The fuse is lit

Ethanol.

Some say it’s a cleaner source of energy, but for years it has been a dirty word in Oshawa, and the city has been unable to wash it away.

Silence and calculated ignorance appear to be commonplace for FarmTech and the Port Authority, but soon those strategies are going to prove worthless and a decision will need to be made, because the minute the City of Oshawa starts to plan new projects for its waterfront, it will need to force the legislative hand.

In recent months, the city has taken the first concrete steps in years towards redeveloping its harbour lands. Perhaps more a credit to the federal government’s deadline than initiative on the city’s behalf, but it has sprung the municipality into action, and has lit the metaphorical fuse.

A request for development proposals has been developed to gauge interest in the private sector for marina operations, the provincial environmental assessments are closer to completion than they’ve ever been and citizens are getting anxious.

While the ethanol threat may do nothing to stop the city’s plans for passive parkland near the shoreline, it is a stopping point for development.

As Mayor John Henry tells The Express, nothing will happen at the waterfront with the threat of an ethanol plant lingering over it.

Put simply, this resident development is crucial. It’s development that the city needs; specifically, it’s the development the city’s south end needs.

The problems in the city’s south end have been well documented in the pages of this newspaper and it has been noted that new development is a possible serum to many of the problems that exist there.

Broken down, new development near Oshawa’s waterfront will draw more people, which will draw more of the much needed services and business that seem to have forgotten the expanses of the city south of the 401.

In order for that to happen, the city will need to push back against the silence and the ignorance that is happening around the future of the ethanol plant and dig for answers.

Not only so the future of its waterfront can be determined, but so that the people of this city can finally learn the truth.