A Frontenac County municipality is breaking the law by continuing to allow contaminants to seep from a landfill into an adjacent wetland, said an environmental lawyer and advocate.

Mark Mattson, president of Lake Ontario Waterkeeper, said if South Frontenac Township’s Portland landfill near Verona is leaking contaminated surface water into the nearby wetland, the municipality is legally obliged to stop it.

Mattson said discharging contaminants into a wetland is prohibited by the federal Fisheries Act and the Ontario Water Resources Act.

“There is no confusion about what the legal requirements are,” Mattson said Thursday.

Earlier this week, the Ministry of the Environment sent a letter to the township informing it of high levels of chemicals that were detected in leachate entering the wetland from the landfill.

Leachate is a mix of rainwater and chemicals from the garbage.

A township official said Wednesday that while the ministry’s data is collected at the edge of the landfill, when the water flows west out of the wetland — and leaves township property — it meets provincial water quality standards.

Mattson said such reasoning is becoming more common as municipalities seek ways to avoid costly environmental cleanups or protection methods.

“That is not consistent with Canadian environmental law,” he said.

“The engineers have been pushing back against environmental law for some time.”

Mattson said such positions in the long run undermine environmental law and help to lower the quality of life for the community.

“I know it’s expensive but environmental law is not easy,” Mattson said.

He said the only solution would be to cap and seal the landfill to prevent any more rainwater from mixing with the garbage.

Mattson said he has seen hundreds of landfills across the country, many of them with the potential to contaminate nearby watersheds.

Historically, landfills have been placed near water bodies and eastern Ontario is no exception.

Between 1952 and 1974, the site of Kingston’s Belle Park along the Cataraqui River was used as a landfill before it was closed by the Ministry of the Environment.

“I can probably show you 15 of these,” said Terry Murphy, general manager of Quinte Conservation.

“They used to put all the bad stuff next to the water because they wanted to get rid of it,” he said.

“It wouldn’t happen today.”

The Portland landfill and the adjacent wetland are in the Napanee River watershed, part of the area for which the conservation authority is responsible.

Quinte Conservation operates a 23-hectare conservation area across the road from the landfill.

Murphy said he supports the ministry’s efforts to eliminate the contamination.

via Leaking landfill illegal: lawyer – The Whig Standard – Ontario, CA.