The Dominion - Simcoe County

Case Closed?

Moira Peters — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 06:20:53 +0000

Site 41 resistance seeks revocation of environmental permit

WATERLOO, ON—The “People’s Fire” has been allowed to burn to ashes at the 150-day-old protest camp on 2nd Concession Road in Simcoe County, across from the proposed Site 41 landfill development 45 kilometres east of Blue Mountain, Ontario.

Site 41 sits on top of the Alliston aquifer, which contains some of the world’s purest groundwater and is connected with water sources across Southern Ontario, including Georgian Bay and the Oak Ridges Moraine.

For the protesters, many small victories have been achieved; still, this community demonstrates vigilance in its efforts to ensure a landfill is never built on the property.

September 22, 2009 will remain lodged in the memories of everyone involved in the Site 41 struggle as the day Simcoe County Council voted 26-3 in favour of cancelling the proposed garbage dump project.

However, those who remained encamped until October 20 (when they decided to shut down the protest camp for pre-winter agricultural preparations) note that while the current project has been called off, Council voted 22-7 against a motion to have the Ministry of the Environment’s Certificate of Approval (CofA) rescinded. The defeat of this second motion raises doubts about Council’s sincerity in their disapproval of the controversial dump project.

A communiqué from those who kept vigil at the site after the Sacred Fire was allowed to burn down in September was printed in a recent edition of the Tekawennake News. It declared: “The struggle has been so long, so hard and the most current victory so tangible, so close, that it seems unforgivable to cast any doubt on the enthusiasm so freely offered by the media and politicians.”

The letter continues, “First and most pressing, the CofA is still in effect and its power cannot be underestimated... This is a very real danger.”

Rejecting the current CofA would force any newly-proposed developments to undertake a new environmental impact assessment process. This was a process which, for this contested garbage dump development, took more than 20 years to complete, and was loaded with well-documented political pressure. By not annulling the CofA, Council leaves open the possibility for future development of the site—either for the County or a private developer who purchases the land.

Those writing from the People’s Fire insist they will continue to protest, as their communiqué states, “Until such a time as the Certificate of Approval is revoked for good.”

They acknowledge that, in the face of massive public relations spending by the County, they "need more than ever to maintain a strong presence and not to suddenly fade away in the face of our first victories.” They warn that “there is a very real danger of privatization...” and that without unrelenting pressure, another 30-year-long battle against development could take place, “This time at the hands of a faceless, multinational corporation instead of a local, elected County Council.”

Council has budgeted $250,000 for public relations consultations in an effort at “cleansing the fallout of the Site 41 debacle,” wrote Travis Mealing of the Midland Mirror.

While the debate around the PR costs continues, County environmental services director, Rob McCullogh, insists that restoring the land that was disrupted due to construction of garbage holding cells would be too expensive. The high-end estimate for recovery at the site is $368,000.

Refusing restoration means damage which occurred, according to the Council of Canadians, when cell construction commenced in violation of County Council approval processes, will not be reversed.

County Warden, Tony Guergis, maintains that the County no longer seeks to build a landfill on the site. However, Guergis’ sincerity is also being called into question; soon after he was elected, Guergis changed his stark opposition to the dump to a position of strong support. Meanwhile, County CAO Mark Aitken recently asked, in reference to removing the infrastructure that was built to support a dump site, “Why would [the County] remove all those things when you’re not sure if they have a use in the future?”

While the protest camp itself is no longer active, the campaigns for ecological and social justice continue. The "Restore and Revoke" campaign is working toward having the CofA cancelled and ensuring that the land is restored to a state which is as near its pre-disruption state as possible. A campaign is also underway to have the mischief and intimidation charges dropped for the 17 protesters arrested at Site 41. Only Indigenous protesters were charged with intimidation.

United by the responsibility of local environmental and community protection, and by the direct actions they took to protect the land and the water from the project that the Senior Advisor on Water to the President of the UN General Assembly, Maude Barlow, calls “ill conceived,” the Site 41 resistance vows to persevere until the permanent restoration and protection of this precious land is achieved.

Dan Kellar is a geography PhD student in Waterloo and an analytical banner painter with AW@L.

Site 41 Garbage Drink Cropped

A Tale of Two Sites

Moira Peters — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 17:48:50 +0000

The HCBP occupation and Site 41

SUDBURY, ON—At the end of a summer of activity, a 675-acre tract of land in the south end of Guelph rests relatively quiet. It has won a one-year break from development. It remains, however, a proposed construction site for what the City of Guelph is calling the "Hanlon Creek Business Park" (HCBP). The land itself is home to a rare Old Growth forest; a Provincially Significant Wetland, the Paris-Galt moraine; a vital drinking water recharge zone; and a threatened species called the Jefferson Salamander.

A three-hour drive north of Guelph, another piece of land has seen a lot of action this summer. This place, in Simcoe County, is called Site 41, and is the location for a proposed garbage dump. It sits directly above the Alliston Aquifer, an important source of drinking water in the area, one which international scientists claim provides some of the cleanest drinking water in the world.

The two sites have seen comparable public outcry over the respective proposals for their development; the resulting protests have also brought people together to successfully oppose the developments.

The HCBP in Guelph has been met with much grassroots opposition over the fact old growth trees would be cut and meadows that surround the forest would be paved over, stopping rainfall from percolating into the groundwater.

An old growth tree is one that is 150 years or older, and an old growth forest is one that has been left undisturbed for a similar period of time, allowing for the ecosystem to mature. On the site grows a Hop Hornbeam that is estimated to be between 500 and 600 years old, meaning it likely predates colonization of the western hemisphere. Beyond remaining one of the few forests of its kind in Southern Ontario, the site also provides the exact conditions necessary for the threatened Jefferson Salamander to breed.

As for its impact on water, the HCBP would be built alongside Tributary A, which runs into the Speed River and eventually the Grand River. Any sewage or industrial waste that leaches into the water in Guelph would be passed on to communities downstream, including Cambridge, Brantford and Six Nations, the largest Native reserve in Canada.

After months of city hall meetings, rallies and education campaigns, opposition to the HCBP was not heeded by the City of Guelph and it looked like construction of the HCBP was going to go ahead. This was thrown into question on July 27 when, in the early morning, about 60 people set up an occupation camp on the site, complete with a kitchen, shade structure and composting toilet system.

Meanwhile, in Simcoe County, the Site 41 protest camp had been set up since May 8, initiated by a group of Anishinabe Kweag (Anishinabe women) from Beausoleil First Nation. Vicki Monague was part of the initial group of campers and describes how the weekend camp-out turned into a permanent protest camp:

"May 8, 2009 was the day that we started the camp, and we lit a sacred fire there. At the end of the weekend, we were going to pack up and go home, but it was channeled to our fire keeper that the fire was lit in protection of the water and that purpose had not yet been completed, so we stayed. The fire has been burning now for 112 days (as of Aug 31)."

The Site 41 protest camp drew farmers from the surrounding area who joined with the Anishinabe people. The camp evolved into a blockade later in the summer when the warden of the township announced that trucks hauling garbage would arrive within a couple of weeks.

Local government bodies at both the HCBP and Site 41 have been pushing the developments. The City of Guelph owns about 60 per cent of the proposed HCBP lands and Simcoe County owns Site 41. Each has engaged aggressive legal means to bypass grassroots opposition and to see construction through.

In Guelph on the afternoon of July 31, a group of city representatives, employees, police and an intelligence officer delivered the files the city would use to support its motion for an injunction against the occupation and its lawsuit against several named and unnamed persons.

"You can't submit an injunction without a lawsuit, so the city filed for an injunction as well as a lawsuit," explains Sam Ansleis of the occupation. The lawsuit included allegations of "conspiracy, destruction of property, intimidation [and] extortion." The city was seeking $5 million in damages.

The lawsuit was quickly classified a SLAPP (strategic lawsuit against public participation) by the occupiers' lawyers.

“The people we showed this [to] were pretty disgusted by the fact that the city would use a SLAPP suit [to discourage public participation] against its own citizens,” said Ansleis.

Guelph City Council had agreed unanimously to launch the lawsuit and injunction following an in-camera council meeting. The suit named a local group, Land Is More Important Than Sprawl (LIMITS), which has been organizing around the HCBP. The group, however, has never been involved in the occupation.

"I don't think that it is unreasonable to assume that the city's intention in naming LIMITS was to create a rift between LIMITS and the occupation, since LIMITS was being implicated in a $5 million SLAPP suit arising from an occupation that they were not involved in," said Ansleis.

Accidentally, it seems, documents accompanying the lawsuit contained copies of correspondences from the Ministry of Natural Resources imploring the city to stop the construction of the HCBP and copies of gag orders against a researcher and a local neighbourhood group. These documents assisted the defendants in winning a counter-injunction against city construction on the lands.

Karen Farbridge, the mayor of Guelph, has come out in active support of the HCBP project, despite being elected on a "green" platform, where she names “clean water, clean air and clean parks” and “encourag[ing] public involvment” as being among her priorities.

Delays caused by the occupation, and the resulting injunction, have led the city to postpone construction until spring 2010. In its press release, the city and Mayor Farbridge are quoted as saying, "A handful of protesters have held our city hostage and ignored democratic processes."

Similarly, in Simcoe County, Tony Guergis was elected mayor of Springwater County in 2006, and during the election stated clearly that he would oppose Site 41. Upon later election in 2007 as Warden to Simcoe County, he oversaw waste management and became a proponent of Site 41. He claims that Site 41 would be a more technically sound site in comparison to the other landfills in the area that are equipped with "inferior engineering."

In response to the blockade and protest camp, some County Council executives launched a lawsuit naming two of the Anishinabe Kweag, seeking damages of $80,000 per week in lost time. "[W]e were estimating that they were going after us for about half a million," said Monague.

On August 25, county council voted to drop the lawsuit and to instate a one-year moratorium on construction at Site 41.

When questioned about whether or not construction would continue at Site 41 next year, Guergis pointed to the cost of renewing permits and winterizing, along with the considerable public pressure, as reasons for not going ahead. "It seems an impossible situation to get approval to reopen the site 12 months from now."

He also pointed out that "100 per cent" of the houses in the county put garbage at the curb every week, implying that those in the community are to blame for the need to open a new dump site.

"I think we have to stop and say we are going to wait for direction from those dealing with the issues. So we will look to the people on the ground and see what their decisions are regarding their own garbage," he said.

Guergis claims that Site 41 would be used almost exclusively for residential garbage, but when pressed further about corporate waste, he stated, “Anyone could pay to dump there.”

Guergis has made statements characterizing people at Site 41 as simply not wanting a dump being constructed “in their backyards.” However, the people themselves cite different reasons for wanting to protect the site.

"I was raised traditionally, raised to do ceremonies for the water, and raised with the inherent responsibility and duty to protect the water for the seven generations to come," Monague explained. "I did what I did for the water. Not just for me, but because we could all use a little less contamination."

On September 22, county council voted to permanently cancel the plans for Site 41. Only then was the sacred fire at the protest camp extinguished.

In Guelph, Ansleis sees the delayed construction of the HCBP as a victory. "We were successful in our goal; our goal was to stop construction of the culvert for this summer. The project will continue in the spring, so resistance will continue in the spring."

She added: "This resistance has not only been about the the Hanlon Creek Business Park. It is about this kind of development that is taking place all over Turtle Island."

Monague also recognizes that, while a victory at Site 41 has been achieved, the issue is not resolved. "The important thing now is that, even though we got the moratorium, the work definitely is not done. I know that many of us will be working to make sure that the water is protected.

"This partnership [that we have experienced around Site 41] between native and non-native communities is pretty much historic. I don't remember a partnership like this ever happening around here and i think it is going to last for a long, long time."

Shailagh Keaney is from Sudbury, in occupied Atikameksheng Anishnawbek territory.

To read more, see For the Water by Dan Kellar and Alex Hundert, and "Protect Mother Earth, Don't Settle for Less" by Adam Lewis.

Site 41 Sunrise

Site 41 - Water Ceremony

For the Water

dru — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 05:52:40 +0000

Opposition to Site 41 unites Natives, farmers

SIMCOE COUNTY, ON—It has been nearly four months since a group of Anishinabe women from Beausoleil First Nation set up a protest camp across the road from a construction site where a new garbage dump is being built. More than 20 years have passed since members of the local agricultural community started the fight to protect what has become known as the world’s purest water.

Tomorrow, August 25, Simcoe County Council will meet, and the agenda includes a vote on a one-year moratorium on development of Dump Site 41. Many Canadians outside the county are familiar with Site 41 because of recent public protests.

Mark Calzavera, the new Council of Candians (COC) organizer for Ontario-Quebec, says, “Ninety-nine per cent of the work that I’ve done has been on Site 41.”

"We’ve really been putting a full court press on the issue because the time frame on the issue is very, very critical," he adds. "The construction is happening now and the people that were there needed support right away.”

The proposed garbage dump is located a few kilometers from the town of Elmvale and barely 30 kilometres from the Beausoleil First Nation reserve on Christian Island in Georgian Bay. The location covers 20.7 hectares of land, is surrounded by productive farmlands and sits directly above the Alliston aquifer. Site 41 has been a contentious development since 1979, when the North Simcoe municipalities started researching garbage dump development options. The county has been dewatering the aquifer as part of preparations for the site, which is slated to receive garbage as soon as possible.

The COC, like the local community, is focused on fighting Site 41 through the system. “From our perspective, what we wanted to do, and what we’ve always said, is that we were looking for a political solution bringing a vote back to council...on whether the dump site should go ahead or not, or whether to issue a moratorium until some of the outstanding questions could be answered,” says Calzavera.

COC lawyers discovered that the site had only received authorization for preliminary work, not for the cell construction. In other words, they had permission to start developing the site, but not to dig the hole the garbage would eventually go in. “They were never authorized to do that, in fact, they were specifically told not to do it by the folks in [Simcoe County] council.” Cell construction began anyway.

During a two-week stay of court in which COC lawyers were awaiting a ruling on the legality of the site, the courts and the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) put on the pressure at Site 41, arresting 10 people between August 2 and 10.

The resulting publicity means that “far more people...understand what is going on,” explains Calzavera.

Police were once again used to clear the shoulder-to-shoulder protesters from in front of the access gates on August 18, and six more people were arrested.

***

The initial environmental review for Site 41 ended in 1989 with a provincial Environmental Review Board rejecting the project. According to Steve Ogden, a local farmer and member of the Community Monitoring Committee (CMC), in 1990 the Peterson government forced re-opening of discussion on Site 41, leading to a provisional Certificate of Approval (CoA) being granted for the project in 1998. Ogden claims that political pressure led to the project being approved, despite known environmental impacts.

One of the provisions of the approval required the CMC to “serve as a focal point for the collection, review and exchange of information relevant to both county and local concerns in connection with the landfill site.” By the end of 2001, two applications for review of the CoA, based on groundwater concerns, were dismissed by the MoE, and in 2003, hydrological consulting company Jagger Hims Ltd (now owned by GENIVAR), which the county hired, created a hydrogeological evaluation of the site using open source computer software Modflow.

The CMC has been denied access to data from the computer model that alleges that Site 41 is ecologically sound. Ogden filed a freedom of information request in 2006 after the final approval that year, despite concerns from Ontario’s Environmental Commissioner. Jagger Hims Ltd argues that the models contain “proprietary information” and still refuses to release the information—which Ogden points out is "a violation of the CoA, and unfortunately the OPP can’t force the MoE to follow the law. I’m not sure who does, because from what I have witnessed, they are not following the rules.”

Vicki Monague, a single mother from Beausoleil First Nation and spokesperson for the protest camp, says of the MoE, “Ultimately, I think the issue is that they are looking more at economy rather than ecology or environment.”

Monague, who was arrested and charged with mischief and intimidation, was banned from returning even to the legal protest camp. She links the direct action taken by herself and others, action considered illegal by the state, to positive social change: “This is actually a really great thing that has happened... the fact that we are able to impact and expose [the corruption] for what it is, and hopefully promote change within the system.”

Mohawk environmentalist Danny Beaton is one of five First Nations people who have been charged in connection with Site 41—he is the only non-local arrested thus far. However, it is not only Indigenous people who have been targeted for arrest by the OPP. Members of the local agricultural community have also been charged in connection with attempts to stop Site 41.

Keith and Ina Wood are 82 and 76 years old, respectively. Calzavera describes Ina Wood as “a saint.” Monague describes the couple as “people who have never even had a parking ticket... law abiding citizens who had lost their faith in the legal system and the political system.”

The Woods—like Monague, Beaton and the 12 others—are facing charges of mischief and are living under bail conditions. Monague says that the example set by the Woods “should inspire people to stand up and use their voice, and to protect what is theirs and to protect their heritage.”

On the eve of the hundredth day of the protest camp, Monague emphasized how their fight has highlighted the extent to which taking action to protect the land and water is not only a fight for First Nations.

“This is also a heritage territory for those families out there that are fighting Site 41 as well. Some of their farmlands have been there for up to 250 years, so this is now a land that we all share.” She continues, “It has gone beyond land claims and treaty rights and aboriginal rights... To protest, to protect the world’s purest water is a right that everybody has and that everybody should stand for.”

***

Corporate industrial giant GENIVAR also owns Henderson Paddon, the firm that provides landfill design and operations services to Simcoe County. This clear conflict of interest was highlighted recently in court when it was revealed that county officials defied a provincial Privacy Commissioner’s order to release the groundwater model, and have now been compelled to take actions to make the data public.

The information from the Freedom of Information inquiry, and issues around the criminalization of protesters, will also be discussed at the council meeting on August 25. It appears that through direct action, communities have come together to force local politicians to at least consider taking environmental protection seriously.

Monague notes that “this is really the first time ever in this area that non-Natives and Native people have stood together side-by-side.”

Calzavera adds, “I think one of the key reasons that the two groups have gotten along so well is that there is a tremendous amount of respect for the hard work that each [has] done and are doing, and the commitment that each group has shown.”

Calzavera says that part of the reason COC has fully engaged with the Site 41 issue "is actually that relationship between First Nations and the local agricultural community.” He emphasizes that “we often support fights like this, but this is a particularly important one because of the quality of the water—it is the purest groundwater that has ever been tested.

"The fight over Dump Site 41 is a metaphor for, and a link to, all the other fights to protect source waters and water sources in Ontario and across the country. They’re all under threat from bad development choices... and Site 41 is the one that is threatened the most right now.”

For more information about the Site 41 protests, including background information and resistance updates, go to www.stopdumpsite41.ca.

Alex Hundert is a community organiser and a founder of AW@L, Journalists for Human Rights - Laurier Waterloo Chapter, and the Earth Justice Initiative.

Dan Kellar is a PhD student at the University of Waterloo, undertaking research in the failure of environmental laws and policies in actually protecting the environment, and an organiser with AW@L

Site 41 Rainbow

Site 41 Sign