Talk:Holland Marsh

NAFTA and effect on Holland Marsh

I question the neutrality of the following statement:

The first farms were market gardens, but NAFTA rules have forced many family farms out of business and the rest to amalgamate into large monoculture farms, though some smaller diverse farms still do exist.

Will the original poster please cite a reference. I am not aware of any NAFTA rules that would force family farms out of business. Seems to me someone is attempting to make a political statement - besides it does not really fit with the introduction section.

--12:58, 16 May 2007 (UTC)209.202.75.14 Mousky

I removed this portion from the intro:

In the 1980s a German farmer, the wife of a Ukrainian farmer, used to the many herbs and natural plant based remedies in her native country, decided to experiment with growing peppermint for her husband to sell at the Ontario Food Terminal. The idea of fresh herbs caught on like wild fire and today Canadians can find fresh herbs in any fresh produce section of their local grocery store.

I lived near the Marsh and worked it for a few summers in the 1980s, and I don't recall any herbs. What's a little disconcerting is that the statement doesn't even say this has anything to do with the Marsh at all. In any event the second sentence is non-encyclopedic. Could the person who posted this post a ref?

Maury 11:58, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Citations needed
For these assertions citations are needed to verify this paragraph before it can go back into the article: "As of fall 2006 the municipal governance responsible for maintaining the drainage canal system has neglected to clean silt from the outer canals (as is their responsibility under the Ontario Drainage Act) since Hurricane Hazel in 1956. Every piece of land paved over in the 65000 acre Nottawasaga region uphill of the Holland Marsh results in 6 times the amount of silt runoff than virgin land. Many residential subdivisions have been created in York Region, south of the Holland Marsh, stripping topsoil, felling mature trees, and flattening topography, with the result that even uphill land south of the Holland Marsh in King Township is suffering from silt problems and flooding of drainage ponds. A plan to redesign and clean the canals has been created by the Holland Marsh Drainage Engineer, but the municipality of Bradford West Gwillimbury expects farmers in the Holland Marsh to pay over four million dollars for the project, citing the Ontario Drainage Act, even though the majority of the silt is due to developers changing the topography of the Nottawasaga Watershed region. The municipal governance has also failed to build up the dyke roads to the stipulated height cited in the Holland Marsh Road Act, thus increasing flood risk, and has failed to enact a Holland Marsh Road Protocol for slow moving vehicles (as stated in the Official Town Plan of Bradford West Gwillimbury), thus continuing to put farmers at risk of crashes with fast driving commuters taking shortcuts through the Holland Marsh to Hwy 9 and Hwy 400." Julia Rossi (talk) 01:43, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

As far as the second/third citations are concerned, the Holland Marsh Drainage System Canal Improvement Project engineering report, (found here,) states on page 16: "The modification of the canals and dykes following the Hurricane Hazel event and also the agricultural land use and building development immediately adjacent to the dykes has rendered the intended maintenance impossible. The intended maintenance would be to work, in part, along the berm (now gone) between the dyke and the canal and to level materials on the inside of the dyke roads as based on the original engineering report. To alter this and to maintain the canals by cleaning the canal and disposing of the material elsewhere would involve equipment working along paved roads and hauling materials away to a disposal site which could be a substantial distance away. Costs would be excessive and the concern exists that the maintenance to be undertaken would be contrary to the maintenance provisions of the original engineer’s report and could be legally challenged. At the very least, the bylaw pertaining to the system requires substantial modification to more accurately describe the maintenance that can be or should be undertaken. As well, the system itself requires modification to allow for improved ease of undertaking the routine future repair and maintenance that should be completed to avoid major works of improvement as are now necessary." So it would be inaccurate to state that they have "neglected" to clean out the silt, but it is accurate to state that the silt had not been cleaned out. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.65.212.68 (talk) 21:18, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

to do

 * The article uses, without defining, the phrases "first-tier government" and "second tier government". I suggest alternate wording should be used.  Geo Swan (talk) 16:55, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Wye Marsh
The version I edited today contained two sentences suggesting the Wye Marsh is connected to or part of Holland Marsh. It isn't. The Wye Marsh is about 70 kilometres from the Holland Marsh. The Holland Marsh is part of the Lake Simcoe watershed. The Wye Marsh is in the Georgian Bay watershed. Spoonkymonkey (talk) 13:35, 2 July 2012 (UTC)