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NEWS: Water concerns drive opposition to proposed landfill near Ottawa

In November 2010, CBC reported, “Taggart Miller Environmental Services, an Ottawa-based company, hopes to process about half of the 25,000 truckloads of commercial and industrial waste a year that are currently transported to upstate New York. Current plans are for the remaining waste to be put in the quarry landfill (near Russell, located about 40 kilometres southeast of Ottawa). But Russell resident Walter Cholowski said he’s worried the waste will contaminate drinking water for eight communities in the area. …(Cholowski) said the projected site, an old brick quarry, has taken a century of blasting and he’s worried the fractured shale ground will be vulnerable to seepage: ‘Shale is like wafer crackers. The water leeches into the ground and into the water system and destroys everything along its path.'”

That same month, the ‘Dump The Dump Now’ campaign against the dump was launched by concerned citizens.

In January 2011, the Review reported, “(Laurie McCannell of Dump the Dump Now) said she fears rock lining the quarry has been fractured by decades of blasting and won’t stop waste from seeping into a huge underground aquifer, contaminating ‘half of the water table’ of eastern Ontario. McCannell said the site serves as the headwaters for six major streams in the area. ‘We are extremely concerned about ground and surface water contamination,’ she stated.”

And just last month, EAP News reported, “A crowd of about 350 people gathered (on October 18) at the North Russell Union Cemetery north of the village of Russell to protest the plans by Taggart Miller Environmental Services to start a new landfill on the site. The protest was organized by Dump the Dump Now, when residents heard that Taggart Miller would be taking a group on tour in the site.” The article adds, “Laurie McCannell said the protest was organized to show Taggart Miller that the petition numbers, which have been downplayed by the proponents, were an accurate reflection of the community’s feelings. About 4,000 names, of 11,000 voters in the township, have been collected (for the petition).”

The CBC report noted, “(The company says) the site is likely five years away from being operational.” The Review article adds, “(Taggart Miller Environmental Services) has initiated an environmental assessment process under the Environmental Assessment Act for its proposed project.” And Eastern Ontario AgriNews reports, “Taggart-Miller proposes to transform the 500-acre site into a Capital Region Resource Recovery Centre and hopes to complete the regulatory approval process in 2013.” It is notable that the Review article quotes McCannell saying, “This quarry was suggested as a site for a dump in 1984 and that proposal was rejected. We are still trying to get the documents from that meeting to find out why it was rejected, but we know there was a reason not to proceed.”

For more news about the Dump The Dump Now campaign, go to http://www.dumpthedumpnow.ca/index.php?page=notices.