Simcoe County invited to a Genivar freebie

AWARE Simcoe news release – February 22 2011

The annual Good Roads conference is coming up this weekend, and for those Simcoe County councillors attending, there’s an extra goody in their conference package.

Councillors, along with senior staff, have received invitations to attend the Genivar Inc. hospitality suite, up to midnight on Sunday and Monday, and to meet Genivar directors Jeff Graham and Rakesh Sharma and other staff. 

The annual ROMA/OGRA Combined Conference  [Rural Ontario Municipalities Association & Ontario Good Roads Association] takes place in Toronto, February 27th-29th at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel.

Genivar, a multinational engineering consultant and major landfill developer, is at the centre of one of Simcoe County’s most high-profile controversies, one that remains before the courts.

“AWARE Simcoe urges county councillors to consider the message they are sending if they socialize with representatives of a corporation that is trying to limit the public’s access to information,” said AWARE Simcoe chair Don Morgan.

At issue is a Freedom of Information request filed in September, 2007, by then-Tiny Township resident Stephen Ogden for the calibrated computer model (MODFLOW) of hydrogeological conditions at Dump Site 41. The County refused, stating that it did not have the MODFLOW which, it told the Information and Privacy Commission, was under “the care and control” of consultant Jagger Hims (subsequently Genivar).

In its investigation, the IPC determined that the information falls under the County’s control because public funds were used to pay for it as part of the County’s legal duty to provide technical information to the Ministry of the Environment prior to getting a Certificate of Approval. It ordered the County to obtain the information.

The County failed to do so, because Genivar refused to provide it on the grounds that the information is proprietary. The IPC issued another, more strongly worded order. In response, the County requested a judicial review of the IPC order, in effect rejecting the IPC’s view that the MODFLOW was paid for by the taxpayers and should be made public.

“Genivar’s position would, if upheld by a court, make a mockery out of Ontario’s access to information legislation,” said Morgan. “The use of a consultant would allow important environmental information to be placed beyond the reach of council and the public, and would make it impossible to test the consultant’s scientific claims.”

The matter is presently in limbo, with no court date set for the judicial review. The County wants Ogden to withdraw his FOI request. Ogden has agreed to do so if the matter comes bfore county council for debate in open session and not in camera.

AWARE Simcoe has emailed councillors suggesting they not attend the Genivar hospitality suite in view of the nature of the matter that is before the courts. If they do wish to socialize with Genivar, AWARE Simcoe suggests they might wish to ask some of the following questions:

1. Why not release the Site 41 MODFLOW and end the controversy?

2. Should not data collected for a public project, that has health and environmental implications, be in the public domain?

3. Do you agree that scientific claims should be capable of being replicated in order to show that they are sound?

4. A copy of the Site 41 MODFLOW was presented to Site 41 group representatives at a tri-party meeting in 2008 but it was not the original model, and their consultant was only allowed to observe, he was not allowed access to test the model himself. Under these circumstances, how confident could the Site 41 group be of the accuracy of the data input and calibration?

5. Do you agree that councillors and citizen members of advisory groups like the Site 41 Community Monitoring Committee [CMC] have an obligation to satisfy themselves that scientific claims are sound?

6. Why cannot I as a county councillor have access to the MODFLOW?

7. If consultants consider their work proprietary and not subject to independent scientific scrutiny, would it be in the public interest to have municipal staff do the work instead? Would it not be better for municipalities to band together to retain the necessary expertise, or for the province to provide expertise to be retained instead of private consultants?