Author Description

You can fight city hall- and win! The trilogy, The Wasted Years, tells of a small farming community's fourteen-year-long battle against the Ontario Waste Management Corporation (OWMC) and its proposed toxic waste treatment plant. Start with- a Crown Corporation with authority to supersede all municipal laws. Give it- a mandate to site and build a rotary kiln incinerator, physical/ chemical treatment plant, and an engineered landfill. Pick- a small farming community with a rural population that has little clout. Situate it- upwind from the Niagara Peninsula's unique fruit belt and its populated cities. Give it- the backing of Ministry of the Environment, the support of all three of Ontario's political parties, and seemingly bottomless pockets. Season- with only nominal opposition from the Municipality of West Lincoln and the Regional Municipality of Niagara. Add- an inquiry into OWMC's improper communication with witnesses under oath. And you have the makings of a hotly contested hearing room battle. For Clifford and Marilyn Gracey and a tiny group of committed Christians functioning within a larger body of residents and environmentally-minded groups, only their faith in God sustained them. An intensely personal story of how someone refused to be bulldozed into accepting a seemingly unstoppable government project and rallied with her neighbours to fight it. -John Jackson, environmental activist; Waste Management professor, Trent University: Director Emeritus, Great Lakes United. If anyone had told me that a book about environmental hearings to site a toxic waste facility could be absorbing and understandable, I would have been sceptical indeed. Yet Marilyn Gracey's account of theseevents requires no technical knowledge and is as gripping as any novel. -Sharon Riley, Niagara Falls, Ontario Prepare yourself for a cover-to-cover page-turner. You have in your hands a combination 'How-To' manual and a fascinating tale about ordinary folk with their backs against the wall