Landfill back at Region
by Blake Wolfe/The Scugog Standard

More communication is needed between Uxbridge Township and the Lake Simcoe Region Conservation Authority said Mayor Gerri-Lynn O’Connor, in regards to property owners receiving approval from the organization to place fill on their properties without the municipality’s blessing.
_The issue was raised at both Uxbridge and Durham Region council meetings last week. According to Mayor O’Connor, nearly 3,400 loaded trucks - travelling along gravel roads not meant for such heavy traffic - have gone in and out of a Leitch Rd. property since the approval to replace peat with fill was granted by the LSRCA last year, without input from councillors. The property in question falls under the jurisdiction of the conservation authority and is not subject to municipal approvals for such projects. A meeting between the township and the LRSCA is scheduled to take place in the near future.
_“The municipality, which funds conservation projects, has no say in the matter,” Mayor O’Connor told The Standard. “We could have worked out truck routes that would be doing less damage and reduce the amount of traffic that has resulted.”
_Both Mayor O’Connor and Uxbridge Regional Councillor Jack Ballinger told The Standard that the recent commercial fill battle between Scugog Township and Earthworx Industries has certainly brought the issue to the forefront in recent years and highlighted the need for municipalities to keep a watchful eye on what exactly is being dumped in their backyard.
_“We need better communication,” said Councillor Ballinger. “Who checks all the loads of fill coming in? One person looking after the whole area is not enough. We need to monitor every truck and we also need a consistent bylaw (for the Region).”
_Representatives from other parts of Durham echoed the concerns of their Uxbridge counterparts during the Regional Council discussion, including Oshawa councillor John Neal and Clarington Mayor Adrian Foster, who reiterated that a single fill bylaw for the Region is needed. In a similar situation last year in that municipality, trucks began dumping soil at a Morgan’s Rd. property with approval from the Ganaraska Region Conservation Authority, eliciting protests from residents concerned about adverse impacts to the local environment and drinking water. Much like in Scugog, the soil coming into that property has been transported by Earthworx Industries out of former industrial sites in downtown Toronto. The company started to send trucks into Clarington not long after its Scugog permits were pulled and a provincial injunction placed on operations at its Lakeridge Rd. site in light of questionable soil test results in 2010.
_“If we don’t have a consistent bylaw in Durham, the municipality with the weakest legislation will find itself with the problem,” said Mayor Foster.