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March 2005
Newsletter
UPDATE: Rennie Street Landfill Excavation
After spending almost $12 million to
clean up the site, the city of Hamilton is
now spending over $15 million to excavate
approximately 70,000 tonnes of
waste from the old Rennie Street Landfill.
The waste must be removed from the
southern portion of the site in order to
allow for construction of the Red Hill
Creek Expressway.
Work has started at the site with the city’s
contractors currently completing the installation
of a retaining wall to hold back
the remainder of the landfill as the southern
portion is excavated. As of the beginning
of March, the retaining wall work is
yet to be completed. Once done, the fullblown
excavation of waste will begin.
The Rennie Landfill Community Liaison
Committee continues to raise concerns
about the excavation work. From the
start, the CLC has indicated that it does
not support the city’s decision to disrupt
the Rennie landfill in any way. Now that
the site has been contained, to disrupt it
through excavation poses risks the CLC
believes should not be taken.
The city has indicated to the CLC that it
is doing the excavation work in the winter
to minimize odour and dust impacts on
surrounding residents. But the work is far
behind the original schedule, which had
the retaining wall completion date set for
late November of last year with fullblown
excavation starting immediately
after. As of March 2, the new mid-June
completion date appears quite optimistic.
Even if the remainder of the City’s schedule
is accurate, the excavation will likely
take until the middle of July.
The main reason for the delay in starting
work at the site resulted from challenges
faced by Dufferin, the main contractor on
the project, in securing an appropriate
subcontractor to do the landfill excavation
work. At the end of the day, Dufferin
announced it would to the work itself,
although the company’s experience with
the excavation of hazardous landfills appears
to be extremely limited.
To make matters worse, the final disposal
point for any PCB-contaminated waste
that is excavated from Rennie is Bennett
Environmental’s St. Ambroise, Quebec
facility. But in September of last year,
Quebec’s Minister of the Environment,
after learning that dioxin/ furan levels in
the soil surrounding the St. Ambroise facility,
were increasing, ordered the company
to take measures to curb emissions
from their facility stack. While the company
has indicated to Dufferin that it’s
‘business as usual’ at this facility, the
Rennie CLC has raised concerns with
both the Ontario Minister of the Environment
and the Quebec Minister of the Environment,
asking for assurances and an
update regarding this facility. The CLC
does not want to see a contamination
problem from Hamilton create a new contamination
problem in a community
somewhere else. As of early March, no
response has been received from either
Minister.
The Rennie CLC also had the opportunity
in late October of last year to raise many
of its concerns directly with Ontario’s
Minister of the Environment Leona Dombrowsky.
Hamilton East MPP Andrea
Horwath also attended that meeting, offering
her support and sharing the concerns
raised by CLC members. Following
on that meeting, the CLC sent the
Minister a detailed letter with the ultimate
request that the province revisit the Rennie
issue as an appropriate provinciallevel
assessment of the excavation plans
for the site was never undertaken. MPP
Horwath also sent a letter. The Minister
did not reply to the CLC’s letter nor did
she reply to MPP Horwath’s letter. Both
parties sent follow-up letters to the Minister
in early February of this year. And,
again, both parties are awaiting a response
from the Minister.
Copies of both of the letters prepared by the
CLC and sent to the Minister are posted below. These
letters provide more details regarding the concerns
of the CLC.
Note:
The complete March 2, 2005 CATCH
Article Increased Health Risk from Toxic
Landfill is available at:
www.environmenthamilton.org/CATCH
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