DRESDEN – An open house Friday night to discuss a proposed recycling and landfill project to located a kilometer north of here raised questions about when Chatham-Kent officials knew about the project.
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Just days after Chatham-Kent council unanimously passed a resolution to oppose in principle a regenerative recycling facility and landfill project being pursued by York1 Environmental Waste Solutions on a 35 hectare (86 acre) former landfill site near Dresden, many residents attending the open house were told Chatham-Kent officials were first approached by the company in late 2021.
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George Kirchmair, a vice-president with York1, said the company first reached out to Chatham-Kent in December 2021 asking for a meeting with the mayor, councilors and staff “to discuss our plans for the Dresden landfill and to discuss the host community agreement. ”
He added this led to a Skype meeting on Feb. 14, 2022 “and we’ve had numerous correspondences and phone calls and meetings since that time.”
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He said the outreach in December 2021 came as the company was becoming aware of the Dresden site and was beginning its due diligence process.
“We’re still early in the process,” Kirchmair said. “The way this works is it starts with the provincial process.”
He said the Dresden landfill was purchased in December 2022 and the property came with two existing provincial permits for waste disposal.
“The first step in the process is to update the existing provincial permits and that’s where we are now.”
York1 has two applications amend the existing provincial permits on the site at 29831 Irish School Rd., formerly Highway 21. The first is for a regenerative recycling facility to accept up to 6,000 tonnes a day of non-hazardous solid waste, including construction and demolition waste and excess soil for beneficial reuse.
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The proposal also seeks to permit indoor storage of 1,800 tons of material and outdoor storage of 3,000 tons of materials and 30,0000 tons of unprocessed soils.
The second application has been filed with the MECP to amend the landfill permit to allow for an eight hectare (20 acre) landfill with a proposed capacity of 1.62 million cubic meters of waste with a maximum fill rate of 365,000 tonnes a year, an average of 1,000 tonnes a day.
Mayor Darrin Canniff said during the Feb. 26 council meeting the municipality was only learned about the plan with significant potential environmental and transportation issues through a recent York1 filing to the Environment Ministry.
“The nerves they have coming into our community to do that,” he said. “There’s been zero communication, they’re trying to shove this down our throats and it’s very frustrating.”
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On Friday afternoon, the municipality sent local media a copy of a letter the mayor and council sent to Andrea Khanjin, Minister of Environment, Conservation and Parks, asking York1’s project to be rejected or have the ministry at least increase the scrutiny to require a full environmental assessment take place.
North Kent Coun. Jamie McGrail said there were initial meetings, “but we kept saying, ‘Where’s the plans? What are you doing?’ And they never gave that forward.”
McGrail said conversations happen daily with new people looking to bring business to Chatham-Kent.
“We take them for what they are and if you don’t give us a plan we don’t know what’s going on.”
McGrail said she has met with York1 twice, noting one was a very preliminary meeting.
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She said the initial talk was about recycling, but adding a landfill component was a surprise.
Following the open house Friday, fellow North Kent Coun. Rhonda Jubenville posted a message on the Say No To The Dump Facebook page.
The message, addressed to Dresden and area residents, stated: “I do know there was some confusing and mixed messaging coming from York1 tonight. Just to confirm, to date, York1 has not come to CK council to discuss their plans, or to make applications, or to put forth asks or to offer incentives.”
Kirchmair said York1 hasn’t had an opportunity to make submission to council.
He added, “We haven’t been asked to make a submission to council, but we certainly have talked to the mayor and we’ve talked with councilors and we’ve talked to staff.”
He noted the discussions early on “definitely did not have any of the design parameters.”
However, Kirchmair said there were discussions about wanting to have a host community agreement.
“We talked about the landfill and we also subsequently talked about our plans to make it a multi-use, multi-purpose waste management facility,” he added.
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