TAG is scheduled for Thursday March 23 at 6:30 pm. on-line most likely. Personally I see no reason why it can't be observed in person in Council Chambers but hey if Covid has done no good for anybody at least it has allowed our professional liars and other assorted riff raff the opportunity of avoiding in person accountability to the public.
The next Woolwich Council meeting is scheduled for March 21 and a week later (March 28) is the Committee of the Whole. This surprises me somewhat as I was advised that Tuesday March 28 was the date for the next opportunity to address Council regarding the proposed truck parking lot on top of the Bolender Park Landfill.
Lately I have seen two examples of municipal delay going on for many decades. There was a story in last Saturday's Waterloo Region Record about the discovery of soil and groundwater contamination beneath the former bus depot on Charles St. in Kitchener. The story did mention a former coal gasification plant nearby on the site of the former post office (Gaukel St.?). What wasn't mentioned was coal tar left behind and it's toxicity. In fact I have a newspaper article that is twenty or twenty-five years old that states that the City of Kitchener have known about coal tar contamination since 1971 and done nothing about it. And we wonder why our aquifers are getting more contaminated by the day.
The other example of course is the Bolender Landfill itself. It was closed around 1970 and construction of a methane gas collection system began in 1983 and continued sporadically in use for possibly two decades. It's difficult to say based upon many cautious and client (Woolwich Township) driven self-serving consultant's reports being written by CRA (GHD). It's also difficult to say how effective the collection system was although the evidence seems to indicate that it was not effective and in fact it is amazing that after fifty years of closure that this small landfill continues to produce methane gas at dangerous levels exceeding both 20% LEL (Lower Explosive Level) and and the full (100%) LEL.
It is my opinion that both benign neglect and intentional neglect have flourished on this matter. I also believe that the initial installation and possibly design were faulty based upon the crappy results. Woolwich Township are currently looking to fix a number of issues including their illegally located waterline running to the former Martin Pet Foods plant as well as presumably to generate some tax revenue from the former landfill site. That is still dangerous as the most recent (2021) methane gas results indicate ongoing and continued methane at and above explosive levels in the subsurface.
Until or unless Woolwich Township can actually properly manage and hopefully eliminate the methane gas there should be no development of any kind on this property located next door to a park, childrens' splashpad, industry (pet food) and residential housing.
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