Mediation returning results in dump dispute
By Meghan Balogh, Napanee Guide

Friday, April 19, 2013

Progress has been made regarding an appeal to the Environmental Review Tribunal on Waste Management’s handling of the Richmond Landfill.

On Friday a continuation of the preliminary hearing presented the results of recent mediation between all the parties involved: Waste Management (WM), the Ministry of the Environment (MOE), the Concerned Citizens Committee of Tyendinaga and Environs (CCCTE), the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte, and the Napanee Green Lights.

Four of seven conditions of WM’s Environmental Compliance Approval, appealed by the CCCTE last April, have been resolved through mediation.

“I would like to congratulate the parties, counsel, and consultants and experts on the enormous amount of work that has been done,” said Environmental Review Tribunal member Maureen Carter-Whitney, who chaired the preliminary hearing on April 12 at the Deseronto Community Centre.

She addressed counsel for all parties, as well as a small gathering of public citizens and media.

“The mediation and many meetings that have taken place in the past few months have led to fruitful results, which is apparent by these agreements.”

Richmond Landfill site manager Randy Harris is pleased with the progress.

“We have reached an interim agreement on quite a few items, and it came through hard work and technical and scientific discussion with a group of very intelligent people,” he said after the hearing on Friday. “We took our monitoring plan, listened to their concerns, incorporated some of their concerns that made sense. If it makes these people in this room more comfortable with what’s happening out there instead of having doubts, that’s a good thing for everybody involved.”

The agreements reached so far include details about things like public notification and annual reporting.

“…Things like the annual reporting, public notification, odour protocol. Those are the kinds of things that have been wholly resolved within the appeal,” said CCCTE counsel Richard Lindgren at a press conference on Monday morning. “But there are still three really important conditions relating to environmental monitoring plans and contingency plans for groundwater, surface water, and leachate. Those are big issues that are still unresolved, and that’s the subject matter of the work that Waste Management is going to be undertaking over the course of the summer, before the hearing starts in the fall.”

Also, pointed out hydrogeologist Wilf Ruland on Monday, the notion of “resolution” is not a final one.

“All that resolved means in this context is that a long series of technical recommendations that I made in my witness statement in this appeal process have been agreed to by the company,” he stated. “What we’re talking about is a whole series of ongoing investigations that need to be undertaken — should have been undertaken a decade or more ago. We’re basically playing catch-up here….

“Where we’ve resolved things, it’s that I’ve recommended that off-site drilling needs to occur to try to track the contamination. I’ve identified different parameters that are needed to try and determine where leachate is and isn’t, something the company has been vastly confused about for decades.

“We’ve resolved how the investigation is to be undertaken. We certainly haven’t resolved how far the contamination has gone, we haven’t resolved what needs to be done about it once we’ve got it mapped out.”

The Richmond Landfill has been closed since 2006. Members of the CCCTE say that the site has not been properly monitored since its closure, and want WM to focus their efforts on tightening up monitoring of the site and the land surrounding it, where leachate has been detected.

“The facts are no longer deniable,” said CCCTE chair Mike Bossio at the press conference on Monday morning. “All parties, including Waste Management and the MOE, agree that the dump is leaking off-site. The ground water is affected. Neighbouring residential wells are impacted. Nobody knows how far this leak is going or where it will stop. It is very difficult to monitor this site and contain the leaks that are coming from this site.”

“There are four non-health-based parameters on the southern portion of our property,” said Harris in an interview Monday. “We found it and we’re going to look after it.”

The CCCTE has put forward a statement in which they call for WM to discard their plans for the Beechwood Road Environmental Centre, which currently is undergoing an Environmental Assessment.

“If approved, the BREC landfill will be four times bigger than the Richmond Landfill site and essentially built on the same fractured bedrock and on top of the same vulnerable aquifer as the Richmond Landfill,” said CCCTE legal counsel, Richard Lindgren, on Monday. “In my opinion the BREC proposal is inappropriate, unacceptable, and contrary to the public interest. [It] makes no environmental sense. It should not be approved, it should not be pursued at all.”

“The Concerned Citizens are calling for Waste Management to immediately and permanently withdraw their Beechwood Road expansion application,” stated Bossio. “There is no way that the MOE could approve BREC with what is now known about this site. This would allow Waste Management, the MOE, and all of us to focus on cleaning up the mess that we now have on our hands. This will save millions of taxpayer dollars that would be wasted in continuing the Environmental Assessment process. This is the right thing to do. If they truly believe that they are the good, responsible, green corporate citizens they claim to be, then they would do the right thing and end this once and for all.”

Harris is not convinced by the CCCTE’s parallels between the Richmond Landfill and what he describes as the “state-of-the-art” landfill being proposed with BREC.

“Comparing a landfill that was built 50 years ago is like comparing apples and oranges. Liner systems that are in place today, it can’t be compared to a landfill today. There are many studies on double liner systems, [and they are] all positive. The liner is second to none, 21st century.”

Harris says that people should be far more concerned about the thousands of dumps in Ontario that are outdated and have no containment systems in place. He says that he knows the CCCTE wish to see BREC taken off the table. He says that’s not going to happen.

“We’re right in the middle now of doing the Environmental Assessment work that’s required by the province. We will continue that work. Our job is to show break project and landfill portion can be done to protect the environment. We’re going to proceed — why wouldn’t we? We wouldn’t if we didn’t feel it could be done safely. We know we can do it, and do it safely.”

Harris would like to see similar discussions as have happened over the Richmond Landfill occur for BREC.

“I challenge them to sit down with us on BREC and let’s have the same type of discussions. I think that would be great. I think they must see now that we’re very approachable, and that we take their concerns seriously. We’ve always said, ‘sit down with us, give us what your concerns are and hopefully we can address it.’

“….We’d love to get their feedback, but not in the press, not in letters to the editor. Sit down at the table, give us your concern, bring the press to the table, and let’s have a discussion on it and do it right. That’s the idea and I hope they see that.”

Tags: Concerned Citizens, Environmental Review Tribunal, Richmond Landfill, Waste Management