BY KIRK STARRATT

kstarratt@kentvilleadvertiser.ca

NovaNewsNow.com

He says the village must protect its well fields as a matter of complying with environmental regulations and he wants Kings County council to consider another look at a rezoning request for farmland referred to the Port Williams secondary planning strategy process (SPS).

Port Williams Village Commission chairman Lewis Benedict, who made a presentation to Kings County council’s committee of the whole (COTW) at the Tuesday, May 20 session, said he was appearing before council to ask for assistance in protecting the Port Williams well field area.

He said the County of Kings put the SPS process for Port Williams on the back burner as other communities had their processes completed and it took three years to get the SPS ad hoc committee formed. It will probably take two or three years to complete the process. He pointed out that Port Williams would have been considered as the site for the Shannex long-term care facility, but that has been lost to Greenwich.

Benedict said there’s a group looking to develop one portion of the village’s well field area into residential lots.

“I’m here to ask you as councillors to take another look at their plan,” he said. “The well field area is in danger of being further polluted by farming. As keepers of the well field area, we don’t want to risk people’s health. Protecting it now is showing due diligence.”

Benedict said he’s sure that if each councillor were living in the village as a user of the water system, each would look to the village and county to make sure the water is safe. He said councillors may ask why the village’s wells were put on agricultural land, but the decision was made some 50 years ago when there was little in the way of environmental concerns. He asks where else the wells would have went in Port Williams, considering the village is surrounded by agricultural land.

Benedict said lots of residents want farming aspects to continue, but they want the water supply and well fields protected. He acknowledges that it’s farmland the applicants want rezoned, but pointed out that one active farm in the community is zoned Residential even though the owner has no interest in developing it.

Nitrates a concern

He said this case of a request to rezone agricultural land is different from others, as there is a need to protect the well field area now because nitrates are a concern. Because of nitrates from agricultural practices entering the water supply, Benedict said the land has to come out of agricultural usage.

Benedict said the village has five wells and nitrates have affected three. However, the system is under good management and they’ve been able to bring nitrate levels down to an acceptable level. They take high nitrate water and water from good wells without nitrates and blend the two to bring the nitrate concentration down.

Benedict said there are between 1,800 and 2,000 residents in Port Williams and getting into compliance with Department of Environment regulations in regard to the water system will cost the village about $1.25 million. The village monitors nitrate levels on a constant basis.

“If you keep putting nitrates on the land, it’s not going to come out,” Benedict said, pointing out that manure (a probable source of nitrates) is spread on farm fields close to the village’s wells every year.

He said the farmers who own the land should have the chance to get fair value for their land. If the county wants to make the land a park and give the farmers fair value, the county is welcome to it.

Benedict invited all councillors to come for a tour of the village’s well fields and sewer lagoon because, if they’re making decisions regarding them, it couldn’t hurt.

Comments from the public

During the public comment session at the end of the COTW meeting, Port Williams resident Ken Bezanson thanked councillors for referring the matter to the SPS. He said, “we need safe water, we need to protect farmland and we need to protect people’s health,” pointing out that good management requires good planning. He asked that a manure pile sitting on a field in the subject area be removed.

Ian Newcombe, who identified himself as one of the farmers in question with the proposal, said he wanted to clarify the manure situation. He said it’s there for a reason, to produce crops, and it would be spread in due course.

“We work under best agricultural practices and it will be looked after with best practices,” he said.

Newcombe said it bothers him that people talk about the situation around the circle without talking to the people who own the manure and the land. He said he agrees with protecting the well fields, but doesn’t agree that farmers should have to do things differently at their own expense to appease the village and residents.