Site 42 no longer an option: county warden

By Morgan Ian Adams Collingwood Enterprise Bulletin
COLLINGWOOD – Site 42 is no longer a dot on Simcoe County’s waste management map.
On Monday, while taking part in the ‘grand reopening’ of the regional airport’s runway, Simcoe County warden Cal Patterson announced after meeting with county staffers, the proposed landfill – also known as Site 1-1, as selected through the Georgian Triangle Waste Management Master Plan process 15 years ago – just off the end of the runway is no longer in the county’s plans.
Patterson told the Enterprise-Bulletin that the decision still has to be confirmed by county council.
Patterson, who is also mayor of Wasaga Beach, said after county council voted to shut down the work at Site 41, the people opposed to that site also indicated they would continue the fight should the county move to open Site 42.
“We heard the voices of the people, and we have to listen to that voice, that people no longer want to put garbage in the ground,” said Patterson.
The county owns most of the land that was designated for Site 42, and will have to determine the future of the property.
“The county is a business, and if it owns an asset, then it has to use it at some point,” he said, noting one idea he’s heard so far is to use the property for an ‘energy farm’.
Patterson said he recently met with the county’s director of planning and the county’s director of environmental services, and when he was presented a map identifying waste management sites in the county – including a ‘dot’ representing Site 42 – he told them to take off the dot.
He acknowledged the county is still grappling with the issue of what to do with waste, and county council will be given an update at its Jan. 28 meeting.
“We have to have a strategy for the short-term and the long-term,” he said.
There is a certificate of approval in place for Site 42; certificates are renewed every five years, and Patterson believed the last renewal took place three years ago.
Collingwood expressed its opposition to the site selection several years ago, when it was determined it was within eight kilometres of the regional airport. Federal transportation guidelines recommend that landfill sites not be constructed within an eight-kilometre buffer zone around an airport.