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The Rural Council considers it fundamental to sound
planning:
Treat
waste as close to its source as possible.
...That means each municipality must develop a
local solution to managing its
garbage,
rather than simply transporting the problem to some other community.
The RCOC
believes that the Ottawa Citizen articles (below) describe
what may well become the best modern-day solution for ALL of our
cities:
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(Links to
other reference information are at bottom of this page)
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Incineration the solution for
Carp Road landfill
Tory: New technology is the cure
for 'urgent' trash crisis, Ontario opposition leader says
Patrick
Dare
The Ottawa Citizen Saturday, February 25, 2006
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The
leader of Ontario's Conservative party says the province must
incinerate its garbage because nobody wants landfills in their
neighbourhoods and the province needs the power that can be
generated from incineration plants.
John Tory, the leader of the opposition in the
Ontario legislature, said yesterday the uproar over a proposed
landfill expansion on Carp Road
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CREDIT: Wayne
Cuddington, The Ottawa Citizen
The Carp Road landfill,
viewed from Terry Fox Drive, is a growing blight on the
landscape for many residents. The licensed space of the
landfill, seen behind Scotiabank Place, will run out in about
four years. |
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-- which takes half of
Ottawa's garbage -- is just part of a provincewide crisis in
waste management. |
Landfills are filling up, while applications to
establish new ones or expand old ones meet fierce opposition. Cities
are left to contemplate what they should do with their garbage when
the provincial licences for landfills run out. The applications
process for new or expanded landfills takes years.
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If the U.S. Congress allows the
prohibition on Canadian trash, Ontario communities would
be in trouble.
Mr. Tory estimates that using the province's
remaining landfills would only last for perhaps six months and
communities outside Toronto wouldn't be too pleased about taking the
city's garbage.
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Toronto exports its garbage to Michigan, an
embarrassment for many Ontario politicians. But the Michigan senate
recently passed legislation banning Canadian trash. If the U.S.
Congress allows the prohibition on Canadian trash, Ontario
communities would be in trouble.
Mr. Tory estimates that using the province's
remaining landfills would only last for perhaps six months and
communities outside Toronto wouldn't be too pleased about taking the
city's garbage.
"It's a very urgent crisis," said Mr. Tory.
He said the first priority in waste should be to
recycle and reduce, but says there will always be garbage so the
province must look to incineration plants to burn it and produce
power for a province that has a serious electricity shortage.
Many people's knee-jerk reaction opposing
incineration is based on information that is out of date, said Mr.
Tory.
"The technology has evolved," he said, adding
plants are now safe and efficient and can operate well within
pollution standards.
He noted that in many European cities incineration
power plants are in central neighbourhoods. A garbage incineration
plant that has operated in Brampton since the early 1990s is proof
that such plants can work well, he said.
The Brampton incinerator -- approved when the
alternative was an unwanted new landfill site -- handles about
155,000 tonnes of garbage a year, generating up to nine megawatts of
power, with most of the electricity sent to the provincial power
grid. Air emissions are reduced by a three-stage pollution-control
system.
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Mr. Sterling said the garbage incineration option
is attractive to community leaders who are looking for alternatives
to more messy landfills, and he said the technology of incineration
is greatly improved, screening out the heavy metals that old
incineration methods used to pump into the air.
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Mr. Tory said Ontario needs to start planning for
incineration-power plants right away because getting approval for
and constructing such operations takes several years. He said the
provincial government has tended to leave waste issues to the
municipalities but they are not equipped to do so on their own.
He said there should be a provincewide strategy
that uses the best expertise in the field.
Norm Sterling, the MPP for Lanark-Carleton, said
yesterday that the expansion of the garbage landfill on Carp Road,
proposed by Waste Management of Canada, is not appropriate for one
of Ottawa's fastest growing neighbourhoods.
City councillors and many residents in the area
are complaining that the landfill -- dubbed Carp Mountain or Mount
Trashmore -- has already become huge, creating severe odour problems
and ruining the capital's landscape. The landfill licensed space
will run out in about four years.
"I don't think you go ahead with an expansion of
this size without seriously looking at alternative plans," said Mr.
Sterling. "This community has been quite generous in the past in
terms of their tolerance of the existing landfill site.
"They've done their bit. An alternate site, or an
alternative method of waste disposal, is absolutely necessary for
them to look at," he said.
Goulbourn Ward Councillor Janet Stavinga met with
the company yesterday and got an agreement to extend the period for
public comment in the first stage of the long approval process for
the landfill expansion.
A second open house on the issue is set for
Stittsville on March 1, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., at 5473 Abbott St.
The company is proposing to more than double the
capacity of its landfill, creating 18 million more cubic metres of
landfill.
Mr. Sterling said that rather than looking at a
single landfill expansion question, the city and the provincial
government should be looking at the whole city's waste issues and
possible solutions, including landfill and incineration.
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A garbage
incineration plant that has operated in Brampton since
the early 1990s is proof that such plants can work well.
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He noted there's a second application for a
landfill expansion coming from Waste Services Inc. for its landfill
at Navan.
That project -- to extend the landfill's life by
10 to 15 years -- has generated some concern but not nearly the
level of hostile reaction that the Carp Road expansion is sparking.
The Navan landfill takes commercial and
industrial garbage which is less smelly.
Mr. Sterling said the garbage incineration option
is attractive to community leaders who are looking for alternatives
to more messy landfills, and he said the technology of incineration
is greatly improved, screening out the heavy metals that old
incineration methods used to pump into the air.
But he said incineration is extremely expensive
and it could add up to $20 million a year to the City of Ottawa's
tax bill.
© The Ottawa Citizen 2006
Previously in the
Ottawa Citizen...
Incinerate Carp waste,
councillor urges
Generate power
instead of expanding dump: El-Chantiry
Patrick Dare
The Ottawa Citizen
Thursday,
February 23, 2006
Ontario should be encouraging the
incineration of garbage, rather than expansion of the landfill on
Carp Road, Councillor Eli El-Chantiry says.
Mr. El-Chantiry said yesterday
Ottawa should follow the example of the Region of Peel, where a
private company handles about 155,000 tonnes of garbage a year
through incineration, generating up to nine megawatts of electricity
in the process -- enough power to keep the lights on in thousands of
homes.
His comments followed reports that
Waste Management of Canada, which operates the landfill site on Carp
Road, in Mr. El-Chantiry's ward, has started the application process
to more than double the space for dumping garbage. Waste Management
wants to expand either north or west and generate four megawatts of
electricity by capturing gas from the landfill and using it as fuel
for a power turbine.
The proposal is already creating
controversy. Mr. El-Chantiry said residents of his West Carleton
ward, like those in the neighbouring ward of Goulbourn Councillor
Janet Stavinga, have kept quiet for years about the smell emanating
from the Carp Road landfill and its existence as an eyesore because
they knew the company's licensed capacity would run out in a few
years. Now, he said, people are upset that Waste Management wants to
expand the operation by 18 million cubic metres -- enough space to
keep operating for another 25 years.
"It's no longer in the middle of
nowhere. Why wouldn't they look for another site?" said Mr. El-Chantiry.
The Ontario Ministry of the
Environment said yesterday the province is open to proposals for
garbage incinerators, as well as new or expanded landfills. Ministry
spokesman John Steele said, "we'll look at anything that comes
forward. I don't know why there aren't more applications for
incineration."
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Mr. El-Chantiry said
residents of his West Carleton ward, like those in the
neighbouring ward of Goulbourn Councillor Janet Stavinga,
have kept quiet for years about the smell emanating from
the Carp Road landfill and its existence as an eyesore
because they knew the company's licensed capacity would
run out in a few years.
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Mr. Steele noted there have been
problems at the Carp landfill dating from 1971, when the site was
operated by a previous owner as a simple dump. The Ministry of the
Environment issued an order in 2002 to handle contaminated water
that was moving off the site. A groundwater barrier, and a system
for collecting contaminated water, were installed.
Mr. Steele said there are
exhaustive studies and examinations to be done to determine whether
the proposed project for Ottawa remains a landfill site or an
incinerator.
Mr. El-Chantiry said it's time to
look at alternatives to landfills, especially incineration.
An incinerator plant has worked
well in Brampton since 1992, serving a region that doesn't have
space for landfills and ships much of its garbage to Michigan.
The chairwoman of the waste
committee in the Region of Peel, Maja Prentice, said her community
is examining expansion of the incinerator at Brampton. "It has been
a success," she said. "It is very well operated."
The plant's location in an
industrial area, and regular testing of emissions showing they are
within provincial standards, have kept complaints to a minimum, said
Ms. Prentice.
Ontario needs to follow the lead of
European countries that are environmentally conscious, but still
incinerate garbage because they have no room for landfills, she
said, adding that it's embarrassing that the province exports much
of its garbage to Michigan.
The Brampton incinerator has been
so successful that the Niagara-Hamilton region is also looking at
building one.
The Brampton plant uses natural gas
and burns garbage to produce steam that drives a turbine generator
to produce electricity. About one-quarter of the power is used to
run the plant while the rest is sent to the provincial power grid.
The thermal combustion is in two
stages, the second one at temperatures of at least 1,000 C. The ash
from the process is carted to neighbouring landfill sites where it
is sometimes used as cover. There's a chance the ash could be
processed into bricks or asphalt in the future. The plant employs 62
people.
Gases that are generated are
treated in three stages before they are emitted through a stack.
Algonquin Power says its emissions for lead, dioxins, furans,
sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide, are well within provincial
pollution standards.
However, incinerators are not the
total solution to garbage problems, said Bob Dodds, director of
operations at Algonquin Power Trust, the company that operates the
Brampton incinerator. Incineration works well for much of the
garbage that can't be recycled, he said, but municipalities still
need to handle the waste that can be recycled separately, so the
need for some landfills remains.
Mr. Dodds said his enterprise -- a
conservative income fund with a wide variety of energy projects in
North America -- wouldn't want to do the work to set up such a
facility in Ottawa, but would be happy to operate one if it were
built.
© The Ottawa Citizen 2006
Links to other reference
information:
Terms
of Reference document for landfill expansion proposal - DRAFT- Dated
Jan 20, 2006
Summary of presentation made by WM at the Feb. 7, 2006 Open House in
West Carleton
Website of
Waste Management of Canada Limited
Website of the
Confederation of European Waste-to-Energy Plants (CEWEP)
Website: Ottawalandfillwatch.org
Website: Carpdump.ca
Website: NoDump.ca
Website, SaveDanford.com, has good information on "All liners Will
Fail" and "Avian Flu"
http://www.normsterling.com/news/2006/March/dump_Petition.pdf
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CFRA WEB POLL - March 1, 2006
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The State of
Michigan is about to ban Toronto garbage
from a Detroit dump (effective this summer).
Should the City of Ottawa council pass a
motion - banning garbage from outside our
municipal boundaries - and demand the
Province endorse the "local garbage only"
bylaw? |
| Yes |
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93.9% |
| No |
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6.07% |
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Total Votes: 1976 |
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