Dresden and Chatham-Kent officials say a province’s proposed permit amendments for York1’s planned landfill expansion overlook concerns raised about the project near town.
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Officials in Dresden, a community within Chatham-Kent in southwestern Ontario, say they will continue opposing a proposed expansion of a dormant landfill and the addition of a waste transfer station planned by York1.
Chatham-Kent’s deputy chief administrative officer, Dave Taylor, said council has been unanimously opposed since York1 first proposed the project, adding that the site is only a few hundred metres north of town.
York1’s plan would expand a small landfill dating back to the 1960s from an estimated 40,000 cubic metres of waste to a maximum capacity of 1.6 million cubic metres, described as comparable to the volume of Toronto’s Rogers Centre.
According to York1’s site plans, the landfill would be filled mostly with soils, including excavated earth from worksites and other construction waste. The associated transfer station would sort and clean up construction debris, scrap wood, blue box material and dirt before sending materials to recyclers or landfillers.
Municipal officials have argued York1 relied on older permits that were granted decades ago to bypass a full environmental assessment. They say the dormant landfill’s long inactivity means it should be treated as a new project rather than an expansion of an existing operation.
The Ford government had backed away last year from a promise to complete an environmental assessment, and the province is now seeking public comment on whether to amend the existing permits.
Environment Minister Todd McCarthy’s spokesperson, Juliana Wilson, said the proposed change relates to an expansion of an existing facility that can be mobilized quickly because active landfill waste permissions are already in place, and that it would not require a new environmental assessment expected to take nearly a decade.
York1 said in a statement that “nothing is more important than safety,” and encouraged participation in the public review, arguing Ontario is short on landfill space and that keeping recyclable materials out of landfill is part of the answer.
The province’s public comment period on the amended permits runs until Dec. 21. If approved, the municipality says the landfill would still be subject to local zoning requirements, after York1 dropped a lawsuit arguing those local approvals should not apply.
The filing comes after the province initially announced in March 2024 it would pursue an environmental assessment for the project due to community concerns, then cancelled that assessment after a local byelection call tied to the riding of Lambton-Kent-Middlesex.
Taylor said the municipality has continued to raise concerns it believes will still factor into the provincial decision on environmental compliance approvals.
Under the proposal, Chatham-Kent says the landfill would accept up to 3,000 tonnes of waste per day and that peak traffic could include about 20 two-way truck trips per hour.
The site is adjacent to a tributary to the Sydenham River, and locals have raised concerns including about traffic and water impacts, according to the municipality’s statements in the public discussion.
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