By Pam Wright
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Opposition to York1’s plan to create a regenerative recycling facility near Dresden is expected to reach the Ontario Legislature this week.
According to Stefan Premdas, chair of the newly formed Dresden Citizens Against Reckless Environmental Disposal (C.A.R.E.D), Ontario Liberal leader Bonnie Crombie and provincial NDP environment critic Sandy Shaw have agreed to bring the matter forward during question period.
According to Premdas they’ll be asking Premier Doug Ford why the government isn’t adhering to the legislation it passed under Bill 197. Under an omnibus bill passed in 2020, municipalities have the right to reject a landfill proposal under the Environmental Assessment Act if the new landfill is within 3.5 kilometres of a municipal border.
The York1 Dresden project qualifies, Premdas told The Chatham Voice, as Lambton County and the Township of Dawn-Euphemia have officially joined the Municipality of Chatham-Kent to ask the province to reject the project.
“This amendment to the EAA would provide municipalities with the unprecedented ability to stop new landfills for any reason,” Premdas said, “even where the environmental assessment for that landfill would otherwise be satisfactory to the provincial government. When is the Premier and the Ministry of Environment going to follow the legislation and kill this project?”
Under Section 10 of the bill, it states that municipal support “must be obtained, not only from the local municipality in which the landfilling site is situated, but from any other municipality located within the 3.5-kilometre distance from the property boundary of the proposed landfilling site.” The support, as laid out in the bill, must be demonstrated by providing a copy of a supporting municipal council resolution from each affected municipality.
Mississauga-based York1, a demolition and construction waste recycling company, currently has two applications before the Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks (MOECP) for amendment. The first one is to increase the waste facility and daily waste-receiving rate of non-hazardous material at the site to a maximum of 6,000 tonnes. The second is to expand the capacity of the landfill approvals.
The company is asking that the ministry allow it to operate the facility 24-7. Estimates of daily truck traffic range from 120 to 700 per day.
Premdas, a resident of Dresden for the last 10 years, knows about environmental protection as he ran for the Green Party in Toronto Centre in 2010. He said Dresden C.A.R.E.D. has been hard at work putting forward Freedom of Information requests and perusing peer-reviewed studies on similar regenerative recycling facilities in New Zealand and Germany.
“We didn’t just start screaming, we did our research,” he stressed.
After looking into the projects, Premdas said the threat that dangerous chemicals could leach from the operations, particularly related to soil washing and remediation, is real.
In their two meetings with the public, York1 officials have downplayed possible dangers, stating the new facility is environmentally friendly.
Unbeknownst to Chatham-Kent, a water and wastewater plan for leachate ponds at the site has already been approved by the ministry without comment from the public, or approval from Chatham-Kent. The application was made in November 2023.
Premdas said C.A.R.E.D. is not blaming the municipality for backroom deals with York1, noting members of the group met with council after the information was made public online in late January.
“I genuinely believe that neither Mayor Darrin Canniff or council knew,” he said. “They were shocked. They could not fake that.”
Both York1 applications are open for public comment online on the Environment Registry of Ontario. The deadline for the first closes March 16, with the second closing April 11.
