Sludge Watch ==> Paper Sludge - Ontario - Minister Questioned in the Legislature ...again

[maureen.reilly at sympatico.ca]

Sludgewatch Admin




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Mr. Hudak PC:( .......)

4636 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF ONTARIO 14 JUNE 2006



I also want to say—and I know my colleague from Niagara Centre is very 
active on this and has asked a question in the Legislature of the Minister 
of the Environment—that I wonder how the people who live in Fenwick and in 
the town of Pelham feel about the security of their mortgages or the ability 
to get new mortgages when selling their homes. No matter what the quality of 
the broker, if they’re a CIMBL member or what have you, there’s a concern 
right now in Pelham with the dumping of paper sludge on a property on Church 
Road. It’s a country road. It’s not a frequently travelled road. I had the 
opportunity to go by the property this past weekend. I didn’t go on the 
property—the owner wasn’t there—but from the road made the best observations 
possible. I’ve heard from a number of neighbours about the concerns, the 
impact this will have on the value of their homes and real estate. If they 
were looking to exchange land, no matter what the protections of Bill 65, 
they’re worried about the devaluing of their property.

My colleague Mr. Kormos asked a very good question of the Minister of the 
Environment. The reflection from the town of Pelham and the constituents was 
great dis-satisfaction with the answer. I know my colleague from Durham has 
brought forward a private member’s bill to address the issue of the dumping 
of things like paper sludge on residential properties.

In fact, I have in my hand something called the Report of the Experts Panel 
on Sound-Sorb. This was prepared for the Ministry of the Environment on 
January 31, 2005. The expert panel makes a number of recommendations and, if 
I read the report accurately, says that this dumping of paper sludge should 
be subject to a certificate of approval, that there should be proper 
regulations in place to ensure that environmental protections exist, that 
the circumstances of the dumping would be appropriate.

Let me read from page 25 of that report:

“Question 1: Does Sound-Sorb,”—the material I’m speaking about; this is one 
of the brand names, I guess, for this product—“as used as a berm 
construction mater-ial, present a risk to human health or the environment 
and what is the nature of that risk?”

The expert panel reported back “that it could not come to a conclusion on 
all of the possible risks to human health and the environment based on the 
data it had. It also felt that a more systematic collection of data at berms 
would not provide a comprehensive assessment of the risks.... The expert 
panel came to the conclusion that this material could with proper regulatory 
control be used to construct berms without causing an unacceptable risk” but 
they talk about the importance of regulatory approval and elsewhere in the 
report speak about ensuring that a certificate-of-approval process exists 
for this type of dumping.

I also had the opportunity to write a letter to the Minister of the 
Environment—I hope she’ll have a chance to respond soon—asking her to put 
all of the ministry’s resources into reviewing what’s happening on Church 
Road in Pelham and assisting the town council in addressing the issue. You 
can’t blame the neighbours. As I’ve said, they’ll be concerned about Bill 
65, and they’ll be concerned about ensuring that the mortgage brokerage 
industry is subject to the proper high standards. But it’s going to be 
awfully hard for them to move somewhere else and sell their homes if they’re 
seeing their properties devalued. Nice homes, very nice neighbourhood, nice 
and quiet, but obviously some justifiable concern about the dumping of the 
sludge on a property nearby.

1730

It has a foul odour. What are the impacts on soil con-tamination and what 
are the impacts of drainage into groundwater or the nearby Welland River, a 
main river through the centre of the Niagara Peninsula, affecting many, many 
constituents? I support those individuals’ expressions of concern and I do 
hope the Minister of the Environment will put all of her resources to bear 
on addressing this issue and hopefully will take the advice of the expert 
panel and work with my colleague from Durham to ensure that proper 
protections are in place so that she can say with some degree of certitude 
to the residents of Church Street that if this is allowed, it’s perfectly 
safe, and if it’s not safe, then this practice will be stopped and the 
neighbourhood can return to some form of normalcy.

I guess my time has rapidly expired. It’s truly amazing how fast time can 
fly. There are a couple of other topics that I wanted to address.

Interjection.

Mr. Hudak: If my colleague from Northumberland wanted to assist me with a 
motion to extend my time, I could talk about some of the polling data behind 
this legislation. I could also talk a bit more about the concern I have with 
property values of my constituents near the Caledonia area. I know my 
colleague from Haldimand–Norfolk would have similar concerns about their 
mortgages and their property values. But at this point, I will conclude my 
remarks on Bill 65.

The Acting Speaker: Questions and comments?

Mr. Tabuns: First I have to say that this has been a virtuoso performance by 
the member from Erie–Lincoln. I think people from all parties can agree that 
his ability to speak for one hour on this bill, on an extraordinarily small 
amount of content, is impressive—at the very least, it’s impressive. There’s 
no question that he’s taken the opportunity during his hour to talk about 
the fact that it isn’t just this mortgage act that is needed to protect the 
interests of mortgage holders in this province. As has been said a few times 
today, people see their mortgage, quite correctly, as the largest single 
investment they will make in their lives. People put everything into it. 
Certainly, it makes sense to have a regulatory regime for those mortgages, 
to ensure that they’re protected, to