SECOND DELEGATION TO COUNCIL REGARDING THE BOLENDER PARK LANDFILL

A week from tomorrow (August 22/17) I will be back to Woolwich Council with a Delegation titled "A History Of the Bolender Park Landfill". I attended Council as a Delegate nearly two weeks ago regarding details of the ten Conestoga Rovers reports detailing methane monitoring that's being going on and off over the last thirty-four years. I presented to Council my Recommendations which emphasized due diligence and the precautionary principle.

Next Tuesday's Delegation will focus on the history of waste disposal in Elmira and how there have been four consecutive in town landfills. Each successive landfill as it reached its'capacity led to the hunt for the next one hence the history of the Bolender landfill. Also each landfill while serving the same purposes nevertheless had differences in their operation, duration and final uses. The fifth landfill was the Woolwich Landfill a few miles north of Elmira on Seiling Drive. After it was closed in 1988 all local waste was sent to the Erb St. Landfill in Waterloo, under the supervision of the Region of Waterloo. The date of its' closing is another one of those strange coincidences that occurred just prior to the closing of the municipal wellfields here in town.

There probably never has and never will be such a thing as a "perfect" landfill. Yes engineering has greatly improved them with bottom liners, leachate collection systems and methane collection systems. Historically none of these enhancements were known or available in the very early days. Nowadays they are standard operating procedure on modern landfills. That said recycling and composting have greatly reduced the volume required as well as the number of new landfills.