Heather Wright/The Independent

Warwick Mayor Todd Case wants to be sure the Environmental Assessment of the Twin Creeks landfill expansion continues.

He’s heading to Toronto today to speak with Environment Minister Todd McCarthy, amid concern the province is reducing the amount of environmental oversight of landfill projects.

Three weeks ago, the province introduced the Unleashing the Economy Act. It removed the requirement for York1 Environmental to complete an Environmental Assessment of its waste recycling and landfill project in Dresden. Last year, the community rallied to compel the province to force the company to complete the highest level of environmental testing, which will allow public input on the project, only to have the Ford Government attempt to renege on that promised assessment 10 months later in Bill 5. Chatham-Kent and Lambton are again pushing for the to move ahead.

Warwick – home to Twin Creeks landfill – is watching the provincial moves warily. WM is about half way through an Environmental Assessment for its vertical expansion of the site Watford site, extending its life another 12 years.

“We are paying attention to what’s going on next door in Chatham-Kent and watching it…to see exactly the outcome of that. And that’s basically what we’re going to go speak to,” Case tells The Independent.

“We are 50 per cent through our EA and I’ve been assured that they will continue to have that EA process go through. But the same time, it’s a question I need to ask the Minister. The question being, will he ensure the residents of Warwick Township that this EA will continue and it’ll be a thorough process?

“To be fair, to date, nobody said it’s going to change. But if I don’t take the steps and council does not take the steps to communicate with the Ministry on this, and then something happens, then we haven’t done our job.”

That “something” that could happen is a shift in attitude about by the provincial government on environmental oversight as the threat of tariffs loom.

The province said in its application to remove the EA requirement for York1’s Dresden project is necessary because of US tariffs on the waste industry.

“A lot of people don’t realize garbage is something that is tariffed,” says Case. Waste imports were one of the items US President Donald Trump placed tariffs on in February. It was delayed twice and is expected to come into effect in July.

“We must ensure we have the tools and resources to respond to any unpredictable decisions from the Trump Administration,” says the province’s proposal to remove the requirement for a full Environmental Assessment in Dresden.

Lambton-Kent-Middlesex MPP Steve Pinsonneault added “The Trump administration honestly has the whole world up in arms. And it really does change people’s perspective on things… There’s no stability anywhere.”

That instability and the on-going tariff war could cost Ontario municipalities money. According to the Association of Municipalities of Ontario about one third of all of the province’s garbage is landfilled in the US, most in Michigan.

According to the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy, in 2024 almost 15 per cent of the waste in Michigan landfills came from Canada – about 4.4 million US tons.

The long-standing shortage of landfill space in Ontario and the rock-bottom pricing for landfill space in Michigan has made trash easy to export.

In the 1990s, Michigan invested heavily in landfill space and built far more sites than needed for the state’s waste. That drove done the cost of disposal and Ontario and Michigan’s US neighbours started bringing their garbage by the truckload. In 2017, Ontario sent 10.7 million tons of garbage to Michigan alone.

The price to dispose of that waste hasn’t changed in decades. Michigan charges just 36 cents per ton to dispose of Ontario’s waste. In 2024, that would put the bill for Ontario trash going to Michigan landfills at about $1.6 million yearly.

Landfill fees in Ontario are far higher for household garbage in the range of $130 and $150 per ton in southern Ontario. For example, Lambton County – population 128,154 – is expecting to pay $1,902,398 this year to dispose of municipally-collected solid waste at Twin Creeks Landfill.

Those fees in Michigan are just a are just a fraction of what Toronto pays to dispose of its trash. The city’s budget for solid waste processing and transfer in 2025 is expected to be over $114 million.

With a 25 per cent tariff on the trash heading into Michigan, that would increase by $402,052, about 0.004 per cent increase.

The province says that tariff on waste heading into the US accelerates the need for landfill space in Ontario since the province has about nine years of space left.

That worries Case. The expansion plan in Watford is more complex that simply building a new landfill; WM and the township’s environmental team have to be sure it’s engineered correctly so the waste piled upon the existing cells of waste doesn’t damage the membrane of landfill. That could lead to leachate leaks.

It’s one of the reasons Case is seeking Minister McCarthy’s reassurance the EA at Twin Creeks will continue.

“We have to make sure we keep the eye on the ball, there’s no doubt about that,” he says.

“And being that now that waste is a tariff item, according to the United States, that means we have to look a little closer.”

But tariffs aren’t the only pressure point, Case says.

“We have limited space left in the province of Ontario…If all of a sudden it becomes not affordable to be able to take that waste into the United States, that waste backs up into the system that already (has) only has six to seven years of capacity left, and puts the pressures on those existing landfills – that could put pressure on us.”

The mayor says in the past, the province has put an emergency order in place, allowing Twin Creeks to accept more material daily than normal. He believes that could happen again if the tariff war in the waste sector continues.

And that, Case says, could spark more talk of moving ahead without a full Environmental Assessment as the pressure for landfill space grows.­­­