Warwick Township still wants provincial insurance on landfill expansion EA

About the same time the Twin Creeks landfill near Watford reaches its approved capacity a few years from now, Ontario is expected to be running out of places to dump municipal waste.

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It’s a point on the horizon much on the mind of officials in Warwick Township where WM, previously Waste Management, owns the Twin Creeks landfill and is seeking Ontario’s permission to extend the site’s life for a dozen years after it’s expected to be full by about 2031 .

Opened in 1972 and expanded in 2008, the landfill accepts municipal, industrial, commercial and institutional solid non-hazardous waste, along with non-hazardous contaminated soil, from anywhere in the province.

The date it’s expected to be full is approximately when, according to a 2021 report by Ontario’s Auditor General, the province could begin exhausting its existing landfill capacity.

WM’s plan is working its way through the province’s environmental assessment (EA) process for approving landfill expansions and the company is hosting a public update Wednesday, 4 pm to 8 pm, at Watford’s East Lambton Community Complex.

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For months, Warwick Township, a largely rural municipality of 3,700 residents in Lambton County, has been asking the provincial government to promise WM’s application will go through a full EA process.

“We all know how government sometimes can work,” said Mayor Todd Case.

“There’s nothing stopping the government, the premier or the minister, from signing their name on the dotted line and approving this expansion without the process being complete.”

Other types of environmental assessment processes have been “shortened up by the government,” including for new highways, Case said.

“Our concern always was that there’s nothing stopping the government from coming along and saying, ‘we’re going to shorten up the EA process around landfills, as well,’” he said.

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“To date, they have not,” despite pressure Ontario faces to expand landfill capacityCase said.

Premier Doug Ford’s government passed legislation in 2020 giving municipalities power to veto new landfills but that doesn’t extend to communities, like Warwick, where operating landfills are seeking to expand.

Because of the veto, large municipalities running out of garbage disposal space don’t have to open their own new landfills, putting “even more pressure on a community like ours,” Case said.

“Why should we, a small rural municipality, have to take all the risks for larger municipalities inability to deal with their own waste?”

Waste to Resource Ontario, a landfill industry group, calls the veto granted by the province “the biggest obstacle to increasing capacity.”

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“We’re always mindful the province could approve this EA without it being complete,” Case said.

“That’s the reason why we continue to ask the government to ensure us and guarantee that we will be going through a thorough EA process that takes the time needed. . . for everyone in our community to have their say,” with “no short cuts.”

So far, the government hasn’t cut short the EA or given the township the guarantee it’s seeking.

“We’ve had good cooperation from our new MPP (Steve Pinsonneault, Lambton-Kent-Middlesex) who chats with us on a regular basis and has stated that he wants to see a full process as well,” Case said. “So, that’s a positive.”

Pinsonneault, a Progress Conservation who won a by-election earlier this year to fill the vacant seat, didn’t reply to a request from The Observer for comment.

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While visiting Lambton County earlier this year, Environment Minister Andrea Khanjin said, “our job is to equally balance the environment and the economy,” but the health and safety of local residents “will always be paramount.”

“We’re really just getting into the meat and potatoes of it,” Case said about the township’s review of the company’s expansion plan.

Warwick gets technical advice from a review team of landfill experts, headed by an environmental lawyer, but “the political part, that is up to us,” Case said.

“We work hard to connect and communicate with the government and make it very clear to them what we’re expecting.”

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