Editor: Bruce Corcoran’s June 10 column “Read your damned emails” entirely misses the point regarding the waste-to-energy project controversy. The core issue is not a late-night, month-too-late administrative email; it is what was – and was not – included in the official public report presented to Council on April 27.
The “go/no-go” report was the document on which council voted and the document the public relied upon. It explicitly states the facility would process “approximately 370,000 wet tonnes of organic waste.” There is absolutely no mention in that report of an additional 530,000 tonnes, nor any reference to a total capacity approaching one million tonnes.
That was the point of my attendance at the meeting: to bring the public up to speed on a project that had clearly expanded without council approval. And yes, I did read the email. It was not a public document.
For administration to later claim via email over a month after council voted that the extra half-million tonnes is just “low-strength wastewater” from Greenfield Global does not excuse its omission from the primary public document. A discrepancy of that magnitude should have been clearly disclosed, analyzed, and debated in the open staff report before a single vote was cast.
When official provincial applications differ so drastically from the reports given to the public, elected officials have a duty to speak up. Our press conference wasn’t “silly season” politics –it was a demand for the transparency that Chatham-Kent taxpayers deserve.
Our job as elected officials is to be the community’s watchdog, not to quietly read bureaucratic attachments, nod our heads, and let massive industrial projects sail through without public scrutiny.
If an extra half-million tonnes of material was always part of the plan, it belonged in the open report on April 27 so it could be debated in broad daylight.
Bruce, as an editor, it is your responsibility to seek out the information you might need to write a thoughtful and fair opinion. Read the damn council report.
The only “silly season,” “being irresponsible,” “manipulation of the facts,” “disinformation,” or “smacks of dishonesty” should call into question any opinion that you write.
Michael Bondy
Chatham councillor
