Heather Wright/The Independent

York1 Environment Services seems to have solidified its stand that its Dresden property is an existing landfill. And it had the help of the Ministry of the Environment to do it.

York1 purchased the Irish School Road site in 2022. In February 2024, plans for a massive construction and soil waste recycling facility and new landfill were posted on the Environmental Registry of Ontario.

The neighbours and governments in Chatham-Kent and Lambton are fighting the project which could bring up to 6,000 tonnes of waste to the area a day.

But the provincial government cleared the way for York1 to proceed without an Environmental Assessment of the process. Since then, York1 vehicles have been on site and recently, the company began searching for employees. Signs appeared on the gates of the site in mid-November, saying it was open for business Monday to Friday from 7 am to 3 pm. 

Company officials stated earlier this year it would work under the ECAs which were already in place on the property.

The sign on the gate today says the site’s licence allows non-hazardous construction and demolition solid waste from industrial, commercial, institutional and municipal sectors, including wood waste. Those are the items found in several different ECAs which governed the property up until September.

That’s when the Ministry of the Environment combined all the ECAs into one. Ministry officials tell The Independent the ministry has issued an administrative amendment to York1’s Environmental Compliance Approval for the site. It consolidated multiple existing approvals “into a single, comprehensive document for clarity and compliance purposes, as well as the requirement of certain financial and operational reports,” an official said.

The ministry confirmed the company would not be able to bring in new materials nor can it accept more than 75 tonnes of the waste a day.

The combined ECA adds the company can accept up to 75 tonnes of municipal, industrial and commercial non-hazardous waste from across the province. The approval allows the site to operate until 9 pm. 

Aside from combining the approvals, the new amended ECA issued by the ministry outlines operating procedures common to Ontario landfills today.

The company will have to answer community complaints in writing within a week’s time. York1 must have a written plan to deal with any spills or emergencies on the site including specific clean up methods.

York1 will also have to keep inspection logs of what comes in and out of the site including items which were refused. A yearly report will be submitted to the ministry by March 31.

It also had to provide a financial assurance of $6,281 meant to cover the cost of waste which could be on the site. That amount will be reevaluated every five years, the document states.

The amended ECA also requires that ministry staff “have ready access to the site for inspections of facilities, equipment, practices and operations.” 

Whether the Dresden site is an established landfill is at the centre of a court case between York1 and the Municipality of Chatham-Kent. 

The municipality says it is currently zoned industrial without any provision for a landfill. The company has long disputed whether it needs to rezone the property, saying it has always been used for the purposes it plans to expand on.

While there was a dump on the site, it covered only a fraction of the 80-acre property. The company plans to completely rebuild it.

The ministry has said Chatham-Kent would have zoning approval for the site.  

In it’s court filing, York1 sites documents from the Ministry of the Environment from 1989,  where Dresden applied to the ministry for a certificate of approval for a waste site of commercial and domestic non-hazardous waste. The next year, York1 said, it wrote to the ministry proposing to use the site for municipal recycling. 

The legal action goes to court March 3.