Monday, June 17, 2019 Thank…

Monday, June 17, 2019
Thank you for this opportunity for Citizens Against Fill-Dumping and Neighbourhood Connections, grass-root groups based in Town of Erin, to comment on the Excess Soil Management Regulatory Proposal.
The struggle to place the excavation of excess soil due to market building demands continues and is deeply felt in scenic, rural Ontario. Convoy of dump trucks now is a common sight on our roads, making their way to a disposal site, very often rural fields.
Fill dumping has been a reality in rural Town of Erin, Wellington County for decades. In 2013, it became obvious to residents that this is environmentally damaging to our neighbourhoods. There was NO controls/policy regulating the thriving fill-disposal industry. Our neighbourhoods organized to bring awareness of this escalating problem which impacted gravely on our lifestyle to the municipal and provincial politicians. Some sites receive hundreds of trucks a day, to the frustration of neighbours. Most of these rural sites have never been tested. Besides, noise, dust, traffic nuisance issues, there is a real fear that the soil dumped is contaminated, eventually making its way to the aquifer, affecting the groundwater and threatening our agricultural viability.
This unregulated fill dumping problem has received wide-spread public and media attention. It affects countless Ontario communities. Working with stakeholders to produce a series of drafts, MOECC (now MECP) has worked hard to develop an Excess Soil package, posted on the Environmental Registry of Ontario as EBR 013-5000 May 1, 2019.
The proposal focuses on sustainable excess soil management and reuse. It aims to protect human health and the environment as well as increase opportunities for the beneficial reuse of excess soil. I strongly support the Regulation and Soil Rules which states that excess soil brought to any reuse site must have an intended reuse. If not, it is considered waste and needs an ECA or needs to go to an alternate waste ECA disposal site. Groups like ours need this tool to shut down the pop-up commercial fill operations and put MECP in charge of monitoring and enforcing large scale fill operations that are actually soil disposal sites.
The basic premise of the regulatory framework is that the source site of the soil is responsible for the ultimate disposal of the soil, retaining responsibility for the soil throughout the process. The regulations will cover the soil in the source site and its transportation to the receiving site. Excess soil is considered waste from when it leaves the source site to when the receiving site accepts it. As a “waste”, MECP has powers to regulate it as it moves through temporary soil storage, soil banks, soil processors, and the trucking system. Again, this is a valuable tool for grass-root groups. The regulations specify the testing at the source site, the creation of a soil management plan, tracking the loads, the time in temporary locations, and the information to go in to a public registry.
The Excess Soil Management Plan is essential to the process. It includes a declaration by the project leader and a declaration by the Qualified Person who prepare the plan. The ESMP must include a declaration from the owner of the source site that acknowledges responsibility for the excess soil until it is deposited at a waste disposal site or has been deemed to no longer be a waste. The receiving site owner (often resident) must also provide declaration of acknowledgement of what is being received. This chain of declarations speaks clearly to accountability of all involved in the process.
The proposed regulations require an Excess Soil Management Plan be prepared for sites with potential contamination. It must be registered. The Plan would include the quantity and quality of the soil and the location of the receiving sites. Loads are to be tracked to the receiving sites. Excess Soil Management Plans and tracking records must be held and be audited by the government.
The provincial standards should determine the removal of waste designation at the receiving site. The Soil Rules should be the standard in all cases for removing the “waste” designation. Municipalities do not have equal access to financial and personnel resources; thus, when it comes to regulating fill in their jurisdiction, they may permit when they shouldn’t. Often, they lack expertise and or enforcement as is the case in the Town of Erin. Our municipality is not alone. At minimum, the permit must clearly state in public documents that the issuing body is aware that the soil standards they set allow higher levels of contamination than what MECP has determined to be protective of the environment and human health.
The province must not assume that soil from processing facilities that remediate soil according to the MOECC’s granted Environment Compliance Approvals are adequately remediated. There needs to be ministry oversight (random audits).
It is vital that Regulations (section 17?) does not allow receiving sites that have accepted contaminated soils to circumvent a waste designation for their soils by processing their soil on site, changing itself from a receiving site into a processing site. Problematic sites should not be ‘Grandfathered” going forth.
Quantitative trigger must stay at 1,000m3. We have experienced residents who have continually brought in the acceptable amount each year, year after year in the circumvention of the municipal Site Alteration By-law. Over time, a stockpile of untested soil becomes part of the residential property and unsuspecting prospective buyers don’t know any better until an issue arises. Are these untested sites to be “grandfathered”?
The amendment of the Municipal Act to allow municipal Site Alteration By-laws be applied in the regulated areas of the Conservation Authorities was a welcomed and efficient Enforcement change for municipalities like Town of Erin where a great many properties are under the dual jurisdiction of the municipality and a Conservation agency.
Agricultural sustainability is important for many communities. The Rules document should recommend a requirement for agronomist consultation on the depth and quality for excess soil. OMAFRA fact sheet re: importation of excess soil should be consulted and be part of Soil reg. “Best Practices”.
The regulations give a lot of responsibility and judgement to the Qualified Person. QP position is critical to the success of the proposed regulations. Most importantly, knowledgeable, competent and professional QPs will greatly improve public confidence of fill industry. Rigourous training of subject specific knowledge on excess soil regs and procedures and QP status certification must be requirements. Unless a licenced engineer or geoscientist has specialized training in soil regulations and procedures, he/she will be inadequate in the role. The government must insist that the engineer/geoscientist governing bodies develop a QP specific program as part of their future degree program or provide additional supplementary courses for QP professional designation. There has been little indication of responsible stewardship from the fill industry to date. We need to see strong recommendations from Ministry regarding the qualifications and training requirements of QP.
Public access to information on the excess soil website is essential since it is still the municipalities, with the help of residents, who will be responsible for catching illegal dumpers and monitoring the receiving sites and enforcing their Site Alteration By-laws. Access should not be restricted to municipalities and authorities who have an interest in a reuse site. The public should have access. The information should include the address or location of the receiving site. This information needs to be current.
Public education is vital to the implementation and success of these regulations. Public awareness and understanding of the new regulations and its positive environmental impact will empower the public to compel their municipality (through legitimate complaints) to take environmental stewardship seriously.
The municipalities have a major role to plan in the process. Local politicians must foster the political will to do the right thing by their residents. A comprehensive and enforceable municipal Site Alteration By-law is critical to success.
In the town of Erin, more and more pits are popping up. Also, many pits are depleted. Some of these pits have been mined below water table. Once pits are mined out, they are often illegally filled with untested soil. Often, an application for “agricultural reclamation” follows as means of circumvention. This is an appropriate time for the Regulations to deal with excess soil being dumped into aggregate sites. At the very least, supervisors at these sites should be directed to follow the Soil Rules and requirements for a QP at the receiving site, to consider the effect of salt impacted soils on possible future subdivision sites and to require farm plans if farming use is truly contemplated.
When asked, Wellington County’s focus is “on proposed policy and regulatory changes related to land use planning (Bill 66, Bill 71 and 108) and changes to provincial Growth Plan. County does not regulate fill and does not have expertise to engage in issues related to excess soil. It is however, aware of proposed regulatory changes.” Town of Erin continues to review its Site Alteration By-laws and follows County lead on fill. Our situation is common among municipalities.
Following are a few comments and observations:
• Effective & efficient if all municipalities adopted a minimum standardized Municipal Site Alteration By-law so when fill goes from municipality to municipality there is no obstacle regarding enforcement/infrastructure repair costs.
• It continues to be the municipalities that are responsible for catching illegal dumpers and monitoring the receiving sites and enforcing their by-laws. Need for enforcement funding and by-law development support from province
• would like to see strong wording advising municipalities retain their own QP at the expense of the proponent of the receiving site in order to do their due diligence and ensure quality and placement of soil. This demonstrate transparency and accountability to public.
• The regulation of the receiving site is under the municipal jurisdiction through Site Alteration By-laws & Enforcement By-laws. Need for strong enforceable By-laws.
• A Traffic and Transportation Management Plan for the source and reuse sites is good for alleviating administration issues. Truck traffic passing through source site to a receiving site outside the municipal boundaries can have substantial impacts at the local level. The Plan would address issues such as the location and design of site entrances, truck queuing and parking, dust control and mud-tracking prevention/truck cleaning, haul routes between project areas, reuse sites, temporary soil storage sites.
I would like to thank this MECP team for its commitment, dedication and hard work in developing a comprehensive, workable and enforceable set of regs on excess soil. The technical changes (soil) are complex and well reflected. Thank you for your leadership in dealing with this continuing problematic issue.
The proposed regulations are long overdue to control the fill industry. The regs will provide municipalities and public watchdog groups much needed tools to keep the fill industry honest. It is a good change.
As grass-root groups, it is of the utmost importance that we know the government takes the stewardship of the environment as seriously as residents do.
We ask that the government recognize that residents’ needs are just as important as the lobbying stakeholders’ at the table. I’ve seen pushback from those stakeholders whose bottom line is the almighty dollar indicating some of the proposed reg changes are too onerous an undertaking. I say public health and welfare and environmental stewardship are priorities worth the undertakings. Please stand your ground, MECP.
From experience in our municipality Town of Erin, we know fill receivers will be pushing through problematic practices before regs are official. We hope that once the regs are passed in Jan 2020, there will be no grandfathering of bad practices/problematic, likely contaminated sites.
From our grass-root perspective, we need tools provided by the regulations as quickly as possible to make changes of how business is carried out: accountable tracking system, public on-line site registry, public awareness campaigns, access to certified Qualified Person, stronger enforcement tools that we can access.
Generally, the public trust on the handling of fill by the industry and government has been minimal to date. With better tools from upcoming regulations on excess soil/fill dumping, we hope the industry and municipalities will be forced to be responsible and introduce important changes to how business is done.
Anna Spiteri, Erin resident, member of Citizens Against Fill Dumping & Neighbourhood Connections