By Pam Wright
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
It took them a decade but the citizens of Oxford County stopped a mega-landfill from being built in their community.
And the people of Dresden, facing a potential new landfill just outside of their community, are taking note.
But it was no easy feat in Oxford County, according to Bryan Smith, leader of O.P.A.L. – Oxford People Against the Landfill.
“They totally underestimated us,” the retired teacher said in an interview with The Chatham Voice. “They didn’t understand the resolve of our commitment to the community.”
The saga began in 2012, when two local deejays stumbled on the fact Walker Environmental Group Inc. was hoping to locate a new landfill in a limestone quarry two kilometres from downtown Ingersoll.
O.P.A.L. launched and the battle began.
“People reacted quite quickly to the news,” Smith said, noting the non-profit immediately formed a research committee to begin dealing with the issue.
Because the site of the proposed landfill was located in Zorra Township close to the headwaters of the Thames River, residents were especially concerned. Most of Oxford County’s 110,000 plus citizens draw their water from a spring-fed aquifer threading through the municipality.
Walker Environmental was proposing a landfill that could accept 17 million tonnes of non-hazardous waste over a 20-year period, mainly from the Toronto region. It prompted a remark from one local mayor that Oxford County wasn’t “Toronto’s kitty litter.”
Smith, a member of the Oxford Coalition for Social Justice, who lives just three kilometres away from the artesian wells at the Thames’ source, points out access to clean drinking water is part of social justice.
“There’s no justice if you can’t drink the water,” he emphasized.
So, for the next 10 years until 2022, volunteers waged a war that involved constant fundraising, an avalanche of letter writing, hiring scientific experts, petitions and numerous rallies and protests. Smith said O.P.A.L. even took the battle – and some life-size Styrofoam cows – to the lawn of Queen’s Park where protestors performed the Oxford Dairy Dance.
“There are more cows than people in Oxford County,” Smith explained.
A two-tier municipality, Oxford County is made up of eight communities that all have their own municipal governments. Aided by some vocal politicians, the county threw its collective support behind O.P.A.L.
It was a long road. But in 2020 the Ford government passed Bill 197. The omni-bus bill included legislation that requires communities located within 3.5 kilometres of a new landfill to be willing hosts.
With the backing of Oxford County, three of its communities tested the legislation in 2021 and won, ending the landfill bid in 2022.
What O.P.A.L. accomplished has lit the way for Dresden Citizens Against Reckless Environmental Disposal (C.A.R.E.D). The non-profit group, formed to protest an application by York1 Environmental Services to expand an existing landfill, is taking a page from O.P.A.L.’s playbook, as members navigate the complexities of standing up to a large corporation.
GTA-based York1 has applied to the province to expand the scope of a dated landfill license at the former tile yard. If approved, the application could lead to as many as 700 trucks per day hauling Toronto’s construction waste to Chatham-Kent. However, a comprehensive environmental assessment of the project has been ordered by Minister of Environment, Conservation and Parks Andrea Khanjin.
It’s estimated the EA will take anywhere from three to five years, officials said.
In a nod to O.P.A.L., Dresden C.A.R.E.D. chair Stefan Premdas said the input from the group has been invaluable.
“O.P.A.L. and Bryan laid the groundwork in Bill 197 for municipalities like ours facing the exact situation,”Premdas said. “And we are eternally thankful for the work they have done to help us.
“We also want to thank the local community for standing firm in opposition to this badly designed project,” he added.
From start to finish, Smith said O.P.A.L. dealt with a total of seven provincial ministers of the environment from 2012 to 2022, beginning with the Ontario Liberals and concluding with Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives.
Smith said he was naive at the outset of the Oxford dump battle, believing the Ontario government had the best interests of the people and the environment at heart.
“We discovered, at best, that they (environment ministers) are sort of like a judge of cases based on certain criteria,” he explained.
Smith said he’s glad O.P.A.L.’s experience can be used to help others.
“We don’t mind lending a hand,” he added. “From the outset we took a vow that we would help other communities and pay it forward.”
And while O.P.A.L. was victorious, Smith said the win came with a cost.
“Our communities and municipalities spent a lot of money,” he added. “The company was never made to compensate the municipalities.”
