Six properties in Wellington County may have received contaminated fill from Mississauga street sweepings, says a report from the Ontario Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change (MOECC).
The properties – two in Puslinch, two in Erin, one in Guelph-Eramosa and one in Wellington North – received waste street sweepings that may contain arsenic, lead and antimony from Mississauga between 2004 and 2011.
The city delivered the street sweepings free of charge to 47 properties until it received a notice from the MOECC in 2012.
In a report dated June 1, 2016, Mississauga solicitor Mary Ellen Bench updated city council on the issue.
“Landowners were informed of the origin of the materials and provided with the results of testing done on the materials,” stated Bench.
In 2015, the MOECC informed the city the material was considered “waste” and must be removed.
In an MOECC Director’s Order, the ministry asked the city to remove materials at a site in Cayuga, submit a plan for further “intrusive investigations” at a site in Selkirk and conduct a forensic audit and investigation plan for the remaining 45 sites, including those in Wellington County.
A Nov. 28, 2016 report from the MOECC stated regulations allow cities to deal with street sweepings by sweeping them directly onto the shoulder, blending with virgin sand and reusing, stockpiling on municipally or provincially owned land, reusing in construction material or any other reuse as endorsed by the ministry or disposing in an approved landfill.
“It is the ministry’s position that any … use other than as described in the protocol requires a waste management [environmental compliance approval],” stated MOECC provincial officer Denise Plourde in her report.
Her report also detailed a 2012 site test study that found contaminants at the Cayuga and Selkirk sites. The remaining sites were not tested.
Mississauga has since appealed the ministry’s order to the Environmental Review Tribunal.
“The city’s expert provided an opinion that, for Cayuga and Selkirk, there is no risk to human health or the environment from the materials delivered to those sites,” states Bench.
“With respect to the remaining sites, based on a preliminary risk evaluation, the city’s expert opinion is that the risk to human health or the environment from the materials is unlikely.”
Bench stated the cost to remove the fill from the sites could be “tens of millions of dollars.”
She added the city disagrees with the ministry’s characterization of the materials as waste and doesn’t believe there is a potential risk to human health.
“The ministry is proposing a course of action that will cost a substantial amount of taxpayers’ dollars in the absence of evidence of harm to human health or the environment from the materials,” the report stated.
The six Wellington County properties listed are:
– 6659 Ellis Road, Puslinch, three loads;
– a property near Wellington Road 34 and Sideroad 10, Puslinch, 16 loads;
– 5414 4th Line, Erin, 23 loads;
– 9163 Wellington County Road 50 on the Erin-Milton boundary, 22 loads;
– 6759 Sideroad 10, Guelph-Eramosa, 10 loads; and
– 7240 5th Line, Wellington North, 130 loads.
Fernando Marques, owner of the property in Wellington North acknowledged he was visited by MOECC agents last year, but said he never received fill from Mississauga.
“They told me that somebody made a complaint and I said, ‘Nope we don’t have such a thing here,’” he said.
Wellington North chief building official Darren Jones said the township doesn’t have a fill bylaw, and would have to rely on ministry regulations in these situations.
In Erin, where a site alteration bylaw came into effect last year, interim chief building official Robert Foster said the bylaw wouldn’t be retroactive to fill projects between 2004 and 2011.
Going forward however, fill does require testing.
“Our fill bylaw asks for the soil tests on fill coming in,” he said.
The Mississauga case is currently before the Environmental Review Tribunal, with the next hearing date scheduled for June 23.
