Councillors here are looking at the pros and cons of imposing a moratorium on fill, but they say the best answer for Erin would be for the issue to be enforced provincially.
On its own, the town only has regulatory control of fill within a fraction of the municipality. Much of the town is controlled through the Grand River Conservation and Credit Valley Conservation authorities, which govern environmentally-sensitive lands near their respective watersheds.
But to the average homeowner the map of who controls what seems more like an abstract painting than something that accurately defines areas of control.
On Dec. 9, the Erin council chamber was again packed, for a 20-minute video from the 2013 Managing Large-Scale Fill Symposium in Port Perry.
That presentation looked at the matter from the view of the Central Lake Ontario Conservation Authority.
Erin road superintendent Larry Van Wyck provided a slide show to illustrate the negative impact certain fill operations are having on local roads. He said he is aware of a number of sites that have received fill between the years of 2007 and 2013.
“They extend into some places you really don’t expect,” Van Wyck said, noting one is within the village of Erin by the east end of Charles Street.
“There are not too many roads where we have not had a fill site of some size or description. With those fill sites have come a multitude of issues,” Van Wyck explained.
He pointed to the damage created by trucks on roads not built to accommodate large trucks on an ongoing basis or during times of year when there are road restrictions (pertaining to vehicle weight).
In other instances, Van Wyck pointed to bulldozers being used to scrape mud and muck off the roads – without town permission – but leaving the town to deal with the mess.
Additional problems arise because the roads are simply not designed to accommodate large trucks – leaving little room for other vehicles attempting to use the road at the same time.
Van Wyck pointed out 67 per cent of the town’s roads are gravel. He explained that when gravel is not replenished, the road structure will disappear through normal use and the remaining gravel typically becomes contaminated by other materials such as the native soil and winter sand.
He added that to put the recommended amount of gravel on the 185.5 kilometres of roads, “We’d be looking at a budget of nearly $1 million per year. We don’t have that kind of money.”
But this problem is made worse by the trucks involved in the fill operations, Van Wyck said. He noted one study states that a single truck may do the equivalent damage of 2,000 to 8,000 cars.
“These operations have very little regard for the mess they are leaving.”
Another issue, Van Wyck said, involves illegal dumping onto the roads when the fill sites are not open – one was dumped onto the travelled portion of the road.
Van Wyck explained council also needs to be aware of the impact these operations are having on local bridges.
Van Wyck then pointed to various fill operations where posted load limits are being ignored.
“But if one of these bridges fall down because of the heavy loading of these trucks, it will fall on the taxpayers and the council to repair the bridge – it’s not going to be the truck driver.”
He said it would be difficult to place the blame on a specific driver unless the bridge failed while the truck is on it and falls into the river.
Van Wyck contended that given the lack of provincial regulations for fill dump sites, municipalities continue to struggle to deal with this issue through site-alteration bylaws
Erin planner Sally Stull was also on hand to provide input on the actual effect any fill bylaw would have.
She provided maps which included gravel pit sites regulated through the Ministry of Natural Resources, areas regulated by Credit Valley Conservation and areas regulated by the Grand River Conservation Authority. That leaves only small fragments of the town where a town-initiated bylaw would apply.
Question period
Following a lengthy question and answer discussion, councillors passed two resolutions.
The first was to get legal advice regarding who would pay the costs relating to contamination if a site was abandoned.
The second resolution was for council to direct staff to investigate the pros, cons, and feasibility of imposing a moratorium on fill.
