RM of Springfield considers sand-mining referendum, but vote will have to wait

The mayor and council of the rural municipality of Springfield will have to wait at least one week to consider a plan to gauge public opinion about a proposal to extract sand from below the surface of southeastern Manitoba.

Springfield's council was forced on Tuesday evening to lay over a vote on a motion to hold a referendum or conduct a survey about Alberta miner Sio Silica's plan to drill as many as 7,700 wells in Manitoba in order to remove high-quality sand from an aquifer located about 50 metres underground.

Coun. Mark Miller, the author of the motion, was unable to attend the meeting because of an air-travel delay on his way back from a trip to Ottawa.

That left Coun. Andy Kuczynski on his own among council members willing to support the motion. No other member of council agreed to second the motion, forcing it to be moved to a meeting later in July.

Coun. Melinda Warren said it would be pointless for Springfield to seek public opinion on its own when 11 Manitoba municipalities would be affected by Sio Silica's proposal to extract sand from wells that would be drilled across a broad swath of southern Manitoba. 

"It's our aquifer and everybody takes out of that aquifer, so I don't feel that it's just a Springfield issue," Warren told council on Tuesday in the Springfield council chamber in Oakbank, east of Winnipeg.

"If you're going to open the door to a public survey or a referendum, we should be doing it with the remainder of the municipalities that are affected and this should be brought up to the provincial government," she added.

"Whether we have a say or not, the decision is with the provincial government."

The decision to approve or deny Sio Silica's proposal sits with Manitoba Environment and Climate Minister Kevin Klein, who said in June he is in no rush to rule on Sio Silica's proposal.

The Clean Environment Commission, Manitoba's environmental regulator, recommended in June against any immediate decision about the project until more is known about the effects of removing millions of tonnes of sand from the vast Winnipeg Sandstone Aquifer.

"The commission does not have sufficient confidence that the level of risk posed to an essential source of drinking water for the region has been adequately defined," the Clean Environment Commission said in a 105-page report completed in June.

"The mining approach proposed by Sio Silica does have merit if the risks posed to the quality of water in the affected aquifers can be better defined and the management of those risks can be adequately addressed."

Nonetheless, there remains public pressure on Springfield, which has been asked by Manitoba's Municipal Board to approve the development of a sand-processing facility near Vivian, Man.

Springfield declined to approve the development in June. Mayor Patrick Therrien said he is now waiting to see what the quasi-judicial board — which the province has granted the power to overrule municipal land-use decisions — will dictate to his municipality.