Heather Wright/The Independent

Dawn-Euphemia Mayor Al Broad says it is “absolutely ridiculous” that York1 Environmental Solutions isn’t communicating directly with Lambton County as it plans an expansion of the former Dresden dump.

The township is one of the half dozen small communities in Lambton and Middlesex counties which will see garbage trucks rumbling through town as they head to York1’s Dresden site.

Dawn-Euphemia, Broad says, had to learn from a third party that York1 had sent letters to residents within 1.5 kms from the Irish School Road property outlining their proposal last week.

The Mississauga company purchased the land in 2022 and in 2024 announced they were planning a massive construction and soil recycling facility less than a kilometre from Dresden. At that time, the company planned to bring in 7,000 tonnes of waste to be sorted each day. That would have required about 700 transports coming from London, Windsor and Sarnia each day.

The plan drew vocal criticism and public action in both Chatham-Kent and Lambton.

Just before the 2025 election, the Ford government promised York1 would have to go through an Environmental Assessment, with lots of opportunity for community input. Then after the election, the Conservatives introduced Bill 5 which reneged on that promise for a thorough review of the project.

York1 said it was scaling back the project, however, opponents of the project waited a year-and-a half to hear how much the company would change the proposal as it sought approval from the Ministry of the Environment through the Environmental Compliance Approvals process.

Last week, residents around the landfill received a letter from the company, saying it now proposes accepting a total of 4,000 tonnes per day and asking for input into its new proposal. It confused both residents and municipal leaders who wondered if that letter would be their only opportunity for input into the revised project.

Broad says neither Dawn-Euphemia, the County of Lambton or the Municipality of Chatham-Kent were sent the information. The mayor says Lambton will be impacted if the project goes forward and should have been included.

“There’s going to be a month-and-a-half to two months in the spring that (York1) is going to route all truck traffic either through Glencoe and 80 Highway (Courtright Line) down to 21 or the 402 to 21 Highway through Plympton-Wyoming, right through the town of Wyoming,” Broad says, noting that will have a huge impact particularly on the urban areas.

The trucks will also rumble right by a large grain elevator and the township’s municipal office in Rutherford.

“They’re not going to bring them through Dresden – Dresden has done an awesome job on lobbying against that – but to go and dump (the transports) into Lambton County and Middlesex County, that’s not right.

“Are the people of Wyoming and Glencoe and Wardsville and all those areas not as important as people in Dresden?” he asked.

“I’m sorry, that makes no sense to me. The people in Wyoming, Glencoe, the ratepayers, the people that live there, the kids riding up and down the streets, it is no different than anything in Dresden…so why should they be allowed to pawn it off onto us?”

Monday, Dawn-Euphemia council reviewed a letter to York1 written by Jason Cole, the infrastructure and development general manager in Lambton, which also voiced concerns about the impact of traffic from the Dresden recycling centre and landfill using Lambton Roads.

Council endorsed the letter and will send it off to the company.

The mayor is concerned it may be the only opportunity to have their say. He’s worried projects in the future won’t have any public input, requiring only letters which are “very vague on information. I think that’s going to be the new way of doing things for the time being, anyways.”

But York1 spokesperson Laryssa Waler in an email to The Independent said the letter is only part of the consultation process.

“York1 sent its letter voluntarily, in advance of the ERO posting, so neighbours would hear about the applications directly. Once posted, the ERO provides a further formal public comment period,” Waler says in the email.

“The 15-day window after receipt of the letter is a voluntary timeline York1 set for its own notification, not a statutory deadline. Comments received after that date will still be reviewed and considered, and the ERO posting will provide a further formal comment period,” she added.

Waler did not directly answer where residents would be able to access the studies backing up York1’s plan, but says they will be part of the submission on the registry.

Officials from Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks have also confirmed to The Independent the project will be placed on the Environmental Registry of Ontario for public comment, although MECP Spokesperson Lindsay Davidson did not say when that might be. Nor did Davidson say if the province was moving ahead with its plan titled Streamlining requirements for waste disposal site service area and fill rate changes.

It makes it easier for landfills to change where they except waste from and how much they accept without an Environmental Screening Process.

The process includes identifying and assessing potential environmental problems, finding ways to mitigate them before the proposal moves forward and “engaging Indigenous communities, municipalities and interested persons.”