To whom it may concern, This…

To whom it may concern,
This note is to express my concern for the health and safety of our community should the proposed legislation to revoke Ontario Regulation 284/24: Designation-Chatham-Kent Waste Disposal Site and Amend the Environmental Assessment Act to exempt the project for York 1 Waste Disposal.
Brief History: One Kilometer from the town of Dresden there is a dormant, small landfill site, which was used in 1980 to dump fly ash from the town’s garbage incinerator. The license said 95 per cent of what was to be landfilled would be the ash. Some time after that the land was used on a small scale to recycle wood and the owner was to bring only 75 tonnes of other waste per day to the site.
York1, has purchased the dormant landfill site and additional farm land with plans to expand, bringing up to 6,000 tonnes of soil and 1000 tonnes of waste a day from construction and demolition sites. This huge amount of material will either be recycled or landfilled.

Dresden is a small town of 2,400 people, complete with everything a small town needs. There are two schools in the town. Dresden is also the historical site of Uncle Tom's Cabin (often visited by international tours), and more recently has made the top ten Outdoor Festivals to visit in Ontario list. It's really a vibrant little town. The rural residents and town residents work diligently to have the community live up to the tag name of Christmas Town and Dresden Shines.
Dresden is home to Conagra, a large tomato-processing plant -processing around 140 tons of tomatoes annually. Farm machinery and tomato wagons often frequent the community/county roads as you would expect in a farming community.

The site chosen by York1 is right beside Molly's Creek. Molly's Creek directly drains into the Sydenham River. This river is home to several aquatic species of which nineteen are identified as Species at Risk. Some of the mussels in the Sydenham River are found nowhere else in Canada, if not globally.
Below is a link for exact info from the SCRCA (St Clair Region Conservation Authority) regarding the Species at Risk from a 2018 newsletter … copy and paste to find and read it.
scrca.on.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/SAR-Newsletter-2018.pdf
York1 said at a recent information session they do not require an Environmental Assessment as the landfill was already existing - even though they plan to move the landfill site, expand it, and change the usage of it. They commented they only need an assessment if it is "new". They are piggy backing onto an old permit trying to take a short cut.

On display at the recent town hall mtg was York1's limited hydrology exhibit which upon questioning showed that the proposed storm ponds would indeed overflow during one those hundred-year rain events, going directly into Molly's Creek, which in turn empties into the Sydenham only 1 km or so away. We have had some of those rain events over the past few years and as we all know these events are occurring way more than once in a hundred years, especially w climate change. It would be absurd to think a waste site of soil and recycling materials from construction would not contaminate the waterways via any surface drainage. Who knows what could be in construction waste? It’s not just timber and concrete but asbestos and electrical materials. And so many composite materials w various glues for example. The other aspect of this is that rural community residents have water wells. What is to prevent local water wells from consequential contamination?

I ask that you please review and act to the best of your ability on my concerns. The fact that the provincial government would go ahead with this project without an environmental assessment requirement for the York 1 waste disposal site is shocking to me. To go ahead with this project is not only irresponsible it is reprehensible. Surely the health and welfare of the people and the endangered species in this area are as important as the premiers dealings with tariffs and time to seek a space not located right beside a community and its waterways.