Wellington County council wants to streamline the way it goes about purchasing land adjacent to its landfill sites.
At its April 24 meeting, county council agreed to allow staff to move ahead with discussions about potential land acquisitions without having to come to council first to discuss a purchase.
“We have concerns from some of the neighbours about what is going on at some of the sites,” councillor Don McKay, head of the county’s waste management committee, told council.
McKay said under the new system staff can discuss a possible purchase and firm up greater details before it has to come back to the committee, and subsequently council, for approval.
“They could go ahead and maybe look at a few properties,” McKay said. “It’s not that they are going to go and buy these properties. They were just going to look at them.”
The new policy is based on a report from county engineer Gord Ough, who explained Ministry of the Environment (MOE) regulations when it comes to potential off-site contaminants coming from active and closed landfills.
“The MOE began enforcing the need to maintain a set distance between the edge of waste and the property line,” Ough said in his report.
“This edge of waste property line distance started as a 20-metre buffer and then over time has been extended to 30 metres. Meanwhile, off-site environmental issues have often resulted in much larger acreage to keep site operations in compliance. For many facilities this required waste to be excavated back from the property line and or the need to purchase additional property around the sites.”
Since taking over waste management in 2001, the county inherited a number of sites with buried waste at or near the property line.
“Over the years, whenever it was economical and practical, waste has been excavated back the required distance,” Ough said. “However in some cases, due to cost or risk of further environmental damage, excavation has not been possible. As a result solid waste has then purchase property to meet the ministry 30-metre buffer requirement to keep waste operations in compliance.”
The engineer pointed out sites currently needing attention are the closed Arthur landfill, Harriston transfer station and Riverstown landfill near Kenilworth.
The motion approved by council states, “that staff be authorized to enter into negotiations for property acquisition surrounding county waste facilities, and report back to committee and council on any property acquisition agreements and that funds for the property acquisitions be drawn from the Solid Waste Services Capital Reserve fund.”
