The Lucknow Sentinel, 1988-09-14, Page 6Page 6 —Lucknow Sentinel, Wednesday, September 14, 1988
Studies underway to close Holmesville- site
BY BILL HENRY
Soil and water testing now underway at
the Holmesville Landfill Site should end in
the existing dump being closed and sealed
and a newer, more environmentally -safe,
adjacent site being opened within the next
two years.
Municipal officials are also hoping the
new landfill, expected to cost more that
$L5 million for studies, land and equip-
ment and legal costs for hearings, will
solve odor and pollution problems which
have been a growing complaint of area
residents in recent months.
While the existing dump is not at capaci-
ty, tests have detected traces of pollution
entering groundwater,and a stream in the
area because the dump was built on porous
soil and gravel. The new site, immediately
to the west at the 55 -acre landfill site, will
be on a clay base to avoid groundwater
contamination.
As well, a tile drain leachate collection
system will gather excess rainwater which
filters through the garbage. The polluted
water will be stored in a tank, then hauled
to Goderich for treatment as sewage.
Field workers were at Holmesville last
week collecting ground and surface water
samples as well as surveying the new site.
Soil drillings were also taken to insure the
clay base is impermeable enough to pre-
vent more groundwater contamination.
Conestoga Rovers and Associates, a con-
sulting and engineering firm specializing
in environmental work, is preparing the
detailed study. The information will even-
tually recommend how best to close and
seal the site against future pollution, as
well as how to open and operate the new.
landfill.
Both will be done with as little lasting en-
Lucknow's garbage
makes the trip to
Holmesville weekly
vironmental impact as possible, says Greg
Pucovsky, a senior hydrogeologist with
CRA.
Pucovsky said once the results from last
week's testing are back, which could take
as long as three months for organic and
metal analysis, another round of tests will
be required.
"The testing will be fairly intensive for
about the next eight months," he said last
week. "We're just getting into it and we've
got a long way to go."
As well as outlining how best to close one
site and open another, CRA's report will
also be used as the basis for the
Holmesville Landfill Site Committee's re-
quest that the procedure be exempted
from a full environmental assessment
under the Environmental Protection Act.
The committee has agreed that, since
the site joins a dump already in use, a
detailed environmental investigation is not
necessary.
Instead, CRA's test results and informa-
tion will go before the public first at an in-
formal public meeting, then at hearings
which would be less -stringent than the full
environmental assessment usually re-
quired to open a new site, said committee
secretary Larry McCabe, who is also the
clerk -treasurer for the Town of Goderich,
the dump's main user.
McCabe said the CRA investigation and
subsequent hearings would also formally
allow Seaforth and the remainder of
Tuckersmith Township to begin using the
dump on an emergency basis, as well as
"legalizing" several municipalities which
have been hauling refuse to the site for
years without proper permission form pro-
vincial officials.
Those include Lucknow, part of
Tuckersmith Township, Colborne
Township, and Bayfield.
Legally, only Goderich, Clinton and
Goderich Township should be using the
Holmesville dump, although the others
were understood to be legal users and have
done so for years, McCabe said.
Much of the current Conestoga Rovers
study ($63,000. for testing and $15,000 for
hearings) is being funded by a $106,000
Ministry of the Environment grant under
its Financial Assistance Program. Land
for the new site will also be purchased for
about $100,000.
The balance of the $178,000 to be spent
this fiscal year will be shared by the user
municipalities, McCabe said.
Another $1.4 million has been budgeted
in 1989-90 for equipment and site prepara-
tign, of which $840,000 would be MOE
grant, if approved.
The following year, $300,000 is to be
spent preparing the site, with $180,000
coming from the provincial government.
Meanwhile, McCabe said problems
which led to the formation last year of a
citizens' group which wants the dump per-
manently closed are gradually being
solved..
A rat abatement program is set 'to begin
next week. Odoriferous groundfires which
have burned for more than a year have
been dug out and squelched over the sum-
mer. Garbage is no longer being left un-
covered from one day to the next, as had
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been the practice.
"There have been some operational pro-
blems, which have been addressed," Mc-
Cabe said.
The citizens group, led by Holmesville
resident Brigitte Charon, has said it will
ask the ministry not to grant an exemption
to the full environmental assessment.
"Most people in the area want to see the
dump closed permanently," Charron said
earlier this summer.
But site committee members have said
it would take at least seven years to locate
a new site, do the studies and meet the en-
vironmental assessment criteria. It would
also cost much more, especially for legal
costs, than altering the current site to last
another dozen years.
"It's a good site," said Ken Hunter,
Goderich's commissioner of works. "It
would be a horrendous cost to move it
somewhere else."
Both Hunter and McCabe admitted there
are questions which some people will want
answered, which is why public meetings
will be scheduled as soon as the Conestoga
Rovers study is complete.
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