T.O. dumps on London
Wed, September 20, 2006
Facing a looming garbage crisis, Toronto councillors vote to buy the Green Lane Landfill southwest of London.
By ROB GRANATSTEIN, SUN MEDIA
TORONTO -- Goodbye, Michigan. Hello, London.
Toronto councillors voted 26-12 yesterday to buy the privately owned Green Lane Landfill southwest of London, in a landmark, swift and strategic move to deal with the city's looming garbage crisis.
"The City of Toronto has been trying to find landfill capacity for 20 years," a beaming Mayor David Miller said yesterday.
"We've got it now. You can't go to the local store and buy landfill. They are very rare and unique."
The price of this deal will not be known for 90 days, a full month after the next city election. A strict confidentiality agreement is in place until the deal is finalized, but it's believed to be in the $200-million range.
Politicians in London were quick to condemn the deal and the secrecy surrounding it.
"The right thing to do would have been to call us and not let us find out through media reports," Mayor Anne Marie DeCicco-Best said.
She and other politicians have lobbied the province for years to force Toronto to deal with its own trash.
"It's appalling disregard for local municipalities," Coun. Susan Eagle said.
"They're our big neighbours simply asserting their power and will. It's very disappointing," Eagle added.
London-Fanshawe Liberal MPP Khalil Ramal vowed to do all he could to thwart the sale to Toronto.
"I don't want London -- which is well-known in Ontario and Canada as a health-care provider, as an education provider -- to be known also as a garbage dump site."
But some city politicians said nothing could be done to stop the landfill's sale -- and the shipping of millions of tonnes of Toronto's garbage to the London area.
Bob McCaig, whose family has owned the landfill since 1949, wouldn't say how much Toronto is paying for it.
"We're just pleased to be working with Toronto on an environmentally viable solution to a major problem," McCaig said.
Miller said by buying the landfill, Toronto controls its own future and won't twist in the wind if the Michigan border -- where Toronto sends as many as 85 trucks of garbage a day -- closes.
Toronto is still contractually obligated to ship its garbage to Republic Services' Carleton Farms landfill in Michigan until 2010, so trucks will keep crossing the border.
By Jan. 1, 2011, Toronto's garbage will still rumble west down Highway 401, but turn off just past London to reach Green Lane's landfill, 10 minutes outside the city.
Miller promised to be a good neighbour to London and St. Thomas, and council voted to investigate building a 401 off-ramp directly to the dump.
He said despite outrage from residents in London and area, there's not much they can do.
"It's simply a business transaction," Miller said. "It's a private landfill."
Toronto already uses Green Lane to dump some garbage from private haulers. Guelph and York Region also dump garbage there.
The city's purchase includes everything related to the landfill, including equipment and signed contracts.
Price remains the question. Toronto works committee chairperson Shelley Carroll said buying the dump is more expensive than the $65 a tonne it costs to send trash to Michigan, but less expensive than the $88 a tonne to use, but not buy, Green Lane and other landfills as a fallback plan.
Green Lane has capacity to take Toronto's garbage for 20 to 23 years, if the city continues its aggressive recycling program.
Toronto Coun. Case Ootes said many questions remain unanswered and the public hasn't been consulted.
"It doesn't solve the problem of alienating . . . our neighbours," he said. "We ticked off the Americans and now we're going to tick off the people in London and St.Thomas."
Talks behind the scenes between the city and the landfill went on for more than a month before the deal was agreed to Friday night.
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The city of London has an excellent garbage disposal plan and will now be punished for their foresight in the form of Toronto's garbage being dumped in their backyard and London gets nothing for it!!! 
Maybe London residents can learn a lesson from native protesters and occupy this landfill and/or blockade it the day the trucks first roll. The Ontario government could then buy the land from Toronto and give it to London.
CKA Super Elite 
