EMC News Ottawa South reports, “Taggart Miller has announced it prefers the Boundary Road site in Carlsbad Springs for its landfill and recycling centre. The company had originally looked at a site outside Ottawa’s limits in Russell Township, but expanded its search after residents there strongly opposed the idea. The Capital Resource and Recovery Centre would dispose of waste produced by the construction, commercial and institutional sectors.” Carlsbad Springs is located about 27 kilometres south-east of Parliament Hill.
The article from last week notes, “There will be two open houses as part of the environmental assessment study to determine whether Taggart Miller gets approval for the site. One will be on Feb. 25 from 4 to 9 p.m. at Carlsbad Community Centre, 6020 Eighth Line Rd., and on Feb. 27 from 4 to 9 p.m. at the Russell Arena at 1084 Concession St., Russell.”
The Council of Canadians helped promote community participation at these two meetings. In an e-mail sent to all Ottawa-area members of the Council of Canadians, Ontario-Quebec organizer Mark Calzavara wrote, “New proposals by Taggart Miller for industrial waste dumps in Carlsbad Springs, Russell and Embrun are quietly moving forward despite the best efforts of local communities to expose these dumps as being unnecessary, unsafe and unwanted. Imagine having a dump spring up beside where you live—hundreds of heavy trucks driving past per day, dust, noise, odours, and since all dumps eventually leak—groundwater contamination. Properties in the vicinity of these projects often lose a significant amount of their value with no compensation.”
Calzavara highlighted, “You can make a difference and help protect our precious water sources from Taggart Miller’s dump proposals. Please visit www.dumpthedumpnow.ca and www.dumpthisdump2.ca and consider attending the meetings (in Carlsbad and Russell) to show your solidarity and support for these communities.”
EMC News Ottawa South adds, “The (City of Ottawa) is making ($50,000 of) funding available (to groups who want to oppose a landfill)… The money will allow citizen groups to hire professionals to assist them in reviewing the study. …The main group that has been opposing the project in Ottawa is called Dump This Dump 2. Its president, Sue Langlois, told the EMC in an email that the group would definitely apply for the funding. But the funding ‘isn’t going to go very far’, considering what the group needs, she wrote. ‘We’re looking at funds for an environmental planner (to research and prove that there is no need for another landfill in Ottawa, so this way it’s not just us saying this),’ Langlois wrote. ‘We’re also looking to get an environmental lawyer on board. We have a hydrogeologist currently working with us but we may also need some of this funding to help with some additional research at the technical level as well.'”
For more, please read:
NEWS: Water concerns drive opposition to proposed landfill near Ottawa
Don’t Gamble with the Water
NEWS: Russell residents oppose landfills that threaten groundwater
