This is our second comment -…

This is our second comment - including some information that we received from York1 at a meeting on March 1, 2024

My family lives on a farm approximately 5 km to the southeast of this proposed landfill site on 29831 Irish School Road. Our concern is that York1 through the amendment to ECA#A020401 for a 0.8 hectare dump, plans to increase the site to 25 hectares waste processing facility. The original ECA created was for the original dump opened over 40 years ago for the town of Dresden, NOT for the province of Ontario. And it was only used for the town of Dresden to bring ashes from its’ incinerator piled at this landfill site. With all the concerns of the environment over that last few decades, how does it make sense to allow this amendment to go through? We do not profess to be an expert when it comes to Environmental Regulations, but in reviewing the Environmental Assessment Requirements Waste Management Projects does York1 not have to at least go through the Environmental Screening Process?

These are our concerns that we want to be heard:

Air - potential asbestos in the construction materials being recycled at this facility becoming airborne. Yes, they can say that they won't receive material containing asbestos, but how will residents in the area know until it's too late and people are becoming ill because oops, there was some asbestos. At the open house on March 1, York1 explained that any material with potential asbestos must be doubled bagged, then trucked to the Irish Road facility, sorted and shipped out to a facility in Michigan that handles asbestos. Our question is – why not ship directly from the demolition site to the Michigan facility? Why risk the possibility of the “double bagged” material being punctured? What about the smell coming from the facility? Maybe not from the construction materials, but what about the 1000 tonnes of residual waste material being received at this facility? This location is roughly 2 km from the downtown core of Dresden, but there are many residential homes and businesses that are closer than 2 km. How can an ECA from 40 years ago, which allowed for incineration of waste from the town of Dresden, be now able to receive 7000 tonnes of material/day. Is there not some sort of distance requirement for landfill/waste processing plants to be so far from a town/city? I found this article regarding the fight the Town of Ingersoll went through to give the municipality some say in the decision of whether they would allow a landfill in their area. “The impact of landfills cross municipal boundaries: traffic, air pollution, dust, and watershed concerns. The new legislation lets municipalities choose how they want that landfill to be developed and operated, giving equal powers of approval to any municipality that is within 3.5 kilometres of a proposed site”.

Noise - truck traffic - for the amount of construction material waste you are proposing to bring into this facility, that will be anywhere from 100-500+ trucks/day on the roads in our community. What will be the truck route to the facility? I asked the VP at the March 1 session what the plan would be and he indicated that they would have to do a traffic study. I suggested that York1 do their study in the months of April-June and August-October. He asked why…..This is a farming community and on top of normal traffic in the area, there are hundreds of tractors pulling planters, tillage equipment and then tractors pulling wagons full of grain or tomatoes to our local processing plant and grain elevator. Fall brings Combines, wagons, and more tillage equipment. All of these pieces of equipment run under the posted speed limit as they are considered “slow moving vehicles”. The main street running through the town of Dresden is 2 lanes. Are you going to drive semi trucks/trailers on the 2 lane street, passing by an elementary and secondary school? Some of the alternate routes in the area have half-load laws in the spring.
Is York1 willing to pay for the road repairs because the roads in this area, especially through the town are not designed for that volume of truck traffic ? Is York1 going to replace the bridge in downtown Dresden because again, it was never designed to handle the weights of trucks carrying 40 tonnes of material coming through every 5 minutes (or whatever their suggested volume is)? Is York1 willing to pay to build wider roads leading to their facility? What about the families that live right beside, across from this location - what level of noise will they incur? 24/7 - again, what will be the noise pollution from trucks travelling in this area 24 hours a day? Why does the facility have to run 24/7....can it not just run during regular business hours?

Environmental - living right on the Sydenham river, we watch a group of students come every year to count mussels in the river. This is just one of more than 80 species located in the Sydenham which the Molly’s Creek located behind the proposed location feeds in to. We also know the hoops we had to go through with the Ministry of Environment to draw water from this river to irrigate our crops. Why should York1 just come in here and increase the size of the site and think it’s ok. Yes, they will dig large holes, with lining so as not to leak into the soil, again, how will the area residents know if maybe the lining gets punctured from the equipment used at the facility? Does York1 know they are locating on a flood plain? Yes, they have a supposed plan to deal with the leachate, but what happens if/when that plan fails? What about the families in the area, who have had their water wells impacted just from the testing that has gone on to date?
York1’s document provided at the open house on March 1 indicated that their “application is for an existing .8 hectare landfill for disposal of non-hazardous solid construction and demolition waste from industrial, commercial, institutional, and municipal sectors from Dresden (within the municipality of Chatham-Kent)”. Not sure if York1 one has even driven through Dresden to know that there is very little construction/demolition that goes on here. And if they travel through the wider municipality of Chatham-Kent, they would again see that there is not a lot of industrial/commercial construction/demolition going on, so where is the 6000 tonnes/day of material coming from?

Mental Health/Well being - how will this impact this small farming community. Will parents feel comfortable letting their children cross the main street to attend school, knowing there are over 500 semi truckloads of waste, weighing over 40 tonnes will be able to stop when the crosswalk lights go on? What about the school busses running in the area twice a day from 6:30-9:30 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. to 4:3 p.m. daily for 10 months? Will the farmers driving their crops to the tomato processing facility, or local grain facility feel like they have these same trucks breathing down their tractor/wagon necks? What about the local funeral home/cemetery - would you want your loved ones funeral service to sound like it's being held out on the 401? Again, why run 24/7 operation? How disturbing will this be to the families in and around Dresden?

Property Values – would you want to move to a town knowing that there is a landfill on the outskirts of the town? What about all the families living in the town, will they be able to sell their homes?

Does it really make sense for the volume of truck traffic to drive down county roads and town streets to the facility? Why wouldn't this type of facility be closer to the 401 corridor like the London landfill. Why does the municipality of Chatham-Kent have any say in what happens on this property? Why does it seem that York1 is hiding things from the community?

Thank you for your time in reading our concerns.