{"id":17032,"date":"2016-05-29T13:00:31","date_gmt":"2016-05-29T17:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/?p=17032"},"modified":"2020-03-26T03:59:37","modified_gmt":"2020-03-26T07:59:37","slug":"controversial-waste-disposal-facility-planned-for-near-ottawa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/2016\/05\/29\/controversial-waste-disposal-facility-planned-for-near-ottawa\/","title":{"rendered":"Controversial waste disposal facility planned for near Ottawa"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Ottawa's<\/a>

Ottawa’s old landfill site in Gloucester. Photo: Dan the Hutt<\/a>, Creative Commons, some rights reserved<\/p><\/div>\n

I Love Trash <\/em>is Oscar the Grouch\u2019s song in honor of his love of collecting garbage. However, residents along Boundary Road and in the hamlet of Carlsbad Springs, east of Ottawa, don\u2019t all share the love of refuse with the green grouch from Sesame Street.<\/em> The review process under Ontario\u2019s Environmental Assessment laws has just wrapped up, clearing a hurdle for a proposed facility in the area that will collect and recycle waste from the construction industry.<\/p>\n

The project is officially known as the Capital Region Resource Recovery Centre, but is better known as the Taggart-Miller project. It\u2019s a joint venture of Taggart Investments, a local construction company, and Miller Waste Systems, part of the Miller Group, a Toronto area-based holding company of road construction and transportation management companies across Canada and the United States. The purpose of the new facility will be to recycle waste material from the construction industry. It will be privately owned and operated, and no household trash will be taken there. The same property was considered for a municipal landfill to serve Ottawa and surrounding communities back in the late 1980\u2019s.<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>

A group of local residents has organized opposition to the project. Photo: Dump the Dump 2<\/a> Facebook group<\/p><\/div>\n

An organization of nearby residents and environmental activists has formed to oppose the Taggart-Miller project. They call themselves Dump This Dump 2 and argue that the 450-acre site will not be a recycling facility, but rather an actual landfill that receives trash from the various companies that have their waste disposal contracts with Miller. The property is also located near the eastern edge of the National Capital Greenbelt, the federally-regulated ring of land circling Ottawa where commercial and residential development is limited, and forests and farms instead stand. Dump This Dump 2 has been protesting the project by assembling along local roads and waving signs, and outside the local offices of members of the Ontario legislature.<\/p>\n

Taggart-Miller argues that their project will be good for the local economy and create jobs. Dump This Dump 2 wants the Minister of the Environment and Climate Change to reject the proposal, arguing it goes against the very mandate of the department to protect Ontario\u2019s land and water resources. The Miller Group already has close ties to the Ontario government. All highway maintenance in the province is contracted to private companies, and Miller, or various divisions of it, have contracts with the Ministry of Transportation to maintain and pave highways in regions across the province. In 2014, Miller and McAsphalt Industries, its asphalt manufacturing division, donated over $12,000 to the governing Ontario Liberal Party. In Ontario politics, that\u2019s considered a big contribution.<\/p>\n

\"Dump<\/a>

Dump run. A traditional Saturday activity. Photo: Lee Brimelow<\/a>, Creative Commons, some rights reserved<\/p><\/div>\n

On a much lighter side, Canadians have an odd relationship with landfill sites. Outside of political and bureaucratic circles, most people still just call them \u201cthe dump.\u201d Making a \u201cdump run\u201d is a Saturday tradition in many households in areas where there is no municipal trash collection or homeowners have more garbage to get rid of than the collection crew can handle at the curb. Seeing giant hills of trash and a dirty fire burning used to be very amusing for children. Environmental laws and health and safety policies have put an end to all of that. Everything is sorted into tidy sections now. Resourceful visitors can no longer salvage items from their local dump either.<\/p>\n

My Dad extended the life of an electric clothes dryer and a lawnmower by several years because he removed parts from identical or similar items at the dump. The dump operator, usually just called \u201cthe dump guy,\u201d or \u201cdump man\u201d was usually seen as a public official, albeit with a more minor stature. In one village I lived in, \u201cPoolie\u201d the dump guy gave himself the title of \u201cSuperintendent of the Dump.\u201d He also salvaged items and resold them from the yard around his house next\u00a0to the dump. It made Sanford and Son<\/em> look like Macy\u2019s in comparison.<\/p>\n

In Cornwall, a former section of the city landfill, now covered with soil and grass, opens in the winter as the Big Ben ski hill, a sort of introductory slope for locals not yet ready for the Adirondacks or Laurentians. These are all small, local landfills though. They are quaint, friendly little small town dumps in comparison to big regional landfills or corporate landfills taking in commercial and industrial waste. These facilities, including the Taggart-Miller project near Ottawa, are what prompt protest and concern from citizens, and that\u2019s why they want the Minister of the Environment and Climate Change to reject the plan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I Love Trash is Oscar the Grouch\u2019s song in honor of his love of collecting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":112,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[880,884,16923,5638,996,16924],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17032"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/112"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17032"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17032\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22073,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17032\/revisions\/22073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}