Re: ERO 019-6708, Ministry…

Re: ERO 019-6708, Ministry Reference Number 5619-CN5RQZ

I own and reside on a farm less than 1 kilometre from the proposed dumping site. I have multiple concerns with the proposal. I believe there will be health risks introduced which will be expensive to mitigate with costs falling to myself and the neighbours, not the applicant.

There is a municipal drain running through the property and continues many kilometres through farm land where water is used directly by livestock and wildlife and indirectly (via ground water sources) by humans. Drainage from the proposed dump site would go into this municipal drain.

The property is a low lying area that is usually wet most of the year. This would result in sewage pumped onto the land having less time to compost and for ground filtration to occur before draining into the municipal drain and into area ground water.

There are ponds on the same lot as the proposed site and there is a pond on the adjacent lot used by livestock.

The proposal is for continuous dumping for approximately 8-9 months of the year on a small 4.46 ha section with no crop to help pull nutrients. This is unlike agriculture spreading of livestock waste which is done before planting a crop with a much lower concentration by spreading over hundreds of hectares.

Human waste presents much higher risks than from agriculture livestock waste as human waste has
significantly higher number of drugs than waste from livestock
significantly higher number of diseases and more dangerous due to human to human spread

The proposed approval requirements are not quantified, have no indications of any limits; have no indications of any accountability.

In summary, the risks from dumping human waste onto vacant land is far too high and should not be done, not even on a small scale.