Soil recycle proposal has ‘no legs’: Georgin

By Tracy Kibble Yorkregion.com Feb 16, 2011

Georgina residents should pay the estimated $4 million to clean up the former Thane aluminum site even if the task is a provincial responsibility, one citizen said this week.

“I’m tired of ongoing discussion on who will clean up the site. If taxes have to be raised to clean it up, so be it,” said Pat Wellman, who, along with her husband and son, runs a dairy farm just east of the polluted Warden Avenue “no man’s land”.

Mrs. Wellman — who wants the town to legally seize the property on grounds the owner owes $1 million in back taxes and interest — came armed Monday night with a 76-name petition and about 80 supporters who jammed council chambers to demand cleanup action or financial commitment from the municipality.

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty was heavily criticized for failing to meet a written commitment he made nine years ago to clean up the site. 

Despite the fact the smelter’s original licence, monitoring and remediation is provincial jurisdiction, Mrs. Wellman says she doesn’t want another “dirty” industry in the area, even if a new owner cleans it up.

The town has already spent $300,000 demolishing the smelter building and regrading the site, explained CAO Sue Plamondon, adding a 2008 detailed report by XCG Consultants named three cleanup options.

Option one is the most expensive at $3.9 million, which involves digging up the contaminated soil and shipping it to a licensed facility.

Option two would involve digging a hole, lining it, putting the contaminated soil in the hole and constructing drainage ditches, stormwater and leachate monitoring at a cost of $2.8 million, plus $40,000 a year to monitor the site.

Option three is the least expensive at $1.5 million, which is basically the same as option two by creating a liner, covering it up, building a stormwater pond and monitoring the site with an annual monitoring cost of about $40,000. 

The smelter operated on its 20-acre site just north of the Warden Road transfer station until 1997 when the aluminum market tanked. It was never cleaned up.

“No one disputes the fact the site needs remediation,” Mrs. Plamondon said, adding cost estimates are from 2008 and continue to climb.

That move would essentially wipe out or forgive the owner’s $1-million tax debt and make the town responsible for a minimum $3-million cleanup cost, said Mayor Rob Grossi.

“It is difficult to take on the commitment of $4 million on top of (the town’s $54-million) budget,” Mayor Grossi said. Besides, the proposed soil recycling facility that everyone is concerned about isn’t a permitted use on the site, he added. 

A groundswell of opposition came after Mrs. Wellman heard about an offer to purchase the contaminated site by Mount Albert gravel pit operators Nick Marchese and Robert Carnegie with the help of commercial real estate expert Gary Foch.

Their proposal was presented last month to an 11-member committee formed by the Environment Ministry in 2009 to deal with cleanup options, but which has no power to make decisions about how the site will be remediated. (No one from the ministry, York Region or the LSRCA was at Monday’s meeting despite having representatives on the committee.)

The proponents have offered to purchase the smelter site from the owner, which, in part, would wipe out his bill to the town. To cover costs for the cleanup, they propose to operate an outdoor soil recycling plant that would see contaminated dirt trucked from construction zones across the GTA. 

The soil would be stockpiled, cleaned on a conveyor belt via a microbe spray process and shipped for sale as clean fill to their Mount Albert pit.

Mrs. Wellman has concerns about stockpiled contaminated dirt blowing to neighbouring properties. Since microbes would be sprayed on the soil, she said, vapours would create more pollution in an area surrounded by dairy and beef farms and vegetable crops. 

There would be thousands of trucks dumping soil, which would also create noise pollution, she said.

Several citizens, including Debbie Gordon (who ran for a seat on council last October but lost), have “worked tirelessly” to get the “barren land” remediated but, for 30 years, nothing has happened, Mrs. Wellman said.

“It’s time for citizens to back (Ms Gordon’s efforts) up,” she added.

We can’t fall for the ministry’s promise to “safeguard” any industry that brings with it pollutants, Mrs. Wellman said.

“Thirty years ago, we were told by the ministry it’s good to process aluminum. Look what we are left with. Now we’re told the (ministry) will safeguard this industry,” Mrs. Wellman said.

“This proposal has no legs,” confirmed the town’s planning expert, Harold Lenters.

Proponents would have to apply for a change in the town’s official plan and zoning bylaw. They would have to then submit a complete application and would have to identify the use with background studies and research to support the idea. “If they can get through all that, then they have to get through public meetings and staff would have to recommend it would be good use of the land,” Mr. Lenters said.

“It would be impossible,” the mayor said, referring to the likelihood a politician would vote in favour of the plan.

“It would be a difficult proposal to work through, sir,” Mr. Lenters agreed.

Ms Gordon, who is on the smelter committee, said citizens are not going away on this issue and asked the town to send a letter to the ministry, once again, asking for the site to be cleaned up.

“There’s no fairy godmother. That smelter could wash into the lake. This site is not a trade for other contaminates,” she said, adding if the town can spend $30,000 on Canada Day and “thousands more” on last weekend’s Sno-Fest, it should commit cash to the cleanup.

“I’d rather pay (cleanup costs) now than with the value of my property,” Ms Gordon said.

When the mayor said, “At what cost?”, she quipped: “About one-third of the hill,” (in reference to the town’s $5-million portion for the Recreation Outdoor Complex) to which the audience applauded and cheered.

The town will send another letter to the ministry.