In a letter sent to Andrea Khanjin, Minister of the Environment, Conservation and Parks, Chatham-Kent Mayor Darrin Canniff expressed concerns with the proposed Dresden dump expansion by York1 Environmental Waste Solutions Ltd.
Here is the full text of the letter, with a copy of the exact letter below:
Dear Minister Khanjin:
RE: Serious Concerns with York1 Environmental Waste Solutions Ltd. Proposals; 29831 Irish School Road, Chatham-Kent
I am writing to you on behalf of Chatham-Kent Municipal Council and our citizens, regarding a matter of serious concern that has recently arisen in our municipality, with potentially serious environmental, community and municipal infrastructure impacts.
York1 Environmental Waste Solutions Ltd. has made two applications to your Ministry, one for a Waste Processing facility, and one for a landfill facility. We at Chatham-Kent only learned about the details of these applications when the required public notices were sent out and the matters were posted on the Environmental Registry of Ontario.
The owners of these property are trying to establish new recycling and landfill uses without full study by hitchhiking on outdated, historic Ministry approvals issued decades ago. Those historic approvals were for very narrow uses serving the local area, that had limited impacts on surrounding properties and our community. We understand Ministry staff to date have accepted some of the arguments of the owners, that this is only an expansion of existing facilities. Chatham-Kent strongly disagrees with this approach; what is being proposed here is the establishment of a new large-scale recycling and landfill facility with a province-wide service area. Under the proposal the site would receive and manage over 2 million tonnes of waste per year.
Our preliminary concerns include:
– The owner’s approach, which seems to have been at least partially accepted by your staff, will result in hundreds of trucks bringing recycling and garbage through our community without adequate study and planning;
– The environmental approval requirements your government has in place for new landfills are being almost entirely avoided in this case, which raises major concerns about negative impacts to local residents and the community, the environment and natural features in the area and municipal infrastructure; and
– This property is also in very close proximity to the town of Dresden, approximately 1 km to the north. The proposal includes 24 hour a day operations, and has a potential for significant noise and odour issues. In short, this is absolutely not an appropriate location to be developing a large-scale landfill and recycling facility.
Municipal Council has now heard from our community, and there is a resounding opposition to these proposals. On February 26, 2023, Council passed a unanimous motion opposed in principle to this proposal, and calling on your Ministry to reject the proposal. Please find a copy of that Council resolution attached. Should you not be prepared to reject the application entirely, then we implore you to designate this project under the Environmental Assessment Act. As things stand, your Ministry appears to be prepared to allow a decision on a major waste facility with a provincial scale and serious future consequences to our municipality be exempt from current approval requirements based on outdated historical approvals from a bygone environmental regime. At minimum, a full environmental assessment under the EA Act is required to ensure this proposal and its potential environmental and community impacts are fully evaluated before a decision is made by your Ministry on the proposal.
We look forward to your immediate attention to this matter.
Sincerely,
Darrin Canniff, Mayor/CEO
Municipality of Chatham-Kent
York1 is hosting their second community meeting in tonight, Friday, March 1, 2024, in regards to their proposed waste facility expansion project just outside of Dresden.
The meeting will have a 300-person capacity, with admission on a first-come, first served basis, and is being held at the Ken Houston Memorial Agricultural Centre, 1212 North Street.
The begin is set to begin at 6 p.m.
More details about York1’s application are posted on the Province’s website, here: https://ero.ontario.ca/notice/019-8205
Anyone can submit online comments directly to the Province through this website by March 16, 2024.
We’ll provide more details when they become available.
