Heather Wright/The Independent

Peter Pickfield says WM hasn’t addressed all of Warwick Township’s concerns about the expansion of the site and the Ministry of the Environment should be taking action to deal with the issues.

Pickfield heads up the township’s peer review team which has been monitoring the landfill for the municipality since it opened 15 years ago. Now WM – formerly known as Waste Management – is asking the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks to approve a plan which will see 14 million cubic meters of garbage piled on top of the existing landfill behind 24-storey high berms on the outskirts of Watford.

That will extend the life of Twin Creeks Landfill for another 12 years in a time the province is desperate for new landfill space. Estimates show the province will run out of space in the next eight to 10 years.

WM completed its Environmental Assessment of the project and submitted it to the province at the end of June.

Warwick Township and residents now have until Aug. 14 to submit their concerns.

Warwick Township’s peer review team is not happy with the proposal.

Pickfield says some very significant issues are still outstanding including air quality concerns, the impacts on wildlife and how piling all that garbage on the existing gas and leachate controls will affect the systems that keep the landfill leachate and gas from escaping.

Pickfield is particularly concerned about the affect of piling more waste on the existing landfill because the team’s engineering expert has identified “analytical deficiencies” in the way WM determined that the current systems would withstand the pressure from the extra waste.

He says the ministry should take a second look; “the gas collection system is the cornerstone of odour management at the landfill, and the leachate collection system is required to ensure containment of contaminants from entering ground and surface water resources.”

Pickfield says his experts asked to meet with WM before it submitted the document to iron out the remaining issues but that didn’t happen.

He’s hoping the ministry will step in. “I don’t think it’s beyond the ministry’s scope to say there should be some technical mediation on these issues to mediate and respond to them. They have options to try to address them or else they could simply refuse the application until these issues are resolved,” Pickfield says. He adds Warwick’s Peer Review Team knows the landfill’s operation inside and out.

“We have we have a team of experts who knows this landfill really well because they’re a team that’s been monitoring it for 12 to 15 years or more since it started operating.

“So I think when we’ve got outstanding technical concerns, then WM should at least listen and meet with us to discuss them and try to resolve them.”

Pickfield says dealing with the technical issues is a matter of “equity and fairness” for the community which deals with all the side affects of transferring Toronto’s trash to Watford.

“There is no precedent in Ontario for a vertical landfill expansion of this scale. Township residents should not be asked to bear the burden of risk for unexamined and unmitigated environmental impacts and operational unknowns,” he said.

The WM EA Study Report is available online for public review at the WM website. Printed copies are also available for public review at the Township Municipal Offices and Watford Public Library.

The MECP review is lengthy with a final decision by the Minister not expected until February 2027.

The Ontario government has voiced concern the province will run out of landfill space in less than a decade and moved other landfill projects forward in Bill 5 without a full Environmental Review.