The following article appeared in the Kingston Whig Standard on August 29, 2025

Concerned citizens oppose leachate plan at Richmond Landfill

Author of the article:

Meghan Balogh

Published Aug 29, 2025  •  Last updated 3 days ago  •  5 minute read

Article content

NAPANEE — A group of concerned citizens that has been working to hold corporate giant Waste Management to account for decades is drawing attention to a new proposal for managing toxic runoff from its retired Richmond Landfill dump site in Napanee.

The retired dump site, owned by North America-wide company Waste Management, is located a handful of kilometres northwest of the town proper, near Tyendinaga Township and right at the headwaters of Marysville Creek, according to the Concerned Citizens Committee of Tyendinaga and Environs (CCCTE).

The CCCTE and the Canadian Environmental Law Association has jointly submitted a letter to the Ontario Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks (MECP), dated Aug. 22, opposing a proposed hydraulic control system that would see leachate — contaminated groundwater that contains unsafe levels of chemicals such as 1,4 dioxane, a leachate indicator — from the decommissioned dump site pumped up from monitoring wells and placed into the property’s stormwater pond system.

Ian Munro is a member of the Concerned Citizens Committee of Tyendinaga and Environs (CCCTE), a group raising new concerns about the Richmond Landfill site in Greater Napanee. He’s pictured outside the landfill on Thursday, Aug. 28, 2025.

 Munro has been fighting for transparency and accountability at the Richmond Landfill site since the early 2000s. The CCCTE worked with experts to reveal contaminated wells on neighbouring properties, pushing to tighten monitoring of the leachate plume, whose spread has unhoused some of the landfill’s neighbours over the years.

Other local residents are being provided with alternative water supplies by Waste Management.

“It’s basically a question of justice,” Munro told the Whig-Standard on Wednesday, describing local residents who didn’t know that their wells had been contaminated and had gone about their lives, drinking, bathing and cooking with water from their wells.

“I want to see this through,” he said. “I want to see this landfill forever closed. I don’t want to see another one here.”

But the letter cautioning against the proposed hydraulic control system to deal with contaminated groundwater is just one more cog in the wheel that is the ongoing fight against a proposed expansion at the old dump site.

“The Beechwood Road Environmental Centre is still on the table,” Munro marvelled to the Whig, expressing disbelief.

An MECP-approved terms of reference document for the proposed Beechwood Road Environmental Centre project at the property still exists and could be taken up at any time, Munro said.

That fact feels extra surreal to Munro in the face of the 2015 Environmental Review Tribunal ruling that ordered Waste Management to improve its environmental monitoring plan for the site, after the CCCTE and its lawyer and hydrogeologist testified during weeks’ worth of hearings.

In January 2016, the Belleville Intelligencer reported that the “ERT found the landfill is contaminating groundwater beyond the boundary of the landfill and private, domestic wells have been contaminated.”

The ERT also found that contingency action was needed to bring the landfill site into compliance with regulatory requirements.

“To me it’s kind of ludicrous that they still have this possibility that could start tomorrow — environmental assessments, public meetings and presentations, engineering studies,” Munro said. “The process would probably take five to 10 years, but they could start it any time.”

The site’s track record alone is reason not to dump leachate above ground, the CCCTE and Munro argue.

 “Given this background, experience, and public interest perspective, the CCCTE has carefully reviewed the modified HCS proposal and the supporting documentation recently provided by the Ministry,” the letter to the MECP states. “This ongoing review has identified numerous data gaps, questionable methodology, and unsubstantiated conclusions in the January 2022 ECA application and the August 13, 2025 ‘design’ documentation filed by the proponent.”

The CCCTE has worked with hydrogeologist Wilf Ruland through its fight with Waste Management, and Ruland has produced data over the years to demonstrate what works — and what doesn’t — for safely dissipating contaminated water, above and below ground.

A report produced by Ruland in 2022 provided several reasons why the hydraulic control system should not be approved, including a lack of consideration that the leachate effluent quality “will gradually worsen over time as the purse wells continuously pump groundwater to the stormwater pond,” the letter states.

“This is because the wells will serve as a new low point in the local groundwater flow system, which will induce inward flow of leachate contaminants toward the HCS and create the risk of upward hydraulic gradients that facilitate the upwelling of saline/briny water from deeper groundwater,” the letter states.

The potential upsetting of local groundwater quality by continuously drawing to the surface at these wells is worrying, Munro said.

“(The local groundwater) is good potable groundwater down to about 30 metres underground,” Munro explained, excluding the contaminated area around the dump. “Below that is saline — if they start pumping continuously 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year from these wells, what could happen is that the saline, which is much denser, could start to rise up. Saline is absolutely toxic. If you put that on a farmer’s field it will die. It could ruin the aquifer. This is something we’re concerned about.”

In a comment provided to the Whig-Standard on Wednesday, a representative from Waste Management said that the Richmond Landfill is closed and “remains in good standing with the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks (MECP).”

“WM fully complies with all applicable environmental regulations and permit requirements, and the site is regularly monitored to ensure ongoing compliance,” the statement read. “We are confident that our systems and oversight measures are protective of community health and the environment, and we will continue to work closely with regulators to ensure the site is managed responsibly.”

Munro and others are skeptical, and while the conversation currently centres around the proposed new leachate management system, the looming proposed BREC project remains on people’s minds.

“Every time we catch them doing something wrong is more evidence they should not be trusted with an even bigger dump on this site,” he said. “This huge long history is very damning for Waste Management, and we’re reminding the public what’s gone down. It’s a ludicrous concept.”

mbalogh@postmedia.com

Tags: Beechwood Road Environmental Centre, BREC, Concerned Citizens, Dump, Environment, Greater Napanee, groundwater, leachate, Leaking landfill, Napanee, Richmond Landfill, Waste Management Corporation