Sludge Watch ==> Judge orders Halifax to pay $81, 000 to sludge hauler - breach of contract

[Maureen Reilly]

Sludgewatch Admin:

Gosh more mayham with the sludge in that benighted lagoon!  First Halifax 
took this lagoon of untreated and partly treated sewage (the tailings of 
their ancient and inadequate sewage setup) and plopped them into the 
Aerotech lagoon. Then they dewatered it, shipped it to open pits 12 feet 
deep in a farm field at the Cutten place - Inglewood Farms in lower Truro. 
Then to the horror of the neighbours the farmer mixed the sludge with goo 
from the Maple Leaf owned  slaughterhouse and the Rothsay rendering plant. 
The farmer said he would shake some lime over these peanut butter texture 
goo and then land apply it.

Hmmmmm.....the Maple Leaf slaughterhouse waste turned out to be toluene 
contaminated so they skimmed the top off the pit and carted it to some 
hazmat facility and land applied some of the rest of the stuff.  (you liking 
this so far?) .  This nightmare made the City of Halifax decide to not bring 
their sludge to the Cutten place any more...but Cuttens are still taking 
Maple Leaf's goo.

So now we see that the crap from the Halifax Aerotech lagoons are still 
wandering the  Nova Scotia countryside and being sent to landscapers? Say 
what?

Sept 29, 2006

HRM ordered to pay in sludge case

By PATRICIA BROOKS ARENBURG Court Reporter

Halifax Chronicle Herald  http://thechronicleherald.ca/Metro/530985.html
Halifax Regional Municipality has been ordered to pay over $81,000 to a 
sludge removal company for breach of contract.
The judgment, entered Wednesday by Nova Scotia Supreme Court Justice John 
Murphy, comes after a four-day civil trial over one phase of the Aerotech 
Park lagoon cleanup.
It came after three years of legal wrangling, due in part to the city's 
handling of the case which "made the trial and the issues somewhat more 
protracted than what they needed to be," the judge said.
In 2002, the city hired Demolition Resources Limited to ship sludge from the 
HRM sewage treatment site near the Halifax International Airport and dispose 
of it properly.
The Cumberland County-based company finished the first two phases of the 
cleanup and was paid in full for shipping the sludge to Amherst Sod. But 
work on Phase III stopped on July 24, 2003, when the Department of 
Environment suspended operations until Aug. 6, 2003. The Fort Lawrence 
company resumed shipments and had "200 tons of material in transit from the 
Aerotech facility to Amherst" when the department issued another suspension 
on Aug.15, 2003.
HRM wanted the sludge returned to Aerotech and DRL says it offered to do so, 
but the city refused.
Instead, the city hired Elmsdale Landscaping to take the material dumped in 
Amherst and the remaining 200 to 300 tons of sludge at the Aerotech facility 
to Fund Compost Inc. in Brookfield. The municipality then deducted over 
$60,000 - what it paid the landscaping company - from a bill it owed to DRL, 
prompting the lawsuit.
In his July ruling, Justice Murphy stated: "I find HRM jumped the gun . . . 
in demanding immediate return of material from Amherst and hiring Elmsdale 
Landscaping to do the rest of the work."
This second suspension "resulted from new circumstances which are not 
attributable to fault on the plaintiff's part." ( pbrooks at herald.ca)