At the District Engineering and Public Works meeting held April 23, staff recommended proceeding with a single-source contract with Watermark Environmental Limited to “undertake the remainder of the Chaffey Landfill site characterization and remedial feasibility project.”
“Staff are working very closely with the Ministry of the Environment and Conservation and Parks (MECP) on this particular project in this particular site and do look forward to that work proceeding,” said Renee Recoskie, Director of Waste Management and Environmental Services.
Recoskie said the District has a compliance team and hires a contractor to ensure former waste sites are responsibly managed and monitored. “And to put this in perspective, I thought that it would be helpful to highlight that this work is undertaken across over 40 closed landfill sites and that represents a monitoring network of over 280 groundwater wells, over 80 surface water sampling stations and almost 50 landfill gas sampling locations. So that just helps show every year we monitor at this level of scrutiny and detail across all of our sites.”
She said based on the District monitoring work, remedial projects and options are initiated to address historic waste. As a result, staff are recommending that the single source contract be entered into for remediation options at the former Chaffey Landfill at a cost not to exceed $638,795.
“Through consultation with the MECP, one of the closed landfill sites, the former Chaffey Landfill in Huntsville, requires an accelerated approach to fully assess and evaluate the environmental conditions associated with the site (i.e., groundwater quality, surface water quality, subsurface bedrock profile, etc.) which will be used to design mitigation measures,” according to the report to committee.
Staff were recommending that the contract go to Watermark because the company had already done work on the site and knows the history of what’s been done there, which would help avoid duplication. Committee approved staff’s recommendation.
You can find the staff report HERE.
Major work was also conducted on the site in 2017. The Chaffey Landfill, formerly owned and operated by the Town of Huntsville, ceased operations in 1982. The District took over responsibility for the site in 2014.
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Henk Rietveld: I’m with you. Has this expense been there over the past 40 years or has it just magically appeared? Is this a one-time thing or an annual cost? Will it similarly appear for other sites? Because since the site was sealed over 4 decades ago, what’s been happening, other than decomposition below ground and weather above?
In the intervening years, I would have thought that all the water monitor sites had been drilled and all the gas domes installed to allow for the necessary testing. Unless something fails, I’m sure the readouts for these positions are available remotely, without even having to leave a desk. So what’s new?
If someone has been doing this monitoring up to the present (somebody must have been!) why do we need a contractor now? $600,000.00 is a fair bundle of change to read some printouts.
I find the comment on “subsurface bedrock profile” to be rather peculiar. Why is it so interesting now after 40 years? It’s been down there since the earth’s mantle cooled and it was scraped over by glaciers. We know it’s there and other than blasting (and can’t we do that in Huntsville!), there’s not much we can do about it. Why would we?
But our district government seems to be able to imagine problems. Like “site characterization”. Might I suggest flat, weedy and sandy with a lot of garbage underneath. Or ” remedial feasibility project”. To what end? Not a housing project I hope!!
Another 600 grand thrown at a question mark? Only in Muskoka you say!
Don’t poke a sleeping dragon with a stick! The Ravenscliffe landfill was decommissioned, covered, etc. some forty years ago. Why the sudden interest, and at a cost of some $700K? Who benefits, and why? This site doesn’t seem to be a severe environmental hazard…let alone worth spending that kind of money. Let sleeping dogs lie, and spend our tax dollars on something useful!