Published in The Haldimand Review
             Friday, December 2, 2005

Former region rejected Edwards Landfill

Bad feelings fester over dump facts

BY KAREN BEST
Haldimand Review Staff Writer
CAYUGA

Over a dozen years ago, the Edwards Landfill was rejected as a possible municipal dump by the former Region of Haldimand Norfolk.

In the early 1980s, the region began a master plan study for potential landfills and this dump near Cayuga was investigated as a potential site.
³It was eliminated from the options,² said Eric DıHondt.

There were too many unknowns including what was deposited in the site prior to 1974 when the region was established, he said. Waste from the St. Lawrence Resin factory in Cayuga was deposited in the dump and was a concern, he continued.

From 1988 to 1996,DıHondt was manager of region landfill operations. He is currently the Norfolk County general manager of public works and
environmental services. From 1974 to 1988, the dump was not operating, but  the ministry approval certificate was still valid, he said.

A gypsum shaft just west of the property was a bit of a concern because of the potential for ground water leakage, he said. ³What scared us most was the depth of clay was not as extensive over bedrock as it was at Tom Howe and Canborough,² said DıHondt. These sites were selected for regional dumps.

The former region did not deposit any waste in Edwards Landfill, but did have a brief contract with Shropshalls for recycling, he confirmed.

Norm Shropshall owned a waste collection company and the Edwards dump and entered into a partnership for the dumpıs ownership years later.

DıHondt provided information on the dumpıs history when told about an advertisement, ³Edwards Landfill - The Facts². Submitted by Haldimand Norfolk Sanitary Landfill Incorporated (HNSLI), the ad was printed in The Haldimand Review and The Chronicle at the end of October.

In an interview, HNSLI owner Frank Campbell said he is taking out a series of ads to provide facts and information about the dump near Cayuga. Council members, the media, and members of a group lobbying against dump operations are passing around misinformation, he said.

The facts are all in the design and operation plan submitted to the Ministry of the Environment and copies are available at the Cayuga library and the county office, he continued. The plan was required before the ministry would issue a redesign certificate of approval amendment. The approval, which lists 28 conditions, was issued in May 2004.

Shortly after Campbell and Don Courtney purchased the Edwards Landfill (which operates as HNSLI) in 2001, concerns were raised about the dump located on a wetland area. In September 2004, a citizen group, Haldimand Against Landfill Transfers, organized to stop dump operations.

HALT has won the right to appeal a 500 tonne daily dumping rate to the environmental tribunal, an armıs length body of the Ontario government. The group is also seeking an Ontario court judicial review of the Ontario Ministry of Environment (MOE) approvals for dump operations. If they win, Edwards Landfill operations cannot proceed and will be subject to an environmental assessment.

When the ad appeared in the newspaper, it raised another brand of concerns.³I canıt see how this spin writing provides assorted facts that help with informed debate,² said county chief administrative officer Bill Pearce.

³The ad is confusing for a lot of people in the community,² said HALT co-chair Anne Vallentin. For some, it was not clear that this was an ad not
an article.The ad suggested that HALT wanted to leave contaminated waste in place on the property.  The groups concern is that itıs handled properly and, in some cases, it is safer to leave things where they are, she added.

Contamination has been on site for decades and has been ignored by all levels of government, she noted.

The ad is propaganda and fearmongering, said councillor Buck Sloat. ³Obviously theyıre trying to do a sales pitch on the community, that they
are doing us a favour,² he added. He suggested HNSLI is trying to fight their case in the press along with doing public relations.

HALT has asked the environment ministry to look into why one of the excavated dump holes is not holding water. ³How does that substantiate their claim that Haldimand clay is extremely suitable for a dump, that it is not porous and there wonıt be as  much run off?² asked Sloat.

Campbell is aware of the countyıs $40,000 commitment to the HALT legal defence fund and spoke of differences between county employees and council members. ³Staff are using their heads to think with and I donıt know what politicians are using,² he added.

One source of confusion in the ad was a fact that the organization was involved in landfill management and contaminated waste clean up and the ad was signed HNSLI. Campbell said another company, Campbell Courtney Limited, operated the St. Catherines and the Mississauga dump for several years.

In Elmira in the late 1980s, Campbell and Courtney built a secure building to store barrels of insecticide and defoliant manufactured by Uniroyal. The company manufactured Agent Orange for the Vietnam War. Substandard hazardous materials, now removed and disposed of properly, were kept in barrels in fields by the Grand River, said Campbell.

From the 1950s to 1974, Norm Shropshallıs company picked up  garbage from homes in Caledonia, Seneca, Oneida and Hagersville to the dump, said his son, Wayne in an interview. In those days, a lot of garbage was burned instead of buried, he added. Resin was deposited in the dump, he confirmed.

The ad stated that excavation and removal of hazardous waste is expensive. HNSLI planned build a state of the art landfill with a heavy plastic liner to accept waste that was not  removed for treatment and disposal in a licenced facility.

The ad also stated, ³The Ministry of the Environment has made it clear in that the community is responsible for cleaning up the contaminated waste².

³The Ministry of the Environment doesnıt agree with this statement,² said Jane Glassco after receiving a faxed copy of the ad. She is supervisor of the Hamilton MOE office. If the owner is unable or unwilling to remove contaminated materials, the ministry can go after the property owners with abatement and enforcement tools to have them clean it up, she continued.

The owner of the approval certificate, which is HNSLI, is responsible for removal of liquid and hazardous waste, she stated. A monetary assurance due within six months of the certificateıs issuance can be used to cover contaminated waste removal, said Glassco.

The assurance is based upon the waste that is received in the landfill, said Campbell. By the time the assurance was due, only a small contingency was put up, he explained. No waste has been accepted at the dump. Once operations begin, the financial assurance will build up as waste is received, he continued.

According to ministry issues project coordinator Phil Jensen, no assurance has been posted by HNSLI. The approval certificate requires the owner to provide an assurance based on a formula that is factored on the waste received. The company has followed the letter of the law by submitting a proposed amount, he said.

At this stage, the ministry is reviewing the proposal and the company is waiting for confirmation from the ministry, said Jensen.

Campbell is not prepared to pay for contaminated waste removal if the dump cannot operate. As a business man, he is not going to risk buying a piece of property and then be liable for cleaning up mistakes that Haldimand Norfolk made, he said.

If the MOE gives Campbell an order to clean it up, he will undertake a search for a responsible party. The first place is to seek reimbursement
from the former owner, who is deceased, and next to the party with a contract to have the dump, he said. Heıll keep going to find someone to pay for it.

³I can assure you it wouldnıt be us, the property owner. We have recourse,² said Campbell.

Since a 1985 study was completed, the former Haldimand Norfolk region ³knew the materials were in there and should be cleaned up and they did nothing about it², said Campbell. Because the Haldimand-Norfolk region was dismantled in 2000 and Haldimand and Norfolk Counties were established in 2001, search for the party involved could possibly stop with Haldimand County, he said.