January 11, 2005

 

Mr. Steve Chapman, Panel Manager

White Point Quarry and Marine Terminal Project-Joint Review Panel PO Box 486 CRO

Halifax, NS B3J 2R7

 

Dear Mr. Chapman

 

As a Digby Neck resident who retired from Church-Ministry in 1997 and took up residence in this beautiful place where I had served in the mid 60's, I have become somewhat knowledgeable about the concerns and issues facing the wonderful people here who have made this their home for up to fifteen generations. I did so not because of any personal interest but essentially to be of whatever support I can be in gratitude for being welcomed to live here by so many long term residents who do have serious concerns.

 

I attended the Scoping Meeting at the Digby Neck Consolidated School on January 6, 2005 and I was tremendously impressed by the verbal presentations which were offered. The prophets of antiquity were women and men who were given the gift of discernment for the events and issues of their times. In that sense, genuine prophecy is spoken today as evidenced in the voices, especially of the fishermen, who stood and spoke their deep and heart-felt concerns for the future of their livelihood, families, homes, and communities. The fishermen of all, I believe, have the inspired capacity to speak with the accumulated wisdom of the generations of the ancestors who preceded them. They are held in such high esteem that so many others who have cometo live here from a diversity of professions and backgrounds also stepped forward to offer their voices and expertise in support. I too, as one who now calls Digby Neck my home, support every point that was presented against this Quarry on Digby Neck, and not inconceivably on the whole North Mountain from Briar Island to Cape Split. .

 

In so many areas, the proposed Quarry presents great risk to Digby Neck. An old principle of moral theology which I learned many years ago is this, "Never act in doubt," to witThe cautionary principle. But my concerns extend well beyond the whales, the seals, and the lobsters. Recent events in South East Asia attest well to the veracity of the old adage, "the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away."- a good way of saying that we have no control over nature. But time will bear me out, I am sure, when the survivors will amaze us with their resilience bolstered by a caring human family reaching around the globe in solidarity.

 

My concern is for the people. They are the backdrop against which all else must be viewed. It's been my lived experience in my latter years that people have somehow fallen behind commerce on our world's priority list. The notion that commerce and profit are pre-eminent putting all else as their servants is a false conclusion from a flawed premise. The Judeo-Christian Scriptures make great sense whether I am an atheist, a believer, or an agnostic. "Have dominion over", precludes the right to destroy, but rather means the responsibility to be "good and faithful stewards."

 

Environmentalist-lawyer, Robert Kennedy Jr. Is quoted in the Halifax Herald of January 8, 2005 as follows: "Kennedy said every country has people who believe the planet should be treated as if it were a business, liquidating and converting natural resources to cash as quickly as possible. You can do that, you can generate an instantaneous cash flow and the illusion of a prosperous economy, but our children are going to pay for our joyride."

 

Do you think, after all, our children and children to be born in the ages ahead of us should find less ofthe resources which sustain us than what our generation inherited from our ancestors? We need to remember that taking away rock from the North Mountain means more than removing rock. (Ask any gardener! In itself, the absence of rock isn't such a bad thing!) Rock is foundation, and cornerstone, not just of roads and buildings but of human institutions and indirectly, of peoples. In our case, the removal of basalt may spell disaster to a culture should the removal of rock give birth not to organic gardens but to the destruction of the produce of the sea.

 

This is a truly legitimate fear for the people of Digby Neck. We think primarily ofthe lucrative lobster fishery assuredly, but there are many who are not involved in that enterprise. There are men and women all around me who eke out their livelihood by raking dulce, harvesting periwinkles from the rocks, and other ocean-bottom creatures - all back-breaking endeavours - to supplement their incomes derived from part-time and/or full-time low paying jobs.

 

But, all these and more are known. Let me simply ask the learned-panel experts to see the people and their way oflife above all else. They are those who give this place a sense of the truly sacred, who make it noble, and keep it whole, which in essence means holy.

 

Thank you for your time and patience in perusing my reflections.

 

Very truly yours

 

Danny Mills