Residents plan human chain to protest Dresden landfill development
They say the event aims to show how close the facility is to the town
Opponents of a landfill that's slated to open next to the community of Dresden are planning to form a human chain on Sunday to show just how close the dump is to the community.
One organizer estimates they'll need at least 400 people to do it.
"It's right across the road from some of the houses, and it's also only 800 metres, I believe, from the high school," said co-organizer Jodi-Lynn Janess.
She hopes the hour-long event, which starts at 1 p.m., will see people joining hands and praying for the land and for the water, she said.
The human chain is the latest in a series of actions taken by community members in and around Dresden to protest the development by York1. The site, which was once a landfill, has been idled for decades.
They say they're concerned about the possibility of asbestos blowing in the air, toxins leaching into Molly's Creek and the Sydenham River and heavy trucks damaging the roads around the community.
Ontario over-reliant on U.S. landfills, premier says
The company proposes expanding the landfill site to cover 25 hectares and receive 6,000 tonnes of construction and demolition waste each day.
It told CBC in a June statement it plans to use the site to turn clean wood into mulch, compost, and raw materials for particleboard and paper manufacturing; to turn mixed wood waste into alternative low-carbon fuels; and to prepare rock and rubble for use in cement and concrete production, aggregate replacement in construction, base for sports fields or running tracks and decorative use in landscaping.
Premier Doug Ford says his government is committed to the project because of an over-reliance on U.S. landfills at a time of deteriorating Canada-U.S. relations.
The Ford government passed Bill 5 in June, which exempts "specified activities relating to the Chatham-Kent waste disposal site" from the need for an environmental assessment.
The protesters are calling for the repeal of Bill 5 and the reinstatement of the environmental assessment process for the project.
"This is 6,000 tonnes of garbage coming a day from Toronto — 700 trucks, which our infrastructure cannot hold," said human chain co-organizer Luanne Deline.
"We have trouble now with our farms and our tractors and wagons coming out just to get on the highway to get to the mills. … We cannot handle another 700 trucks a day, 24 hours a day, every day. And because there's not a lot of insight, and there won't be now without an environmental assessment, we don't know what's really going on there. No one knows."
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks told CBC in a statement the project "will still undergo extensive environmental processes and remain subject to strong provincial oversight and other regulatory requirements."
Those, it said, include environmental compliance approvals (ECA) under the Environmental Protection Act (EPA) and the Ontario Water Resources Act (OWRA).
"Ontario exports nearly 40 per cent of its waste to the United States, and it is anticipated our landfills, as they stand, will be full within the next decade," the statement read.
"The York 1 waste project, located just outside of Dresden, presented a unique opportunity to increase internal waste management capacity, ensure long-term stability, and reduce reliance on international systems - as it is an active landfill site and already has waste permissions."
Asked whether the battle against the landfill is a lost cause given that the province has already passed Bill 5, human chain co-organizer Wendy Vercauteren said she's an optimist.
"It is not unheard of for bills to be repealed because of public outcry," she told CBC's Windsor Morning.
"Until the project is actually started, we're not giving up the fight."
Deline pointed to the government's reversal on developing the Greenbelt lands near Toronto as an example of a successful public campaign.
"There's no point in giving up," she said.
"It's a small town. We have a beautiful small town, and we want it to stay like it is."
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
