It appears a multi-million dollar greenhouse operation won’t be setting up in Dawn-Euphemia.
This week, for sale signs went up on the property owned by Greenhill Produce in Edys Mills.
The company planned a 40-acre greenhouse project on the corner of Oil Heritage Road and Edys Mills Line. They chose the site because of the availability of natural gas for heating the greenhouse and a waterline which ran along side the property.
But as the company started planning the multi-million dollar project, concerns were raised whether the waterline would be able to produce enough water for the greenhouse and provide the necessary water pressure for the rest of the municipality.
The Ministry of the Environment says 40 pounds per square inch of pressure must be maintained throughout the municipality at all times. After four days of testing, engineers determined that wouldn’t happen if Greenhill would need about 7.5 litres per second for its pepper plant. “The pressure in some areas of Dawn-Euphemia would be well below the ministry guidelines,” said Mayor Al Broad earlier this month.
An engineer was investigating to see exactly what should be done and what the price tag would be. Broad says the main issue is the size of the water pipelines feeding the municipality. “Our system is made up of mostly four and six inch pipeline,” says Broad. “At the time, it was all we could afford. Looking back on it, maybe some should have been oversized but money was tight and we did what we could,” says the mayor. The cost to increase the line size would be high.
There was also a question of whether the plant which supplies Dawn-Euphemia with water could actually produce that amount of flow. The municipalities which operate and use the plant have recently applied for a $7 million grant to upgrade the clearwell at the plant which will help with water production in the future. But it appears it won’t be soon enough.
The for sale signs went up on the 200-acre plot Oct. 17. Officials with Greenhill Produce have not returned requests for interviews with The Independent, but the owners expressed frustration this summer. Greenhill had been to council twice, once with site plans for approval, when the municipality decided the tests were needed. It took nearly three weeks to get the results of the tests.
Owners of Greenhill had said at the time they were running out of time to get to work on the project this year and said “if we