As a former Conistonian, born and raised in the town of Coniston, I was perplexed and surprised at the magnitude of opposition to the chromite smelter planned for that community.
When INCO was involved in the area, everyone was employed, no one was unemployed, no one was on welfare, our parents had money to spend, we lived a good life — isn’t this is what it’s all about?
Creating jobs and improving the economy — A healthy economy.
These do-gooders (NIMBY people) are doing more harm to the well-being of our country than the pollution they are protesting. The chromite smelter will create approximately 500 jobs in the area and the old INCO location would be ideal.
When there was more than 20,000 men and woman employed at INCO, one didn’t worry about the blue haze that swept across our gardens, we weren’t concerned about the smell of sulphur we were breathing — It did us no harm — we all survived. Everyone was working. The economy of was one of the healthiest in the country.
Today, we have new and modern technology that controls and filters any pollution compared to the past. Look at Vale — they no longer require the Super Stack with today’s advancements in technology. The sulphur is filtered and contained.
Those attending the meeting in Coniston were concerned about their children and grandchildren. They should be more concerned with their children and grandchildren’s job prospects in the future. If we continue to protest every time there are plans to build smelters and pipelines in this country, there will be no employment. The future generation will all be out on welfare, wondering what has happened to our country.
The do-gooders (NIMBY people) are out there preventing progress and interfering with advancement in our society.
We are now in the 21st Century with the latest scientific development in industrial technology. Our opus operandi in the computer age has been eliminating pollution in many industrial environments.
We must eradicate our experiences of the past and come to the realization that pollutants of the past will not endure in the 21st Century.
Tony Sottile
Sudbury