Dust Control – Soil Stabilization – Erosion Control

The Ontario Environmental Commissioner’s recommendation to close the Richmond Landfill Site immediately is “disappointing” for the company that operates the Napanee-area dump.

Wes Muir, director of communications for Waste Management, said the recommendation contained in Gord Miller’s annual report came as a surprise to his company. The site, he said, has active certificates of approval issued by the Ministry of the Environment.

“We were disappointed the environmental commissioner chose not to contact us to discuss this matter with us,” Muir said. “The Ministry of the Environment objected an opposition group’s request to close the site. What they came back with late last year is that our landfill is in accordance with its certificates of approval and … the ministry inspects our site for compliance.”

Muir said the monitoring looks into ground and surface water as well as air quality. Results indicate the site is safe, he said.

However, in his annual report released Tuesday, Miller said the landfill is “inherently unsuitable for waste disposal.”

Muir said that is Miller’s opinion and, in the report, his comments of disagreement with the MoE are simply that, one man’s opinion.

“We have never been contacted by the commissioner or the commissioner’s office to talk about this matter and we would welcome the opportunity for he and his staff to come to our site and review our data,” Muir said.

Miller’s recommendation does not necessarily mean the site will close prematurely — it is estimated the site can continue receiving garbage for another three or four years — and Muir would not speculate on what may happen should the MoE follow through on the immediate closure. He said the site can still receive approximately 10,000 tonnes of garbage per year.

Richmond Landfill received waste from a number of area municipalities but Muir admitted a lot of garbage from eastern Ontario is currently being shipped to Michigan and New York.

“There’s a lack of capacity in this province, specifically acutely to eastern Ontario,” he said. “We have made a decision on where we are going to go in respect to future plans but we’ve been listening to the Napanee solid waste advisory committee and we’ve been looking at the provincial policies on waste diversion and we’ve been opening up a lot of waste diversion and recycling initiatives as we ramp down land filling,” he said.

The potential closure of the dump, however, would not have a direct impact to Belleville as none of the trash generated by residents here finds its way to the Richmond Landfill site. The city’s garbage is all trucked to Michigan and New York.