The first of many open houses will be held Wednesday in Napanee

Waste Management announced Wednesday that it is bringing forward an ambitious proposal to completely revamp the current Richmond Landfill.

The new so-called “multi-purpose waste management facility” would be called the Beechwood Road Environmental Centre, and would feature a new landfill, as well as a focus on waste diversion, community development and the creation of up to six megawatts of electricity from captured landfill gases.

This is the second time in a decade that Waste Management has attempted to expand its facilities on Beechwood Road. The company was turned down previously by the Ministry of the Environment.
Site manager Randy Harris said the new proposal is substantially different from the previous one.

“It’s a whole new project, with all these diversionary and recycling facilities to take everything out of the garbage that can be taken out, before the residuals that can’t be recycled are put into the new state-of-the-art landfill,” Harris told The Napanee Guide Wednesday morning.

“Right now, the region is recycling less than 30 per cent of its waste. We want to put the infrastructure in place to greatly improve that. We know the town (of Greater Napanee) has a goal of 60 per cent.

“What’s really different about this project than the last time out, is the last time, it was just a large landfill. This time, the landfill is just one component of a facility that would focus on diversion, recycling, recovery and reuse.”

The proposed material recycling facility, which would be constructed to the east of the current structures on the site, and have a its own entrance, would feature the latest technology to sort and process items such as paper, glass, plastics, metals and electronics.

A construction and demolition material facility would take that kind of material for reuse and recycling.

A new organics processing facility would be able to take materials from industrial, commercial, and institutional sources.

Local residents would also be able to drop off household hazardous and electronic waste, and household recyclables at a new residential diversion facility.

If approved, the new landfill would be built in stages, and would accept 400,000 tonnes of waste per year, for 20 years. It would be constructed just to the north of the current landfill.

Harris said the emphasis on waste diversion came as a direct result of consultations with the public and other stakeholders.

“We’ve consulted with provincial officials, meaning the ministry. We’ve been involved with the Solid Waste Advisory Committee of the Town of Greater Napanee, and what their needs are. And we’ve talked to a lot of stakeholders,” he said.

“The vision was put together with all that consultation with all those folks. And this is just a proposal. When we go to the public consultation period now, we’ll be having open houses and meetings with the general public to get more of their input.”

The first public meeting takes place Wednesday, March 10, from 2 to 9 p.m. at the Napanee Legion. Others will follow, and Harris said they would be advertised through the local media.

Both he and Wes Muir, director of corporate communications for Waste Management, say they understand that despite all the plans for recycling and waste diversion and creation of energy from landfill gases, opponents will most likely focus in on the new landfill being proposed.

“If they’re focusing on the landfill, it’s going to be state of the art. It’s not a 50-year-old landfill we’re talking about here. People were focused on the current landfill. It will be closed and capped and monitored. This is going to be brand new, and its going to protect the environment, and we can stand up for that. We can rightfully tell people that it will not be environmentally incorrect. It will be done properly, and it will be monitored properly,” said Harris.

Muir said the old landfill site has only a partial liner, while the new site would have a new one, utilizing the most up-to-date and effective technology.

“We have a monitoring system where we’re comfortable and the ministry is comfortable. This is a brand new site, which will be totally lined. It will have the ultra-modern liner system and leachate collection,” he said.

Harris said that if approval is granted, it would take about a year an a half before the new landfill could accept waste.

Both Harris and Muir said that the issue of fractured limestone and the possible effects a new landfill could have on the water table has been addressed in a recent $1 million study, which is available on the Waste Management website. Muir said a new landfill was approved in the Niagara Region and located on land that has a similar geomorphology to the Richmond site.

Harris said the proposed redevelopment would create 75 jobs, and contribute $1 million in economic benefits to the local economy.

It didn’t take long for opponents of the proposed expansion to make their voices heard.

Ian Munro, a Napanee resident, and a member of the Concerned Citizens of Tyendinaga and Environs said Wednesday by phone, “I’m delighted to hear Waste Management has finally acknowledged they have to close the existing dump. That’s fantastic news. Better late than never.

“I am quite appalled at the prospect of them making the same mistake they’ve already made by putting yet another dump out there, given everything they’ve done in the past. It confirms what we’ve thought about the company for years, that they really don’t care about the environment and the people that live here, that they really only care about their own interests.”

Munro pointed to some studies that have indicated there is a problem with leachate in the groundwater.

“I’m expecting another decade-long discussion of whether we should put more garbage on a site that the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario says is possibly the worst site in Ontario. Common sense tells you that. You don’t need to be a geologist to know this is not wise, especially when you look at the fact it’s going to be hundreds of years, if not millennia, before the danger passes. It’s the wrong place to put garbage.”

His comments were echoed by Tyendinaga resident Mike Bossio, another outspoken opponent of the former landfill expansion proposal.

“What I don’t understand is when you talk to anyone else out there in the waste industry, you don’t build a dump on fractured limestone – period. You can build the safest dump in the world, and it doesn’t change the geology of the dump,” said Bossio.

“Every dump leaks. That’s what people have to understand. They’ve shown that over and over again. The [American Environmental Protection Agency] has done studies, and even landfills they thought weren’t leaking, were leaking. These dumps are with us not for 10 years, or 30 years, but for 300 years.”

To find out more about the proposed project, come to the public meeting on Wednesday or visit http://brec.wm.com