Sludge Watch ==> Hamilton Double Standard for sludge incineration - story & 3 letters

[Maureen Reilly]

Double standard for sludge plans?


November 09, 2007
Eric McGuinness
The Hamilton Spectator
(Nov 9, 2007)


City council is calling for a full environmental assessment of Liberty 
Energy's proposal to build a sewage sludge incinerator in east Hamilton, 
while putting its own sludge incinerator plan through a much simpler class 
assessment process.

It's not clear councillors meant to take different positions on the two 
similar schemes, or whether they even realized they were doing so, but two 
citizen environmentalists are asking the Ontario Environment Ministry for a 
full assessment of the city plan.

Ward 4 Councillor Sam Merulla, who made the unanimously supported motion for 
what's called a bump-up of Liberty's application Oct. 24, is a member of the 
public works committee, which approved a Schedule B class assessment of the 
city incinerator in early September.

Schedule B class environmental assessments, intended for projects with only 
minor impact, do not have to look at alternate sites or alternate 
technologies and are not posted on Ontario's Environmental Bill of Rights 
registry. They are faster and less expensive than full, individual 
assessments, intended for projects with more potential for adverse effects.

When asked this week why he had pushed for a bump-up of one plan, but not 
the other, Merulla first suggested staff had made a mistake, then conceded 
there was a discrepancy and said he would try to resolve it when council 
meets next week.

Merulla said it has always been his position "that the city should be 
subject to the same level of scrutiny as the private sector."

He noted that council refused last spring to take a shortcut on the 
assessment of a joint Hamilton-Niagara garbage incinerator that's under 
study.

Meanwhile, Burke Austin of Community Action Parkdale East, a citizens' group 
that withdrew its request for a full assessment of the Liberty plan, is 
asking for a full assessment of the city plan, saying it contains much less 
detail than Liberty's, especially on air pollution controls. She said two 
dozen area residents also want a bump-up.

Then there's a similar request from Maureen Reilly, a Toronto-based 
environmental activist who supports the Liberty plan, but complains she has 
had a hard time getting information from the city.

In response to those requests, the city this week proposed a limited bump-up 
of its own, not to a full assessment but to a Schedule C class assessment, 
which is more thorough than Schedule B.

Nevertheless, Merulla said he will ask council to go for a full assessment, 
arguing there shouldn't be a double standard for private and public 
projects.

He believes all incinerator plans should go through full, individual 
assessments.

http://www.thespec.com/News/Local/article/279167
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Hamilton Mountain News
Letter to the editor

Leachate not accepted, burning not accepted, what about my backyard?

(Oct 26, 2007)
After reading a letter from a reader titled "Cancer rates high enough 
without burning sludge". I cannot believe the ignorance of people, they 
don't want the sludge in the landfill because they are worried about 
leachate being toxic. They don't want it burned in a state of the art 
facility to create energy, that with today's technology would have very 
little or no emissions, but are okay with putting this toxic mix onto the 
agricultural food lands of Ontario, talk about someone's elevator not going 
all the way up.

Our family has had the misfortune to live beside and in front of fields they 
are putting this stuff (biosolids, sludge, human feces or whatever you want 
to call it) on and I can tell you I am sick of our family being made ill and 
our animals being ill, not to mention what this does to our property value - 
nobody wants it in their backyard.

I just don't understand the logic of putting human feces, with all the heavy 
metals, pathogens, pharmaceuticals and whatever else goings into city sewers 
onto the foodlands of Ontario. All crops end up in the food chain one way or 
another, whether it is grains for breads, cereal or hay that is fed to 
livestock, it all ends up on your kitchen table, perhaps this is where the 
cancer rise comes from.

After you watch 50 tankers full of biosolids emptied onto a field year after 
year, you have to wonder how much seeps into the ground and reaches the 
water tables that feed our lakes, rivers, streams and lakes, not to mention 
our wells!

I wish more Ontarians would help put a stop to land application of the toxic 
brew.

Wendy Deavitt

http://www.hamiltonmountainnews.com/hmn/viewpoint/viewpoint_910302.html

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No one in this province wants your garbage - remember that

(Oct 26, 2007)
So, a California company is taking advantage of an opportunity to build an 
incinerator to burn sludge. The letter writer is strongly opposed to 
building an incinerator, due to a European study that shows a spike in 
cancer rates. I would be alarmed as well with a facility like that near my 
residence.

Here is where the problem lies. The writer says "If you recall, a number of 
years ago when the Guelph landfill was being discussed, there were quite a 
few NIMBY's(Not In MY Back Yard) and rightly so.

I ask, where do you suggest we dump or burn our garbage? Michigan doesn't 
want our garbage, Toronto doesn't want our garbage, Kirkland Lake doesn't 
want to fill their abandoned mines with our garbage. It's our garbage, we 
created it, we're responsible for it, not other cities. So it is our elected 
officials responsibility to make a logical decision on behalf of the 
citizens of Hamilton on what to do. Our Mayor Fred Eisenberger is a "green" 
Mayor, environmentally speaking. Councillors have gone beyond the call of 
duty to investigate Europe's system, and i'm sure have looked at 
alternatives. So as you stated "the city is allowing this action to move 
front and foremost on its agenda." I applaud Mayor Eisenberger for his 
environmental approach to our waste situations.

Just remember when you're putting your garbage out, be it any at all. No one 
in this province wants your garbage. The citizens of Hamilton, must be 
accountable for ourselves, not relying on others to deal with our trash.

Chris Dowling

Hamilton
http://www.hamiltonmountainnews.com/hmn/viewpoint/viewpoint_910301.html
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Incineration environmentally responsible

(Nov 2, 2007)
Hamilton should be heralded as the first city in Ontario to admit that their 
decision to put all their sewer sludges on farmland was not environmentally 
sound.

In their report to Hamilton City Council, the Works Department acknowledged 
that farmers do not want these high metals wastes and the pathogens, drugs, 
and chemical cocktail of known and unknown ingredients, and that 
incineration is a more environmentally responsible approach.

Incineration allows for the heavy metals to be contained in the ash, stops 
the mercury from escaping into the atmosphere, and kills all the pathogens 
that enter the sewage from hospitals and laboratories.

Using sewage sludge as a fuel is a beneficial use, replacing some of the 
high emissions energy we now get from the ancient polluting coal stacks at 
Nanticoke.

Many people are unaware of the dreadful harvest that comes from lacing our 
farm soils and risking our drinking wells with sludge.

Good quality, well run energy producing facilities that have pollution 
prevention equipment and scrubbers to remove air-borne contaminants just 
make more sense than trucking this polluted material out our food lands.

Maureen Reilly

Sludge Watch

http://www.hamiltonmountainnews.com/hmn/viewpoint/viewpoint_915137.html