The Town of Lincoln planning committee has rejected a plan to build a compost facility on agricultural lands in the southern part of town.

Council is expected to approve the committee’s recommendation on July 14.

The application, made by Integrated Municipal Services (IMS), to construct the plant on more than 41 acres of prime agricultural land off Zimmerman Rd. near Yonge St. still needs to be reviewed by Niagara Region before anything is final.

IMS, part of Walker Industries, expects to have the Region review its application by the end of the year.

Mike Watt, vice-president of Walker Industries, said once he knows what direction the Region is going to take, he and his colleagues will decide whether it’s worth appealing to the Ontario Municipal Board.

The planning committee decided to throw out IMS’s application, which had been under consideration for 3 1/2 years, because it said it wasn’t consistent with the policies of the province, the Region and the town, and because the plant was not needed locally.

Even the town’s consultants, retained to provide a review of the application, were unable to demonstrate the need for such a facility in the region and, in their report, instead focused on the provincial need, said town planner Kathleen Dale.

“The proposed compost facility does not meet the test of need for the Region of Niagara and the town, and is not desirable for the agricultural community,” she said at the planning meeting Wednesday night.

But that claim is a complete misrepresentation of the facts, Watt said. “I mean, we’re a commercial operation. We’re not going to build it if there’s no need for it,” he added.

But if that need is coming from other areas, Dale said, IMS should consider building the facility elsewhere.

Mayor Bill Hodgson reminded the committee that the Region made an agreement with Walker Industries to use the company’s Thorold composting facility over the next 20 years, thereby eliminating the need for an additional one.

Still, the plant in Thorold has 20 to 30 trucks bringing in feedstock every day and is so overburdened at this point that some loads need to be shipped to another facility in Arthur, Ont., Watt said. To cope with the increased volume, his company has plans in the works to expand the Thorold facility next year.

Other areas of concern for the town were road maintenance, odour control and preventing water contamination.

via Lincoln planning committee nixes proposal for compost facility – St. Catharines Standard – Ontario, CA.