TRASH TROUBLES IN WATERLOO REGION AND ONTARIO

The K-W Record have done it again. Everytime my confidence in them as a supplier of important environmental news to the local community, is at a low ebb, they turn around and do something excellent. Starting yesterday they are publishing a three part series on Ontario's landfills and problems (some). Today's story is titled " Running out of landfill space".

How relevant is this to Woolwich Township? Where exactly do you think your trash goes? Yup it goes to the Erb St. Landfill in Waterloo, labelled in this article as #19 "Waterloo Waste Management Site". To further add relevance where do you think your tap water comes from? That's right it comes via a pipeline from Waterloo to St. Jacobs and Elmira. Woolwich's other community's generally get their water from local wells. Furthermore the source of the pipeline water includes wells near St.Agatha and the Erb St. Landfill. No this is not a good thing. That landfill operated for years with either inadequate or non existent leachate contol features and yes it has polluted local groundwater. Do you still think that restoring the Elmira Aquifer and regaining our own local water supply is some kind of academic exercise?

These two articles to date in the Record are excellent. They are informative and factual . The comments by Gord Miller, the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario, also have local relevance. He describes "...hundreds of aging landfills that threaten Ontario's water and air quality.". Here in Woolwich we have the Woolwich landfill north of Elmira which took just about everything thrown at it, including Uniroyal wastes and Varnicolor Chemical wastes. In Elmira we have the former Bolender landfill, First St. landfill, M1 landfill just west of Chemtura (Uniroyal) and the M2 landfill, now part of the Chemtura property PLUS lots of private landfills including gravel pits past and currently proposed. A few decades ago a gentleman in Kitchener (John Jackson) was speaking and writing about our addiction to garbage, both it's production and disposal. This is not remotely a new problem, merely one that our governments prefer to keep off the radar. Well done K-W Record.