The Toronto Star reports this hour that, “The province has revoked the operating certificate of approval for Elmvale’s notorious Dump Site 41, just hours after Simcoe County Council voted Tuesday to rezone the landfill for agricultural uses. The decision means the site will be permanently shuttered.”
“The twin moves put an end to more than 20 years of fighting by local activists to scrap the proposed landfill on 20.7 hectares of farmland just north of Elmvale.”
“On Tuesday, Simcoe County council voted overwhelmingly to ask the province to revoke the landfill’s operating certificate and return the zoning on the property to agricultural. County council also approved a motion to place restrictive covenants on the $13.7-million parcel which would prohibit it from ever being used as a landfill site.”‘
In a media release issued yesterday after Simcoe County’s vote – but just before the province revoked the certificate – Council of Canadians chairperson Maude Barlow said, “It’s a great day for the people of Simcoe County, for democracy and for the water. I have seen communities from Bolivia to India and beyond fight to protect their water and I will be telling them all about how the people worked together in Simcoe – the First Nations, the agricultural community, the cottagers and everyone else – and were able to end a 26 year battle. They never gave up, they never accepted that it was a ‘done deal’ and now they can look their grandchildren in the eye and say ‘we did this for you, now you protect it for your grandkids’.”
This news also comes almost one year to the day of the Toronto Star news report that quoted Barlow saying, “This dump will not open.” That article is at http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/642925.
The Council of Canadians had repeatedly called for the Certificate of Approval to be revoked over the past year or more. We did so as recently as two weeks ago in a media release at http://canadians.org/media/water/2010/12-May-10.html. An overview of our campaign to stop Site 41 can be read at http://canadians.org/site41.
The campaign wins that led us to this final win include:
WIN! Site 41 landfill put on hold
August 26, 2009
http://canadians.org/campaignblog/?p=1684
WIN! Simcoe County council votes “to cease construction and all further development of Site 41″
September 22, 2009
http://canadians.org/campaignblog/?p=1859
The Toronto Star report is at http://www.thestar.com/news/ontario/article/814622–province-yanks-approval-for-controversial-simcoe-dump.
