Small meeting but big concerns over Taro dump

With LRT and waterfront construction, residual waste needs a place to go: former councillor

Poor attendance of a public meeting on the proposed reconfiguration of the Taro dump was overshadowed by heated debate.

“I don’t like being lied to,” said area resident Wes Connor, referring to Terrapure Environmental communication director Greg Jones’ 2013 guarantee that “we have no plans to expand the capacity of the site, full stop.”

The new plans for the upper Stoney Creek dump, bought by Terrapure in 2015, call for a peak landfill elevation increase by about four metres. The site’s current maximum capacity of 8.32 million cubic metres (with 2 million cubic metres slotted for clean fill on the north side), would increase to 10 million cubic metres dedicated exclusively to the more predictable market of “nonhazardous industrial residual material.”

Jones stood by his assertion that there were never any plans to expand the landfill in 2013.

“We’re not a division of a different company, we’re a new company,” said Jones. “The demand from our customers in Hamilton (is) what’s driving this proposal.”

In 2013, when former owner Newalta Corp. added the clean fill component to the landfill, there was significant demand for that product. That market has since disappeared, said Jones.

Connor said the new plan would contribute to growing an already obnoxious eyesore.

Terrapure is profiting at the expense of residents who were originally promised a 20-year lifespan of the dump, added Connor. He would rather see the company bulldoze the mountain of residual material into the largely empty clean-fill area, and close the former quarry forever.

With the new changes, Jones said the company will further build up the berms to continue to provide a visual screen for residents.

Former area councillor Brad Clark, who once denounced the dump as “a mountain of crap,” is now a consultant for Terrapure.

He said he was initially skeptical of the unproven technology, which opened in the quarry on the northwest corner of Upper Centennial Parkway and Mud Street in 1996. But after spending two decades monitoring the situation he believes it “has proven to be safe.”

Crucial to the debate is the insurmountable cost and difficulty of building a new landfill close to Hamilton — which contributes to about half of the 700,000 metric tons of residual material sent to the landfill through industrial waste.

With LRT on the horizon, and Pier 7 and 8 construction soon underway, “where is that residual material going to go?” asked Clark.

The new plan would also see the dump close about three years earlier, said Clark.

Ward 4 Coun. Doug Conley says he doesn’t believe he will be able to stop the project, but hopes to prevent the four-metre elevation change.

He also hopes to leverage the new proposal into an increase in the $1 per ton in royalties the city currently gets from Terrapure. That currently amounts to about $600,000-$700,000 per year.

The full proposal will be available online at terrapurestoneycreek.com on June 22, and open to the public for comment until Aug. 19. Comments will be reviewed before submitting the proposal to the Ministry of the Environment.