Council rejects bump in Indigenous monitoring fees
HDI seeking $95K more for supervision of creek dredging
City politicians have rejected paying an Indigenous group $95,357 more for its environmental monitoring of the Chedoke Creek cleanup project.
That extra amount, based on the Haudenosaunee Development Institute (HDI) invoicing, is beyond the $50,000 limit set for such services during the dredging of the sewage-soaked west-end creek.
Council has also said no to the HDI’s pitch for a new agreement for monitors at the site of the west-end creek for the remainder of the project’s work.
City politicians met in closed session Wednesday to discuss the requests and voted to keep details of the discussion confidential.
Six Nations of the Grand River and the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation fees for environmental monitoring aren’t above $50,000, city water director Nick Winters told The Spectator.
Those First Nations had one monitor each on-site, while the HDI opted for two, Winters noted. That work was helpful, he said. “It’s part of the City of Hamilton’s reconciliation journey. I think that there were absolutely some positives having members of those communities involved at the project level for an understanding of what we were trying to accomplish and what was actually going on in the field.”
HDI spokesperson Aaron Detlor didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The monitoring arrangement was a product of an agreement last May with the HDI following a dispute over the Chedoke cleanup plan.
The HDI had told the city to seek consent of the hereditary Haudenosaunee chiefs and pay close to $400,000 for environmental monitoring and “capacity funding.”
That disagreement stalled the dredging project, which was spurred by a provincial order. The Ontario government ordered the cleanup after The Spectator reported in 2019 that the city had kept secret the extent of the four-year, 24-billion-litre sewage spill in the creek that feeds Cootes Paradise.
During the dispute, the city’s contractor refused to keep working, pointing to HDI members paddling into the creek, tethering boats to dredging equipment and setting up camp in the work zone.
With a provincial deadline looming, the city sought an urgent court hearing to oblige the Ontario government to intervene in the dispute.
In a letter, the HDI lamented that court application, arguing its members had a “constitutionally protected” treaty right to visit the creek and urged the municipality and province to “meaningfully engage” with them.
“The Haudenosaunee people will exercise their treaty rights but will not block access to the site, prevent any dredging work, nor cause a work stoppage,” wrote HDI lawyer Tim Gilbert, adding the group had never “obstructed any work” to start with.
This past November, the $10.4million dredging project wrapped up, removing 16,000 tonnes of waste, ahead of the province’s deadline.
The material dried in tubes at Kay Drage Park before it was trucked away to a land fill near Sarnia in late December.
The city still has environmental assessment work on its plate but no more timelines, apart from the goal of restoring the park for recreational use by June, Winters noted.