The Citizen, 2010-03-25, Page 1CitizenTh
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$1.25 GST included Serving the communities of Blyth and Brussels and northern Huron County Thursday, March 25, 2010
Volume 26 No. 12ONTARIO GAMES - Pg. 19Local teen plays in Ontario games ENTERTAINMENT - Pg. 23 Festival’s concert honours long-time artistsSPORTS- Pg. 9Brussels Peewees runnersupin OMHA finalPublications Mail Agreement No. 40050141 PAP Registration No. 09244 Return Undeliverable Items to North Huron Publishing Company Inc., P.O. Box 152, BRUSSELS, ON N0G 1H0INSIDE THIS WEEK:
The Blyth-Hullett Landfill will be
closing its gates, potentially for two
years, as of May 1, 2010.
The closure will provide the time
needed for tests and cleanup to be
done by owner/operators Central
Huron, and the Ministry of the
Environment.
The downtime will also allow
Central Huron to consider several
changes to the site to extend its
lifespan, according to Brian Barnim,
a Central Huron councillor, and head
of the Mid-Huron Landfill Site
board.
“We’ll be looking at putting in
scales and bringing the site up to
standard,” he said. “We want to
extend its life expectancy.”
Residents in the area of the landfill
received a flyer last week explaining
the closure, which was blamed on a
plume of leachate from unidentified
chemicals that is moving in a
northwest direction.
According to Landfill Site
Superintendent Frank Szusz, the
leachate problem has been caused by
chloride used in tanning hides.
A 1991 Ministry of the
Environment order stated that the
chloride, or salt, used in the tanning
process wasn’t a hazardous material,
so the landfill had no grounds to not
receive the waste.
More recently, the hides have been
taken to London for disposal,
according to Szusz.
Szusz believes that the problem
should remedy itself in time.
The landfill site currently has 26
acres of potential storage, and is only
ACW, North Huron discuss
fire coverage costs, issues
Hullett landfill
closes for 2 years
Chief of emergency services for
Huron County David Lew presented
performance measures that have
been taken to reduce response times
to Huron County council’s
committee of the whole at its March
17 meeting.
While the current benchmark is
eight minutes for emergency service
and six minutes to have a
defibrillator on scene, Lew says
these numbers simply aren’t
attainable in a rural county.
The last documented response
time standard in Huron County was
just over 17 minutes. Lew says that
as part of of the emergency services
agreement with the provincial
government, they have to show that
they have tried to lower response
times each year.
Lew says there is a report due to
the Ministry of Health and Long-
Term Care by the end of October to
demonstrate that each area’s
emergency services department is
taking measures to improve response
times and trying to meet the six-
minute cardiac arrest response time,
the eight-minute Canadian Triage
Acuity Scale (CTAS) One response
time and other strategies to improve
on meeting response times for CTAS
Two through Five.
Initially, when standard response
times were created, Lew said, they
were not based on facts. In 2008,
however, that was changed and the
Ministry has now created a
framework that will utilize fact-
based evidence in creating response
times for an area. Lew said this
concept will empower the
municipalities to establish
Response goals hard
to meet, Lew says
In a recorded 4-2 vote, Morris-
Turnberry council passed a motion
March 16 that Belgrave water users
will pay interest on costs of the
project that have not yet been billed.
The vote followed a request from
Councillor Mark Beaven at the Feb.
2 meeting that the Belgrave users
should be paying the interest
charges.
Morris-Turnberry clerk
administrator Nancy Michie gave a
report to council that included an
Aug. 8, 2006 council statement that
said, “That the Council is prepared
to cover the carrying or interest
charges for the costs of
construction.”
In her report to council, Michie
said the Ontario Ministry of
Agriculture and Food has completed
the Ontario Small Town and Rural
Belgrave residents to pay
water interest, MT says
Festival fun
The Blyth Festival held a March break event last week, teaching kids the basics of acting while
having fun. Wednesday saw the kids explaining the origins of animals such as monkeys,
ducks, and, as young Ethan demonstrates, (dead) cows. (Denny Scott photo)
Fire coverage contract headaches
are continuing for the recently
created North Huron Fire
department, despite a visit to
potential ratepayers ACW council.
North Huron representatives,
including Reeve Neil Vincent and
Fire Chief John Black visited ACW
during their council meeting on
March 16, 2010 to explain proposed
changes to ACW’s current cost of
fire coverage.
The general message that Black
relayed to ACW was that the
dramatic increase in their fire
protection budget was due to several
key factors, including North Huron’s
Fire department planning ahead
financially, instead of hitting the
municipalities with bills for large
capital items, and an increase in the
area to be covered.
“I want to start by apologizing,”
Black said, opening the information
session. “We didn’t communicate
with ACW, and we didn’t know your
intentions with fire coverage.”
Black said that North Huron lost
track of ACW’s fire boundaries and
services with recent changes in both
the fire department’s practices, and
the departure of former North Huron
Chief Administrative Officer John
Stewart.
Black said that the presentation he
made during ACW’s council session
was one that should have happened
before they were delivered their new
contract, so they could deal with
these problems then, not after North
Huron had already had one township
sign their contract.
“When I arrived, I found that two
local fire departments had not been
working together since 1963,” Black
said. “They had not been helping
each other due to an argument that
the chiefs of the department had 46
years ago.”
Black said he tried to figure out
why the situation had persisted, and
why it hadn’t been remedied.
“ I was told [fixing the rift] is just
one of those things that’s not done in
Huron County.”
Black didn’t want to take that as
an answer though. Things needed to
change across the board as far as fire
protection went, and one of his key
points in his demonstration was that
the closest fire station should
respond, regardless of municipal
boundaries.
Previously, ACW had paid North
Huron approximately $6,000 to
$7,000 a year for fire coverage, but,
with changing boundaries and a
completely redesigned fire system,
ACW would be looking at fire
protection premiums of
approximately $21,000 a year.
The cost increase comes due to
drastic changes in North Huron’s
fire protection system, designed to
bring the one department, operating
out of two stations, up to provincial
standards.
Black, who was in charge of
amalgamating the two fire
departments in North Huron into
one, more efficient banner, said that
the world outside of Huron County’s
boundaries had changed, and that
fire protection services needed to as
well. This was what caused many of
the changes to the budget.
“Things weren’t being dealt with
properly,” he explained to ACW.
“Items were being purchased as
capital costs instead of as
operational costs.”
Black said that the previous fire
boards had purchased things like
breathing apparatuses, vehicles, and
equipment under capital expenses,
when current practices have them
being replaced at regular intervals,
allowing for them to be budgeted
for.
Continued on page 24 Continued on page 13
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Continued on page 14
By Denny Scott
The Citizen
By Pat Bolen
Wingham Advance Times
By Denny Scott
The Citizen
By Shawn Loughlin
The Citizen