I am opposed to relaxing any…

I am opposed to relaxing any requirements regarding landfill sites. If an environmental issue is created it can be massive amounts of money for remedial costs, years to resolve and damage water resources, possibly for many years. I am going to give you an example of what our council has done in this township. Everything in this can be verified by looking at the agendas and minutes of council meetings and reviewing the Official Plan. All of these are available on the Oliver Paipoonge website. The address is https://oliverpaipoonge.ca/. 

Oliver Paipoonge council approved rezoning bylaw ZBLA 05-2025 on Nov 12/25. I submitted an objection. My points raised concerns with 2 members of council however 3 members voted to pass the bylaw. This involved rezoning roughly 120 acres of land. About 90 acres was Light Industrial and the remainder Open Space. All of this land was rezoned to Disposal Industrial. Schedule C of the Official Plan is titled Development Constraints and the entire 120 acres is mapped as a Highly Vulnerable Aquifer (HVA) on that schedule C map. In that Official Plan section 3.16.1 defines sensitive areas and an HVA is one of them. Further in the Official Plan, section 3.30.3,  it says that these sensitive areas are PROHIBITED from being used as landfills. Prohibited is a strong word. And that map title, Development Constraints, appears to tie water related environmental issues to future development. Obviously the environmental concerns expressed in the Official Plan did not matter to those 3 members of council or administration that recommended it.  Here are the quotes from the Official Plan:

Section 3.16.1 defines sensitive groundwater resources:

Sensitive groundwater resources include Wellhead Protection Areas (WHPAs), highly vulnerable acquifers (HVAs), and significant groundwater recharge areas.

Section 3.30.3 it says the following:

Due to the potential for adverse impact on groundwater resources, additional waste disposal sites shall be prohibited from locating on land within areas considered to be sensitive groundwater aquifer areas when identified. 

In 2017 the consultant that did the water testing for the twsp made a recommendation that additional land be purchased to the east of the landfill site. This appears to be based on levels of some contaminants exceeding RUC guidelines in some wells, mainly along the east boundary. The twsp did purchase the land to the east later that year or very early in 2018, 8 years ago. However there has never been an additional monitoring well established on that land in that 8 year period. Here is the portion from that report (Report 2017.89)   (Executive Summary page 2 Recommendations bullet point 2):

Review the potential for acquiring additional lands to the east and south of the property to establish a Contaminant Attenuation Zone (CAZ) in order to provide sufficient attenuation of leachate and reduce the potential for off-site impacts. Additional monitoring wells would be required within the CAZ to determine compliance with RUC.

One of the contaminants mentioned was lead. We have all heard of issues with lead but the other was vinyl chloride. I do not have any environmental background so I had to check and see what harm, if any, was involved. I was surprised to find that Health Canada has no safe level for vinyl chloride. As well there is a recommendation of preventing vinyl chloride from entering aquifers. And the particular well where the vinyl chloride was detected is located on that HVA identified in my second paragraph.

There is another issue regarding this particular landfill site and I have no idea what the outcome will be. It was addressed in an article on Thunder Bay Newswatch on April 28/2026. Here is a link and you should have a look at it:

https://www.tbnewswatch.com/local-news/proposed-highway-runs-through-la…

While some govt procedures may involve things that are viewed as unnecessary red tape I do not think we should be taking chances with environmental issues. I would recommend that any changes to landfills must be done by qualified individuals trained in the environmental field only. I am recommending this proposal does not receive approval. I would recommend more oversight , not less.

In closing I would like the group reviewing this submission to read the following and take its content into consideration. It is quoted from a govt of Canada publication called Groundwater Contamination.

Contamination can render groundwater unsuitable for use. Although the overall extent of the problem across Canada is unknown, many individual cases of contamination have been investigated such as Ville Mercier in Quebec; the highway de-icing salt problem in Nova Scotia; industrial effluents in Elmira, Ontario; various pesticides in the Prairie provinces; industrial contamination in Vancouver, British Columbia; and so on. In many cases, contamination is recognized only after groundwater users have been exposed to potential health risks. The cost of cleaning up contaminated water supplies is usually extremely high.

Contamination problems are increasing in Canada primarily because of the large and growing number of toxic compounds used in industry and agriculture. In rural Canada, scientists suspect that many household wells are contaminated by substances from such common sources as septic systems, underground tanks, used motor oil, road salt, fertilizer, pesticides, and livestock wastes. Scientists also predict that in the next few decades more contaminated aquifers will be discovered, new contaminants will be identified, and more contaminated groundwater will be discharged into wetlands, streams and lakes.

Once an aquifer is contaminated, it may be unusable for decades. The residence time, as noted earlier, can be anywhere from two weeks or 10 000 years.