Stop Wal-Mart Ontario!
Stop Wal-Mart Ontario Newsletter
Volume 17
NOTICE * NOTICE * NOTICE
| The City of Ontario Intends to approve a 24 hour Wal*Mart Supercenter at 5th and Mountain in Ontario! |
According to their own Environmental Impact Report, this plan would cause increased traffic, noise, and air pollution that would exceed all acceptable standards!
We urge the planners to say NO to this proposal because there are other options. The Environmental Impact Report confirmed that what Ontario Mountain Village Association was saying is true. The City wants to approve this project despite the health risks and the major traffic problems a Super Wal*Mart would create. This is the wrong project and it is in the wrong place.
Please come to the Ontario Planning Department meeting and voice your opinion. We need your support. Bring as many people with you as possible to help support our position. If you have questions or comments you may phone Dale and Judy Briggs at 909-986-4760 or Richard and Kathy Briggs at 909-986-4172. Leave a message and tell us when the best time is to call you back.
Date and Time: Thursday August 30, 2007. 6 PM.
(Come at 5 PM if you can help.)
Place: Ontario Convention Center
2000 East Convention Center Way
Located between Vineyard and Holt Avenues in Ontario
(Map and Directions)
Tell the parking attendant that parking fees have been waived because this is a City meeting.
Traffic, Air, Noise ills listed
(Portions of the following article were written by Andrea Bennett and published recently in the Ontario Daily Bulletin newspaper.)
The long awaited report outlining the likely effects of the proposed Wal-Mart Supercenter at Mountain Avenue and Fifth Street says mitigation efforts will not completely eliminate the store's negative impact in the area and surrounding neighborhoods.
The Environmental Impact Report's multiple thick binders of printed documents became available for public review the last Monday in June 2007.
While most of the negative effects of the store can be reduced in some way, a city summary of the report states, a few adverse effects cannot be reduced regardless of what is done.
For instance, vehicle emissions will continue to impact air quality and EXCEED the South Coast Air Quality Management District's threshold even after mitigation efforts - such as requiring the use of low-sulfur fuel in stationary equipment and limiting the amount of time delivery trucks can idle - are implemented.
The Supercenter is expected to get between 35 and 50 deliveries from diesel trucks every week in addition to trash trucks making their way to and from the super store several more times each week.
Traffic from the store will be significant until (and even after) improvements are made at the intersections of Mountain with Sixth Street, Mountain and Eighth Street and Mountain and Holt Boulevard.
Without improvements to these intersections, the Supercenter is expected to clog Mountain and Eighth during prime afternoon and evening hours; Mountain and Sixth during peak morning, afternoon and evening hours; and Mountain and Holt during all prime hours.
Further, as noise levels already exceed city standards along these roadways, those levels will only worsen with the construction and operation of a Wal-Mart Supercenter, according to the city report. These conclusions came as no surprise to opponents of the proposed store and members of the Ontario Mountain Village Association.
Opponents of the proposed Store also pointed out that the Supercenter is inconsistent with the Mountain Village Specific Plan, which was adopted for the area in 1997. Jerry Blum, Ontario's planning director, dismissed this fact by saying the report is a study of environmental impacts only and the specific plan is not an environmental issue.
Blum also said, "This happened to be one of the most intensive EIR's we've done in a while simply because a lot of people are going to critically analyze every page of it."
Thought of the Day, Week, Month
We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them. -- Albert Einstein.
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