Health Impact Requests

Wednesday, 3 September 2014 06:06

Oxford County's Joint Municipal Coordinating Committee sends another letter to the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change.

OXFORD COUNTY - Oxford County's Acting Medical Officer of Health is calling on Walker Environmental to conduct a comprehensive Health Assessment of all factors that may impact the overall health and well being of our community.

This comes as the Joint Municipal Coordinating Committee sent out a letter to the Ministry of Environment who had requested back in July the Committee provide further details regarding the content of the framework for an in depth Health Impact Assessment for the proposed landfill.

Dr Douglas Neal says Walker's proposal is to do a Health Risk Assessment which is not as in depth of a study as a Health Impact Study.

"Those words do have some meaning in terms of the overall comprehensive investigation. Trying the predict the total impact that having a large landfill project would have in the community."

Neal says a proper Health Impact Assessment would take into consideration the impact on air, dust, water and soil.

"Neighbourhood esthetics including things like noise, vibration, odour and visual impact, potential pests that may be generated out of a landfill project, also the increased traffic that may be associated, the economic impact both positive and negative, the social impact that it might have on the community...."

Neal says other questions that need to be answered include what impact would it have on recreational potential in the area and the project security in terms of keeping unwanted people out as well as their safety.

Neal says the committee sees this as a bit of a landmark proposal because it's a fairly significant sized landfill project and needs to done right from the outset.

"We are simply trying to reinforce the fact that if the proposal goes forward, it goes forward with all of the potential problems and concerns addressed. There has been public outcry and we would like to satisfy the public, if the project goes ahead that their concerns are being addressed."

A decision by the Ministry of Environment on Walker's Terms of Reference is expected later this fall.