Sludge Watch ==> Whither Goest Toronto Sewage Sludge?

[Maureen Reilly]

Sludgewatch Admin:

A few curious features about Toronto sludge.  One...the Environmental Assessment documents say there are twenty truckloads per day leaving the plant..not 15.  
Another curious feature...Toronto Biosolids are currently subject to an Environmental Assessment and public comment.  But the City staff don't want to say where the
sludge has been going for the past 5 years.  Everytime I ask the question..they say that they will send it to me. Then they say that the information is somewhere in
the Minicipal Affairs Library.  I and the librarian have spent the better part of a day looking..without success.

So...if YOU want to know where Toronto sludge has been going for the past 5 years...
ie
 how much went to landfill
how much went for land application to farmfields
how much was incinerated 
how much was pelletized ....*some of which also went to landfill

Then you might want to ask the head of the Toronto Works Committee: 
Shelley Carroll
 Phone: 416-392-4038 Fax: 416-392-4101 
councillor_carroll at toronto.ca 

If you find out...let me know:
And when I find out...I'll let you know.

....................................................................................................


Globe and Mail June 30, 2006

Council approves search for alternate dump sites
JENNIFER LEWINGTON
CITY HALL BUREAU CHIEF
City officials now have the green light to negotiate a deal to find a new home, somewhere in Canada, for Toronto's sewage sludge now shipped to Michigan.

The move, approved yesterday by city council, comes as Toronto faces an Aug. 1 deadline to find alternatives to ship some of its treated human waste to a Michigan landfill.

The volume represents about 15 per cent of all Toronto waste (beyond recycling) shipped to Michigan, about 13 to 15 trucks a day. This month, Carleton Farms landfill outside Detroit notified Toronto and other customers that no sludge will be accepted after Aug. 1.

After council's 34-3 vote, works committee chairwoman Shelley Carroll (Don Valley East) said the green light for officials to negotiate with potential sites in Canada comes with "a great sigh of relief."

She and Mayor David Miller expressed optimism that city officials can negotiate new deals before the deadline. "We're working to seek a number of diverse solutions both short term and permanent," said the mayor, noting a city pelletizer that processes sludge for land applications is due to be back on stream in early 2007.

Council's decision follows an announcement this week by Ontario Environment Minister Laurel Broten to approve an additional 10 million tonnes of secure landfill capacity for the province at a privately owned landfill site in London.

Green Lane is one of several possible sites to take the sludge now sent to Michigan.

In a separate development at city hall, councillors handed the mayor and his left-of-centre majority a rare defeat.

Council voted 19-17 to move ahead with a tender on the delivery of garbage in York and Etobicoke after 2008, after contracts expire with two private companies. Elsewhere in Toronto, workers with Local 416 of the Canadian Union of Public Employees pick up household garbage and recycling.

"It bodes well for the taxpayer," says Councillor Doug Holyday (Etobicoke Centre), who says the upfront cost of "contracting in" garbage collection is $20-million.

However, the battle is not over.

A clause in a collective agreement between the city and Local 416, dating to 1999 under the previous administration, requires the two sides to set up a joint committee to review "all operations and services for the purpose of contracting in wherever feasible."

Local 416 president Brian Cochrane called the council decision "problematic," given the contract terms. "We see this as a potential violation and we will be looking at it," he said.
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