Landfill Battle Continue

Thursday, 26 June 2014 04:57

Oxford County has taken another step in attempting to ward off the proposed Walker landfill.

WOODSTOCK – Oxford County took several steps forward in attempting to ward off Walker Industries proposed Southwestern landfill in Zorra Township Wednesday night.

Council approved monitoring the air quality in the Beachville-area around the Carmeuse lime quarry instead of pursuing an injunction to halt Walker's environmental assessment of the site for the purposes of turning the stone quarry into a garbage dump.

On March 26, concerned citizens Reed Elliot, Mike Farlow, Suzanne Crellin and Bryan Smith asked the county to consider if a court case would hold water. Council directed staff to seek legal advice, and Peter Pickfield of Garrod-Pickfield was hired to offer his opinion on whether the county had a case to file an injunction against either Walker Environmental Group or Carmeuse Lime and Stone.

"We thought a better strategy is to ensure that we have compliance on air quality from Carmeuse now," Warden Don McKay said, "we've got the cooperation of Public Health Ontario and our own Public Health [Department] here in Oxford."

"This is one of our action points that we believe will be helpful to ensure current air quality and obviously ensure that it doesn't go further," he said.

"The primary goal of Oxford County is to align with the residents – we're not a willing host to a landfill site."

Committee formed

The county also formed a 15-member steering committee to help develop a community sustainability plan, a task-force that McKay said was borne out of the public's request to be actively engaged in questions surrounding the Walker dump proposal.

"Oxford County decided that, 'in order to defend our position, we need a stronger community plan, an official plan that is supported by a sustainability plan to describe what we want to become in Oxford County and what we don't want to become,'" McKay said.

The committee, McKay said, will develop a plan that will decide how to "build and protect a strong Oxford County."

OPAL proposal

Meanwhile, about four dozen members of activist-group Oxford People Against the Landfill packed council chamber as leaders of the movement requested councillors pass a resolution barring private landfill operators from dumping leachate, which is contaminated water collected at landfills, at county waste water facilities for treatment.

The proposed by-law is described by Steve McSwiggan, chair of OPAL, as a bureaucratic roadblock.

"Money talks to these big companies. If you look at what any capital project has to bear, everything is examined as far as costs go. If it becomes too costly, the proposal simply goes down," he said.

"You can fight with signs, you can fight with all kinds of reports, you can fight with everything. But in the final analysis, it's the money that talks," said McSwiggan, who is employed by a large multi-national company as a project manager.

Councillors passed a resolution asking the county's public works department to generate a report studying OPAL's proposal.