CWS Warwick Landfill Expansion Proposal Opposed
Warwick
Watford Landfill Committee (WWLC)
CWS proposes to expand the current 100-acre site now serving
South Western Ontario to over 300 acres for an all-Ontario certificate.
For the next 25
years, 23.5 million cubic metres of Ontario garbage would be landfilled, approximately 130 feet high and 45 feet deep.
Warwick Watford Landfill
Committee Position
The Warwick Watford Landfill Committee
(WWLC) opposes the CWS landfill expansion. We are an independent, community-based
organization founded in 1988 in opposition to an earlier landfill expansion by Laidlaw Waste Systems. We believe the CWS expansion has the potential to affect negatively the economic, social, environmental
quality of life in the village of Watford (pop. 1,600), and Warwick Township (600 households), rural communities in Lambton
County.
Canadian
Waste Services Proposal
ˇ Canadian
Waste Services expansion proposal is a business decision. The Warwick expansion
will meet CWS business objectives for the internalization of the revenue from these wastes.
It is a business decision at the potential expense of the Warwick Watford citizens.
CWS
Offers No Alternatives to a Mega-landfill
ˇ CWS
will not consider alternatives to expanding the Warwick landfill because
CWS must remain competitive in the Ontario marketplace,
believes increasing waste diversion
is not a reasonable solution to our current needs, would rather build upon the community and facility infrastructure in Warwick than consider diversion and sustainability.
ˇ
Our site has served
a region of South Western Ontario since 1971, and our community has done its share in waste management. If anything we should be talking about closing the Warwick site when the current Certificate of Approval
expires and preparing for long-term leachate management and site maintenance not expanding the site for the entire province. It is time other communities took their turn and became responsible for their own
waste management, particularly Toronto.
ˇ The community has real concerns around leachate treatment and management and the potential impacts on our ground
water, especially on the agricultural area surrounding the site. Landfill sites have the potential to pose long-term
risks to the environment and can leave municipalities and the taxpayers with overwhelming long-term maintenance and remediation
costs. Companies can and do go out of business, environmental and engineering
accidents do happen, leaving the local community and provincial governments ultimately responsible for the site leachate management
and treatment, closure and maintenance for the future.
ˇ Economic and
environmental risks can be limited with improved waste management of existing sites and increased waste diversion. The community and the province will both be better served if CWS were required to conserve the site capacity
it now owns across Ontario, if urban centres were prevented from shipping their garbage to rural Ontario,
and CWS were required to demonstrate legitimate, environmental need for any expanded capacity, and a commitment to diversion.
Site Impacts
ˇ The
increased traffic, noise, dust, and odour involved with such a huge operation have the potential to pose serious risks to
our local environment and quality of life. The heavy truck traffic anticipated
with this site poses considerable impacts on the traffic patterns and road conditions of the surrounding highways. Road repair alone could be significant, given that CWS proposes to maintain only Zion Line between Highway
79 and the entrance to the landfill.
ˇ Each day, six days a week,
from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., trucks will haul 2,400 tonnes of garbage to the site
ˇ Every
2.5 minutes, a garbage truck travelling on Nauvoo Road, (Highway 79, the main route to the village of Watford off Highway
402) will be turning on, speeding up, braking, slowing, and turning off.
ˇ Toronto Garbage: The site is targeted
specifically for Torontos garbage. CWS would haul 750,000 million tonnes annually
under a provincial certificate, for 25 years.
ˇ Monopoly: Having bought out Laidlaw and Philip Environmental in 1996, CWS now stands
as the largest and most controlling waste management company in the province. With
the exception of a few smaller private operations and municipally owned sites, CWS has created a potential monopoly on providing
landfill services in the province.
ˇ Diversion: This waste disposal monopoly has the potential to affect negatively the
economics of waste management and diversion strategies across the province. CWS
makes it clear in both their written and public statements that diversion is not their business and 3Rs are the responsibility
of the generator. The Terms of Reference address diversion in less than three
sentences.