MORE BOLENDER PARK NONSENSE

 At the Council meeting this week a consultant on behalf of 39A Holdings suggested that trees do not do well on top of landfills because their roots penetrate the clay cap installed above landfills (to keep rainwater out) and the roots then enter the waste zone which does not assist the trees health or longevity. Therefore he claimed that generally trees do not do well in such a location and should not be planted. Now of course he did not offer any proof that any such clay cap existed at the Bolender Park Landfill and in fact my research and examination of Borehole Logs on the site shows absolutely no clay cap whatsoever.

Other review has shown that there are Ontario provincial regulations insisting upon no development whatsoever on top of landfills that have working leachate or methane collection systems. What a way to stickhandle around a regulation however. Simply run over a few passive gas probes with a car or truck or unplug the fan/blower on a active methane collection system and voila you've stickhandled around those pesky regulations designed to protect the public from injury.

The Bolender Park Landfill has had an off and on methane collection system since 1983. It was however poorly built and designed which is likely why half a century later the methane concentrations are as bad now as they were fourty years ago. This system was damaged (again) around 2015 or 2016 and the consultants (GHD)  advised that a new Remedial Action Plan was required for methane control and they insisted upon new methane alarms be installed in the former commercial garage on site. 

The latest round of methane monitoring (2021 R.J. Burnside) has shown that the methane is still present and far in excess of all criteria relevant to explosive levels of the gas. Nevertheless discussions and presentations this week at Woolwich Council did not mention this embarrassing fact along with  the Ontario regulations prohibiting development within so many metres of the perimeter of a landfill that has either a leachate or methane collection system.