EDITOR:
he Guardian editorial of December 5, "A sensible suggestion," clearly supports the proclaimed commitment to environmental sustainability expressed by Cavendish Farms. While I salute the editor's optimism, it raises a few questions:
The province has indicated that the moratorium on high capacity wells for agriculture will remain in place at least until 2021, when the research of Dr. Mike Van den Heuval and the Canadian Rivers Institute is completed. No new high capacity wells should be considered or permitted until that time.
If this proposal were to be accepted, and the water drawn from these wells used to irrigate agricultural lands, would this simply be a happy byproduct of “determining the impacts of agricultural irrigation on the water table”? And if Island water sources are shown to be “at risk” as a result, how would those negative impacts be addressed?
The editor states, "The Irvings are successful because they make sound, and sometimes hard, business decisions." So when exactly does a "pilot" project undertaken in the name of sustainability become a hard business decision to irrigate more agricultural lands, and circumvent a moratorium on deep water wells endorsed by Islanders?
Let’s call "a spade, a spade" or in this case " a spud, a spud." The proposal requires violating the moratorium. The “sensible suggestion” is that government should simply reject it on that basis alone - no matter who is making the application.
Marie Ann Bowden,
Charlottetown
