Damage to Appleby Line properties extensive – not visible from the road. Air park owner likes it that way.

By Pepper Parr

BURLINGTON, ON. June 14, 2013.  The damage to property as a result of the land fill being dumped at the airport in north Burlington is very hard to appreciate if you just drive up and down the roads.  There is really nothing to see were you to drive along Bell School Line.  What’s the problem here you would ask – must be those pesky rural types who get upset if you cut down as much as a single tree.

The Gazette has reported on the damage done to Barbara Sheldon’s property closely because it is so very evident and the relationship between Sheldon and Vince Rossi is so toxic.  These two send each other threatening notices about trespassing on each other’s property.

Not a hint of cooperation from Rossi over the difference he has made to the value the Sheldon property.

Were fill like this dumped in the backyard of a property south of Dundas in Burlington the by-law enforcement officer would be ordering it be removed – immediately. Burlington Executive Air Park claims they are under federal jurisdiction and do not have to comply with municipal, Region or Conservation Authority regulations.

The Cousins, Wendy and Carl are just up the road from Sheldon.  Their situation is quite a bit different.  Carl Cousins farms the land and takes hay off each year.  For the past three years he has not been able to get onto some of the fields – “they are just too wet” he explains.

Wendy was born on the farm which consists of two lots – one 25 acres and the other 5 acres.

The original culvert installed by the company doing the land fill work for the Air Park. The run off from the landfill was flooding the property next door. That is a lot of landfill to dump – is it needed to improve aeronautical operations at the airport or is it a landfill revenue operation?

The ‘mountain’  of earth at the edge of their property is stunning.  Imagine anyone south of Dundas seeing a pile of earth similar to that shown in the pictures we have set out below next to their property line.

The city would have by-law enforcement officers in there in a flash and that earth would be gone – real pronto.

The upgrades to the culvert that handles the runoff from the landfill onto the Cousins property. Anyone of the Regional Councillors with an farming background will tell you this is as useless as those things on bulls.
Shoddy treatment by the air park owners.

The Burlington Executive Air Park has taken the position that they are regulated by the federal government and do not have to comply with municipal, Regional or Conservation rules and regulations.  Many think this is a total crock and while local government.ck all government moves slowly there is now movement.

Most reasonable people see this as unfair and an abuse of the federal jurisdiction situation.  Yes airports have to be regulated by the federal government to ensure that all airports are following the same rules.  BUT what Rossi is doing has precious little to do with aeronautics.  And where what he is doing has to do with aeronautics e is expected to be civil.

Flow of run-off water from the landfill in the background is not only rotting the fence posts but flooding the fields on the Cousin’s property making it too we to take off the hay from the family farm.  That landfill in the background is there, it is claimed, to improve the aeronautical operations of the Burlington Executive Air Park.

It will take time for this to work its way into a court room but some day, at some time there will be a Judge who will opine that Vince Rossi has abused the federal jurisdiction and used it as a skirt to hide behind.

His day will come.

Meanwhile Wendy and Calvin Cousins put up with the damage to their lifestyle and their livelihood.

Return to the Front page

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Comments are closed.