel it will create a net benefit is because ... if the licensing goes forward, the aggregate from the existing and the proposed operation will be removed through a private road onto the more suitably constructed Highway 69 North."

Currently, aggregate is removed from an existing pit operation via Suez Drive and then onto the highway past a number of nearby residences.

Dorland says the mitigation efforts made on the property exceed those generally required, and are not a standard industry practice.

Buffers between the pit and nearby residences are "an order of magnitude" greater than needs to be under MOE guidelines. There are approximately four to six metres of resource material available that Dorland says could last 20 or 30 years.

"This is just a natural expansion, a westerly extension of the pit that's there," he says. "There is very little material left in many of the pits in that area. We need gravel for roads."

He says the City of Greater Sudbury is the primary customer for his client's gravel.

Don Belisle, general manager of the City of Greater Sudbury public works department, says the city relies on local supplies of aggregate for its projects, although he does not have exact figures on how much aggregate is used in city construction projects. Some of the aggregate comes from local gravel pits, while a portion of it comes directly from rock that is crushed onced it is extracted from a construction site.

"I know (supply) is a big issue in southern Ontario and there are local

companies that are shipping to southern Ontario," he says.

"There are more than two million tonnes of material (in the proposed pit) and the contract calls for around 80,000 tonnes per year, and that's not anticipated to change," says Dorland.

He estimates the project will result in the creation of employment for approximately six people.

BY ANDREW WAREING

Northern Ontario Business