Dresden dump expansion won't go ahead without tackling concerns, environment minister says
'Comprehensive environmental assessment' will take place
Ontario's environment minister says that a controversial proposal to expand a dormant landfill in Dresden, Ont., will face a "comprehensive environmental assessment."
The announcement comes after significant community opposition to the plan. The landfill, located just over a kilometre from the edge of the southwestern Ontario community, could receive 6,000 tonnes of construction and demolition waste each day.
Environment Minister Andrea Khanjin said Friday the assessment would "require this site to address local community concerns and mitigate potential impacts before it could open."
"This site was established over 40 years ago, prior to Ontario's requirement that landfills undergo an environmental assessment," she said in a statement.
"In keeping with the process that any other landfill would be required to undergo today, I will be taking steps to require this project to complete a comprehensive environmental assessment under the Environmental Assessment Act."
Before Dresden became part of the Municipality of Chatham-Kent in 1998, incinerator ash was deposited on the site.
Because of that, the site needs no rezoning from the municipality, and approval is in the hands of the Ontario Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks.
Municipality has 'serious concerns'
Chatham-Kent called for a full environmental assessment in a submission to the ministry sent Friday.
The municipality said there's a potential for the project to have significant social, economic and environmental impacts, and raised concerns over transparency and consultation.
"We all have serious concerns with this proposal from York1, and together with council, we are taking action," Chatham-Kent Mayor Darrin Canniff said in a statement Friday.
A Greater Toronto Area company, York 1, owns the property. It has submitted two applications to the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks for this issue, and wants to expand the site to cover a total of 25 hectares.
The company previously told CBC it was in the early stages of the provincial process to amend the existing permits for the site, which it called a "regenerative recycling facility."
Multiple studies including traffic control and species-at-risk-are being conducted, according to the company.
LISTEN: Dresden residents speak out against landfill proposal
Community members have banded together to fight the plan.
Members of the group Dresden C.A.R.E.D (Citizens Against Reckless Environmental Disposal) were still reviewing the minister's statement when reached by CBC News Friday evening but viewed the step as a positive one.
"Preferably, we would love the whole thing to just be shut down and not happen at all, but if, you know, a starting point is getting a full environmental assessment, then absolutely, let's get that piece done," said Wendy Vercauteren, secretary of the group.
Vercauteren, who lives within kilometre of the site, said the concept of the regenerative recycling facility isn't a bad one, but it's too close to the community. According to the most recent census, about 2,400 people live in Dresden.
"It's not even just the close proximity to town, it's the threat to the environment, the watershed, the endangered species. The Sydenham River has been identified as a river at risk in Canada," she said.
Vercauteren and board member Martha Fehr shared concern that other inactive landfill sites — they have counted 13 properties in Chatham-Kent alone — could face similar fates in the future.
"So this is not just a thing that could happen to Dresden, it could happen to all of Chatham-Kent," Fehr said.
The group says its meeting with candidates for the vacant provincial seat for Lambton—Kent—Middlesex on the issue.
They are also holding public information sessions on April 4 and 11.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
With files from Peter Duck and CBC News