The Mysterious Mounds Of Earth On The Access Road
Early this week there was much kerfuffle on the Guelph Mercury 59 Carden Street blog about some mysterious mounds of earth that had suddenly appeared on the access road from McWilliams Road into the proposed site for the Hanlon Creek Business Park. These piles of earth eventually turned out to be topsoil intended to resurface and reseed the access road to limit sediment in the spring.
A non-story then? Well, not exactly.
Intrepid Royal City Rag contributor, freelance journalist Bob Gordon elected, as part of his investigation of this potentially nefarious activity, to call the contractor, Drexler Construction, hoping to determine the nature of the work:
As part of my investigation of the mysterious mounds of earth I decided to contact Drexler Construction. Ienjoyed an entirely surrealistic conversation with a pleasant and completely unhelpful person in the accounts receivable department who happened to answer the phone.
She informed me that Drexler does not have a voice mail system in their office, does not take written messages and does not release cell phone numbers of its field staff. She also assured me that I needed to speak to the company president, Jerome Drexler, but “I can almost guarantee you he won’t get back to you.”
Equally helpfully she was unable to confirm whether project manager Andy Miller was onsite at the HCBP or elsewhere, and if he would be willing to speak to me.
Also in the morning I spoke to a friend involved in environmental work who suggested, “it would appear they may be stabilizing the site in an appropriate fashion. This is certainly necessary as leaving this area unvegetated would allow a significant source of sediment to potentially enter the stream during rain and spring snow melt.”
This opinion was confirmed by Ian Hagman, Guelph District Manager for the Ministry of Natural Resources, by e-mail, “The work being undertaken is topsoil being placed on the construction access road that will be seeded with grass seed. This is not a construction activity where material is being removed but rather topsoil being brought in to the site to cover over the construction path.”
Undaunted I headed out to the site at noon to see what was what. What was there was nothing, at least nothing in a nefarious sense.
For the record, the mounds of earth are topsoil intended to resurface and reseed the access road to limit sediment in the spring.
That doesn’t preclude concern about the city, the developer (read the city) and the contractor’s intentions. But in this instance they are innocent of any underhand motive.
So there we are… A non-story. Well, yes but we should still be circumspect.
The unwillingness of the contractor to comment raises questions about their motives and intentions and more concern about the mood that the city’s behaviour has created around this project.
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A non-story, except for the fact that little if any of the grass is going to grow in this topsoil at this time of year. So the topsoil will be just as vulnerable to erosion as the other material that was there, at least until next spring.