Sludge Watch ==> Toronto looks to acquire Green Lane - London area landfill

[maureen.reilly at sympatico.ca]

Sludgewatch Admin:

Toronto is the largest city in Canada. And they have no landfill for their 
trash, and no landfill
for their sewage sludge.  Looks like that might change. Toronto's sludge and 
trash will have a
shorter commute if this is to be their new home.

http://lfpress.ca/newsstand/News/National/2006/09/19/1861599-sun.html

......................................................................
Toronto eyes buying Green Lane landfill

Tue, September 19, 2006

Confidential report shocks London mayor.

By ROB GRANATSTEIN, SUN MEDIA



TORONTO -- Toronto may be getting into the landfill business in the St. 
Thomas area.

A confidential municipal report is recommending Toronto buy the Green Lane 
Landfill in Southwold Township.

The cost of buying the landfill is more than $500 million.

Word of the recommendation left London Mayor Anne Marie DeCicco-Best visibly 
shaken last night.

"I'm almost speechless . . . that's almost unbelievable," she said last 
night.

For a decade, London politicians have lobbied Toronto and successive Ontario 
governments to find ways to deal with Toronto's trash within the Greater 
Toronto Area.

"It's almost like there is no respect for the concerns (we have)," she said.

Not only did the current Ontario government not respond to London's 
concerns, it approved an expansion at Green Lane, making it more attractive 
for Toronto, she said. "That's not environmentally responsible . . . I don't 
find it acceptable."

The Toronto report says the dump has the capacity to take garbage for 20 to 
23 years.

Another option is to lease the landfill on a contract basis, but that would 
cost $700 million over 20 years.

The chance to buy came about at the last minute, after the city received 
bids for a contingency plan if Michigan closed its border to Toronto trash.

The new development has forced a special, behind-closed-doors Toronto 
council debate this morning.

Toronto had been ready to move forward with a plan that would have seen it 
pay $88 a tonne in 2007 to drop its garbage at Green Lane, 40 per cent more 
than the $63 it pays now for Republic Services to ship its refuse to 
Michigan.

"Anything we do once we leave Michigan is very, very, very expensive," said 
Toronto works committee chairperson Shelley Carroll. "The alternative 
(buying the landfill) is something I prefer."

City staff have run the numbers, the contingency factors and determined it 
makes more sense to buy the landfill rather than pay to use London's site. 
Those costs could include extra fees running as high as $5 million in 2007 
for Green Lane to build receiving cells to take Toronto's waste in the 
immediate future.

Toronto staff also have concluded that buying would be cheaper than burning 
the city's garbage.

Toronto already has had to deal with its sewage sludge as Michigan closed 
the border to that waste Aug. 1. The city produces up to 160,000 tonnes of 
treated sewage sludge a year.

It has found a home for some, but not all of the sludge. It would use its 
new landfill to take that waste, too.

Ontario signed a deal with Michigan this month, forcing it to cut the amount 
of garbage crossing the border every year until 2010, when it would stop 
completely.

London should have been at the table with Toronto council and Green Lane, 
said Rhonda Hustler, a Toronto professor and longtime opponent of exporting 
Toronto's garbage.

"London's always been a little behind on the issues. The landfill is south 
of the 401, it's not downtown, not next to city hall, not next to the 
University (of Western Ontario), so they haven't done anything about it," 
Hustler said last night.

"But their objections will be too little, too late."

The province also will have a hard time allowing an expansion of Lambton 
County's Warwick landfill, she added, if Toronto's trash is taken off the 
market because of a new deal with Green Lane.