Making the play your own . . .

[Applications for The Otesha Project]

When we all spoke on the phone last month, I mentioned that your team is welcome to experiment with the play once you've learned it at Training Week. The scriptwriter, Ashley Thackaberry, designed the play so that the issue of fracking and natural gas exploration could easily be replaced by issues important to the team. You can make these changes on the road after getting a few performances under your belt, if you so choose.

Ashley contacted me a few days ago about the Melancthon County megaquarry project (you may already be familiar with it, or perhaps not) as an example of a relevant water-related issue that might find a home in the play:

I needed to mention as well that each farmers market that I've been going to in Toronto has an information booth about a megaquarry that is being proposed in the Melancthon Township (about 100km away from Toronto).  From what I've gathered it seems to be a really hot issue right now.

http://ndact.com/

http://www.stopthemegaquarry.ca/

 

Here's what was written on an info sheet that I picked up from the booth I bolded the food and the water issues:

 

"About 100km from Toronto, the Highland Companies (shell companies backed by a Boston Hedge fund) are proposing to dig an initial 2,316 acre quarry (roughly half the size of downtown Toronto) on the approximate 8,500 acres they purchased allegedly for the growing of potatoes.

Situated in the middle of the primary highlands of Ontario and bordering on the Niagra Escarpment (a UNESCO biosphere), the land in question, SOME OF THE BEST FOOD GROWING AGRICULTURAL ACREAGE IN CANADA, is threatened at a time food supply is more precious than ever.

This area is the headwaters of five major rivers where crystal clear water flows south through central Ontario to the great lakes north to Georgian Bay.

600 million litres of clean drinking water (the equivalent of 25% of the water consumed daily in Ontario) will be diverted each day, kept in trenches and wells for three days and then returned in an unknown state to aquifers that feed over a million people in central Ontario...and this will have to be done forever; generation after generation.

At 200 feet below the water table, this is deeper than niagra falls, the largest quarry in Canada and the second largest quarry in North America.  This has the potential to become a huge environmental tragedy."

Food for thought in the coming weeks! Or you might uncover another water-related issue that you would rather highlight - up to your group.

Matt

[Clueless Wonder]

Great post Matt!  Thanks for that.

I just looked up more information about the Quarry and found that there are some videos on youtube about it as well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZJFO2HBGFw

 

Nicole from PFT also forwarded this to me from the city of Stratford.  Some suggestions of how to cut down your water usage could also be incorporated into the play if we want! 
http://www.city.stratford.on.ca/naturally/watertips.asp

[Marina Neytcheva]

Thanks for the great idea, Matt, and thanks Lindsey for sending along those video links. Personally, I would love to incorporate the issues surrounding the Mega Quarry into the play. It's most definitely a local issue (water-related too) that needs attention, and it just speaks to me more than fracking and natural gas extraction. Just my thoughts...