Further to the recent…

Further to the recent request for comments from Ministry of Environment and Climate Change (MOECC), City of Barrie appreciates the MOECC initiative to address the excess soil issues and the opportunity to provide comments. City staff has undertaken a review of the outlined documents related to EBR posting 013-0299 and provide the following comments and concerns:

• Impacts of timing for phasing in. It does not appear that a training timeline has been clearly established. Training will be imperative, to ensure that those utilizing the new Regulations and supporting documents have a clear understanding of how to implement. This process will require significant and consistent education to work properly, without this, could be a lot of confusion on how to use the documents. Education would need to apply to Provincial Enforcement Staff, Municipal Staff, Contractors, fill operators, hauling companies, land owners (source site and receiving site);

• Follow up and enforcement is not clearly laid out. Provincial programs should be able to support the compliance monitoring and enforcement of the required ESMP’s. With minimal MOECC Abatement Officers, throughout Ontario, there is a concern that with more rules and regulations in place and lack of enforcement presence, it could lead to increased non-compliance and illegal fill disposal sites, throughout Municipalities. Ultimately, this could lead to additional workload and financial pressure on the Municipality. Please clarify how the Province intends to monitor and enforce these new requirements;

• There should be final closure process identified, such as a final signoff by the QP;

• How will the transportation of excess soil across several municipalities, before it reaches the receiving site, be dealt with from an enforcement perspective;

• Municipal “hard” infrastructure, all physical structures, facilities and corridors related to public highways, railways, transit lines, sewage and water service systems, stormwater management systems are included in the documents. However, there is no mention of municipal drain and maintenance of those drains. There should be consideration on how this type of maintenance will be addressed. The cleanout of a Municipal drain can result in significant excess soil. The maintenance of municipal drains is a legal obligation that a municipality has under the Drainage Act and depending on the number of drains located in a municipality, if the same process is applied, it could lead to significant costs and delays. It should be considered to add Municipal drain maintenance as an exemption under the regulation by adding it to the category of infrastructure repair. Better clarity should be provided on the definition of stormwater management, one could argue that municipal drain maintenance and ditch cleanout would fall under the category of stormwater management;

• Further to Municipal Drain statement, the Municipality may also maintain roadside ditches, which may also generate excess soil; this should also be considered as an exemption. There needs to be a clear definition provided for “routine maintenance for municipalities”;

• Financial implications need to be considered and analyzed, prior to implementation: this process will add financial burden to projects, including, municipal capital budgets, administrative costs, Management Plans prepared by QP;

• The QP is defined as a P.Eng with a license or a Geoscientist with a license. The QP should be further required to have a minimum of 5 years of experience in field of soils analysis, and that the ESMP be signed and stamped by the QP;

• The Transition provisions would be included in the proposed Excess Soil Reuse Regulation that would take into consideration projects that are substantially planned, approved or underway, no timeline was provided and should be made available;

• Municipalities will be challenged to find a suitable receiving sites or even temporary storage sites, while meeting the requirements in the regulations. This may lead to delays in projects as staff are to ensure the compatibility with quality of excess soils;

• Mention of new pilot projects and new technology testing is underway related to stormwater pond sediment reuse, electronic soil transport tracking systems, soil banks and solidification agents for liquid soil. Circulation of additional details on these pilots, and the performance results, would be helpful;

• Conditional building permits to address “applicable law” under the Building Code and would reference the applicable section of the Excess Soil Management Reuse Regulation. The Ontario Building Code might be the last process in a project approval. The implementation of this procedure may be better suited through the Planning or detailed Engineering design approval process;

• The proposed Regulations indicates that excess soil will not be considered waste used within 90 days after it is transferred to the receiving site (that is not an infrastructure project). It should be made clear if this also includes large-scale development sites that go on for many years like subdivision development sites. These types of development sites will often strip soil and stockpile for a period of time that can often exceed 90 days. If the Municipality has a soil use by-law, could this condition be exempted;

• Excess soil should also include topsoil but not products like Granular A and Granular B. Further detailed clarification should be provided on these types of material;

• The documents are a little unclear about whether a municipality is exempt from all projects that we would deem as regular maintenance or repair of infrastructure or new infrastructure as most municipal projects would fall into this category. There should be a clear understanding for requirements related to Municipal projects, more detail required in documents (repair vs. replacement);

• Will there be any type of cost recovery or funding tools available for agencies that administer, implement and enforce;

• Clarity should be provided on the use of “instruments” and Municipal “By-laws, there still needs to be Municipal control over haul routes and other related concerns;

• Clear definition of “Settlement Area” should be provided in the document;

• Will stop work orders and set fines be established and enforced at the Provincial level:

• How will smaller volumes of fill, under 1000 cubic metres be dealt with;

• There are concerns that projects that generate under 100 cubic metres need to be sent to a landfill to become exempt from the ESMP, cumulatively, this can also lead to larger concerns as the landfills become filled with soil instead of the intended use, for garbage;

• There should be consideration given to looking more closely at the excess soil issues facing Toronto and surrounding areas and how it is affecting the Hwy 400 corridor municipalities. Much of the excess soil concerns and non-compliance matters stem from fill being imported and dumped on properties to the north of Toronto;

• How will the on-line registry be monitored for compliance, to ensure that all parties are using it in a consistent manner;

• If the Province does choose to delegate the on-line registry to a third party, as mentioned in the documents, how will this be funded, this should not become the responsibility of the Municipality;

• Consideration should be given to adding a section that allows for the Municipality to charge fees, associated with the administration of the Regulation;

• There is a requirement to input a great deal of information into the on-line registry, which will require additional staff resources, at a cost to the municipality. Will this be a real-time registry that receives regular updated information;

• Will the on-line registry be available to municipal staff and the public for viewing? If so, have FOI concerns been discussed;

• Most Conservation Authorities also have Fill Guidelines, specific mention should be made to these documents;

• Confirmation/clarification should be provided on excess soil stored at a municipal works yard and landfills, would this be considered a TESSS? Additional clarification , and examples, should be provided on approval process related to temporary sites and processing sites;

• Typically, Regulations will have an enforcement and penalty section, which is not apparent in the new proposed Regulations. At the present time, there is no indication as to what the possible repercussions will be, related to non-compliance of the Regulation;

• Properties may change ownership several time, how will this be addressed as it relates to the requirement to keep records for 5 years, by the receiving site owners.