Heather Wright/The Independent

Leachate from Waste Management’s Twin Creeks Landfill in Watford will be making its way to Petrolia.

Town council has approved a pilot program which will see trucks of the liquid waste created at the landfill come to the waste water treatment plant for the next six months.

The original plan for Twin Creeks landfill required WM to build its own leachate treatment plant seven years before closure. That milestone was in 2024. But because the company is planning an expansion to extend the life of the landfill another 12 years, it has yet to start building the plant. WM still needs a way to get rid of the liquid waste that comes from rainwater entering the decomposing garbage. The company already brings its leachate to several other community treatment plants, including Chatham.

The Ministry of the Environment, in its rules for sewage treatment plant outlines how municipalities should treat the landfill liquid waste adding “Due to the extreme variability of leachate, dependent on its source, it should be reviewed on a case-by-case basis to determine its properties… leachate can contain components of industrial nature and a more complex sampling program may be necessary.”

Chief Administrative Officer Rick Charlebois says in the next month, the town and Jacobs – the company which runs the plant for the town – will be meeting with WM officials to work out the plan, but it’s not clear how much leachate will be trucked to Petrolia. 

Charlebois says the town only uses about a third of the capacity of the plant which opened in 2018. He expects WM’s waste would only increase its use to about 35 per cent of capacity at the very top end of the project.

“We want to be careful,” said Charlebois, noting the town needs to reserve some of the excess capacity at the treatment plant for the new homes being built in the southeast end of town.

He adds the compounds in the leachate can be different than in household waste making the operation of the plant more difficult.

Last year, the town accepted similar waste from Lambton Centennial school while the Lambton-Kent District School Board dealt with its failing lagoon. Charlebois said that generated about $80,000 in revenue. The town charges $15 per cubic meter.

The pilot project with Twin Creeks is expected to generate far more revenue than the Lambton Centennial project, however the amount will depend on the amount of waste transferred to Petrolia.

It’s also not clear at this point how long the company would use the Petrolia plant for its leachate or whether the transfer would continue if WM gets approval to expand the Watford site.