What started as a discussion of source water protection, quickly turned into one about the issue of fill.
Late last month as council reviewed the minutes of the Lake Erie Source Water Protection group Mayor Lou Maieron commented there was also discussion on the fill issue. It was one Erin brought to the attention of the GRCA several months ago when it considered a bylaw to regulate fill from outside the municipality.
Councillor Josie Wintersinger agreed it was a very interesting piece of information.
Members of that meeting had circulated an article regarding the fill being used at aggregate operations.
Maieron read a portion of the minutes that suggested “there is fill being placed in areas of the watershed that are somewhat uncontrolled.”
The article reviewed in the minutes suggested fill is being placed, unregulated and untested.
However, if fill is brought in under the operation’s aggregate licence, it is exempt under the Conservation Authorities Act.
Although Conservation Authorities can comment to the Ministry of Natural Resources, they have no active involvement in the placement of fill.
As a result, Conservation Authorities are actively working with municipalities because of concerns of large amounts of fill coming from the Toronto area and being dumped onto watershed farm fields.
Currently, the Lake Erie Source Water Protection group has no policies to restrict that type of fill in wellhead protection areas.
At that meeting it was stated that any fill brought in must meet regulatory requirements.
Maieron believes that was exactly the type of information that should be brought up at the town’s coming meeting on the fill issue.
“It would give us some ideas to move forward.”
Wintersinger added that information regarding septage should also be included, “because there are some inexpensive ways to upgrade septic systems, which I think people could do.
On July 19 at 7:30pm, Erin is holding a special public information meeting in regard to its site alteration and fill bylaw.
Update – July 12, 2011
On July 12, councillors chose to cancel the public meeting and reschedule for a future date.
The reasoning behind the move was that Councillor John Brennan, council’s Grand River Conservation Authority representative, would be unable to attend that meeting.
