Saving the Commons Watershed and our community's vision for its future.

Our watershed is where we live; it is like a neighborhood where all the plants, animals, farms, and residents in our community shared water.

The Avon Peninsula in Hants County, Nova Scotia, is bounded to the west by the Avon River, to the south by the St. Croix River, to the north by the Kennetcook River, and to the east by the Lawrence Road.

The peninsula’s watershed is the area of land that rain flows across or through on its way to our wells, wetlands, ponds, streams, marshes and tidal rivers. The eastern part of the peninsula has been deeply impacted by gypsum mining. [see fig. 1]

Fig 1.: The existing gypsum mine in Miller's Creek on the eastern side of the Avon Peninsula. (Photo courtesy of Mira MacNeil.)

However the high, wooded land in the interior of the western part of the peninsula is still relatively intact. It is the heart of our watershed, as it is where the headwaters begin, and where most of our wildlife habitat is. Underlying the heartland is one of the most complex “gypsum karst” geological formations on the planet, which gives rise to the fragile hydrology, unique ecology, and very special landscape of the gypsum woods.

Many community residents still refer to the western wooded upland of the watershed as the Commons. Although owned by individual community members, the Commons was once managed collectively by local farmers. It was valued as a sustainable source of firewood and lumber for local residents. In recent years our heritage of the Commons Watershed has become threatened.

As Fundy Gypsum, a division of United States Gypsum, acquires woodland—which is often subsequently clearcut—the watershed is degraded in the absence of the moderating influence of the trees.

Now, a proposal to start industrial mining in the watershed spells a future where our quality of life will be ruined. For generations to come, with no net benefit to the community, our watershed and the life it sustains will be degraded, if not destroyed.

The mine's proximity to residents on a small peninsula and a quaint, country community with a rich heritage and future is also an issue.

An unhealthy landscape fosters unhealthy community, emotionally & physically. In addition to jeopordizing the watershed, unique ecology, our community's character is about growing, not destroying. People who live here do so because they value rural living in Nova Scotia and the quality of life this provides.

Even non-vocal residents are telling us they don't want another mine here, but "they don't want to upset government."

Millions of dollars are invested into the science of how to extract, yet very little investment goes into determining how to put the earth back together once it has been blasted and crushed.

With little to no corporate responsibility for clean up means taxpayers are often stuck with the cost of reclaiming damaged mine sites and reducing sources of harm to environmental and human health. 

The limits of current engineering capable of returning land to its pre-mining condition and the enormous financial costs of attempting to do so offer strong testimony as to why these problems should be prevented rather than addressed after the fact.

Read about the APWPS to learn more about our mission, goals and objectives to press the Province of Nova Scotia to turn down the application to establish a new strip mine on the Avon Peninsula.

In this objective, we also urge goverment to allow the community help established a watershed planning process as in many other communities across Nova Scotia and around the world.