Landfill opponents make voices heard

ENVIRONMENT: Hundreds gather to protest controversial landfill site

Posted By DOUGLAS GLYNN

Updated 6 months ago

More than 1,200 people attending a rally here Saturday opposing the North Simcoe Landfill, formerly known as Site 41, sent an unequivocal message to Premier Dalton McGuinty.

Halt dump Site 41.

Those at the rally cheered as speakers called for a moratorium on construction at the controversial landfill to allow for a thorough review.

The event attracted not only a large crowd, but it was the focus of national media coverage. That's a sign, says Maude Barlow, Council of Canadians chairperson, that Site 41 is gaining wider attention.

Barlow, senior advisor on water to the President of the United Nations, questioned the evidence being relied on by Simcoe County and Ontario's Ministry of the Environment to justify proceeding with the dump.

"They say it's safe to dump there. That is not true," she said. "We have information about the water table, but we can't get the computer model they are relying on. Jagger Hims (the company that carried out the testing) won't release it, even though Ontario's privacy commissioner has ordered that it be released.

"Jagger Hims has been purchased by a firm advising the county on landfills. We need the moratorium so we can have an independent peer review."

Barlow pointed to the lack of clean drinking water worldwide, noting that every eight seconds a child dies somewhere of a waterborne disease.

"This is not some kind of a game that is being played. We are living in a world that is running out of water, and we need to protect what we have. We have to protect the Alliston aquifer with whatever means we have to use," Barlow lt;/p>She said her organization will seek a court injunction to obtain a moratorium on work at the site.

Mary Muter, Georgian Baykeeper, said the dump is set up with a 1950s mindset.

Muter is with Georgian Bay Forever, a registered charity that undertakes Georgian Bay research and education projects with a focus on aquatic ecosystems.

"We are members of the Waterkeepers Alliance started by Robert F. Kennedy. I know that if Bobby was here he would be saying, 'Is Simcoe County crazy? Have you not learned from Walkerton?'

"The liner that is going into the hole has only a two-year guarantee. We all know that it is only a matter of time before it leaks. There are only questions of how soon, how much and what contaminants will leech out.

"Guess where this leachate will go?" she asked. "Midland has wisely turned away Simcoe County's request, so the latest is that the leachate will be hauled to the Town of Blue Mountain, and from there the pharmaceuticals and other unknown contaminants will end up in Georgian Bay. Does this make sense in 2009?"

Judith Grant, president of the Federation of Tiny Township Shoreline Associations -- one of the rally sponsors -- said a yearlong moratorium is needed to allow an independent review of all aspects of the dump site.

Grant has warned cottagers that Site 41 will impact Georgian Bay.

"Leachate contains heavy metals, pharmaceuticals, and other chemicals," she said. "The seams of the dump's plastic liner are only covered by a two-year warranty, and, eventually, it will leak, risking the pollution of important aquifers that feed Georgian Bay."

Grant has also noted that scientists predict climate change will lower the water levels in Georgian Bay, and thus probably the water table, which would play havoc with the upward pressure crucial to the design of Site 41.

Former Toronto mayor David Crombie, who has a cottage in Tiny Township, said he opposes Site 41 because it has been "environmentally illegitimate since it began."

"Twenty years ago, the review board rejected it as inappropriate. It was allowed to stay on the agenda through a political back-door deal and for 15 years they have tried to fit a square peg in a round hole.

"It flies in the face of everything we have tried to learn in the last 25 years about our relationship with nature and the environment. This dump stands in denial of all those things we thought we understood.

"That's why Gordon Miller, the independent environmental commissioner of Ontario, says there should be a moratorium and a review of this site.

"Some say, 'We have spent so much money we must simply complete it,'" Crombie added, "but it's never ever too late to do the right thing."

Charlie Angus, NDP MP for Timmins-James Bay, talked about the 15-year fight to stop the use of the Adams Mine as a dump, saying people have to ensure due diligence is done.

The Ministry of the Environment is not there to protect people's interests and the computer model is not there to protect people, he said.

"A computer model will tell you anything you pay it to say. If this site is as good as they have tried to tell you, then they can wait a couple of years and they can prove it," he said,

Some of the other speakers included Simcoe North MP Bruce Stanton and Vicki Monague of the Anishinabe Kweag from Beausoleil First Nation.