At the May 27 meeting of Clarington Council, some interesting events took place. There were 12 delegations on the agenda to speak in opposition to the Energy-From-Waste (Incineration) being promoted by Durham Region and one delegation in favour. The most likely on the preferred site will be within the municipality of Clarington, since the town council of the only other potential site outside of Clarington, East Gwillimbury in York Region, voted last week to make East Gwillimbury an "unwilling host".
Clarington Council decided we need an independent peer review, as well as possibly additional studies to help them to decide whether Clarington should be a willing host or not. So they asked Planning Department Staff to come up with a report, outlining what studies may be needed.
On May 23, Durham Region Finance and Admin Committee came up with a resolution that would limit the Clarington review and studies to a cap of $200,000. If that was not sufficient, Clarington could come back and ask Regional Council for more money. However, there is a time line attached to the site selection, which is in September. Regional Council has only one more meeting (3 weeks from now) before they break for summer - until September. It appears they don't want Clarington to do their "due diligence" and complete their review before the September site selection. Originally, Durham and York Regions approved a motion that said, "...that such adequate funding shall include the costs of all necessary studies and legal advice incurred by the potential host community to investigate and complete its due diligence in arriving at its decisions whether or not it will become a host community for the EFW facility."
Also at that Finance and Admin Committee meeting, which our Mayor Abernethy sits on and Charlie Trim was present for I was told, Regional Chairman Anderson made it a point to say that "a message needs to be sent" to Clarington before the May 28 Council meeting. The intent was made very clear - the Region wants control over which studies can be reviewed independently by Clarington. That's ridiculous. How could they possible call it an "independent review" if Durham is directing which of their consultant's studies can be reviewed? The Region wants this incinerator project to go through, one way or another. So Mr. Anderson showed up at Clarington Council on Monday night, and asked that he be allowed to address Council. Sending a copy of the motion to Clarington Council wasn't enough. He wanted to drive home his message in person.
This is when the fireworks began. All 4 local Councillors (Foster, Hooper, Robinson, Woo) voted "no". The three Regional Councillors (Abernethy, Trim, Novak) voted yes. The Regional Chair was denied his request to speak! Apparently that has never happened to him before, and he beat a hasty retreat from Council chambers after that vote, with at first a stunned, then an angry look on his face. His right-hand man in this endeavour, Cliff Curtis, accompanied him.
Later on, all 3 of our regional reps spoke about this - Charlie Trim being the most livid. He lashed out at the local councillors and everyone else. He was absolutely inconsolable. Mary Novak said she had wanted Mr. Anderson to be able to speak so he could give more information to Council and the residents, but what information was he there to give? He was there to pressure the local councillors, who had outvoted the 3 regional councillors the week before regarding approval of the peer review report, into changing their votes to agree with their regional counterparts. He even said he was there to make it clear to Clarington Council that the Region was not giving them a blank cheque. Council and Staff already knew that. There was no further information for him to give.
Mayor Abernethy's reaction and comments were particularly disappointing, but not surprising, as he and Councillor Trim are such strong supporters of "everything Anderson". Mayor Abernethy stated his position very early on, before all the reports were in (and they still are not in) that he is in favour of incineration and totally against landfill. He doesn't seem able to grasp the fact that incineration produces toxic ash that must be landfilled - about 1/3 of the total mass of garbage going in to the incinerator comes out as ash. The other 2/3 goes out of sight, out of mind, into the air to contribute not only to greenhouse gasses (I guess he doesn't care a bit for
global warming), but also toxic emissions that affect human health as well as ecological health of surrounding areas. Where does he propose that toxic ash go? Do we keep it within Clarington or Durham Region borders so we can fulfill their grand claim of taking responsibility for our own garbage and a "
Made in Durham solution"? They just don't get it, do they? They will need landfill for their incinerator and they will contribute even more to our smog days, global warming, and health problems. Do they even care that the emissions from burning garbage are worse than those from burning coal for energy? They care apparently about the ground but not the air we breathe. And they want to put in an unsustainable technology rather than putting all that money and energy into reducing waste, recycling, reusing, etc. Increasing waste diversion will reduce the need for landfill and is so much cleaner, safer, and LESS EXPENSIVE too! Also much more socially acceptable.
While it was certainly out of the ordinary for the Regional Chair to not be allowed to speak at a local municipal meeting, I can't fault our local councillors for doing it. They felt they had to send a message, then they succeeded in doing so. They were sending a message to the Region that Clarington needs to do it's own due diligence. After all, right now the only "studies" we have are the ones provided at those one-sided Public Information Sessions hosted by Durham Region. They also succeeded in sending a message to our Mayor and two regional councillors. Our local councillors play as important a role as do our regional reps, maybe even more so. They don't have a conflict of interest when it comes to standing up for Clarington as our regional councillors seem to have.
Remember that Durham Region decided a year ago that thermal treatment (incineration) would be their preferred method of dealing with municipal waste. How they came to this conclusion is beyond most of us, since they didn't have enough information to make that decision. Even now, the consultants hired by the region to push this project through to completion give us answers such as, "We can't answer that question", or "We don't have that information yet" when asked specific questions regarding health, emissions, etc. If the consultants don't have the information, neither does Council, so how did they make their decision a year ago? Crystal ball?
People ask, how biased are the reports being promoted by the Region's consultants? All you need to do is to attend one of their information sessions and hear them tell us that everything is good. There are no drawbacks to incineration, they say. The particular technology they will be using will be very clean and only emits water vapour from the stack they say, showing a picture of a little puff of white smoke. Problem there - the specific technology to be approved has not been decided yet. They give round-about answers to questions and don't answer anything that might be negative. It's no wonder that our gullible Regional Councillors have been taken in by it all - they hear only positive results regarding incineration. And they also hear how terrible landfill is. They haven't a clue about stabilized landfill, how it can be used in conjunction with enhanced waste diversion for a better solution to the garbage problem than incineration. The part to concentrate on is WASTE DIVERSION, not landfill. Certainly not incineration.
Our Regional Councillors keep touting the wonders of European Incineration - and those who have already been there are going over again, with a few additions, on our dollar of course. This trip should be restricted to those who have not gone previously, but that's another story. But why do none of them know anything about stabilized landfill when MBT treatment and stabilized landfill technology is practiced much more extensively in Europe than North America. A key reason for this difference is the requirements of the European Union’s Landfill Directive 1999/31/CE, which states: "only pre-treated wastes are allowed to be landfilled after July 2001; and • the amount of biologically degradable MSW to be landfilled must be reduced in a phased approach to 75% by July 2006, to 50% by July 2009, and to 35% by July 2016 of the total amount of biologically degradable MSW produced in 1995."
They sure didn't get much of an education on previous trips, if they learned nothing about stabilized landfill, and since most of them seem to believe that incineration is the answer to landfill and none will be necessary once we get that shiny new incinerator! How naive.
If the Region wants us to host that monster, they should pay for our "due diligence" so the best decisions can be made by our Council for our residents. But the last thing the region wants is for us to get the real truth from independent studies. Our local councillors did the right thing. And if our staff needs to run over the $200, 000. cap, then our local council should declare Clarington NOT a willing host. They could do it right now and not have to go to the expense, but these studies will help us if we have to go to court to fight this even after being declared unwilling.
Remember that Mr. Anderson has made it VERY clear a number of times when asked, that even if we are not a willing host, it will be up to Durham Region, and not Clarington, whether we are forced to host the incinerator. The bully strikes again. One more reason the Regional Chair needs to be elected by the people instead of re-appointed time after time after time by his buddies on Regional Council. He needs to be accountable to US, not just to his friends. He has quite the hold over most (although luckily not all) of those on Regional Council. There are a few who go their own way, and they are to be commended. But most, sadly, don't. They may not realize it, but they look like lap-dog automatons to those of us who watch those meetings on TV.
So thank you to Councillors Foster, Hooper, Robinson and Woo. We appreciate that you are looking out for our best interests, and that you have had the guts to stand up to fierce pressure from not only the Region, but also from our own 3 regional representatives (Abernethy, Trim and Novak). If you can stand up to them, it shows that the Mayor's ridiculous accusation that you are intimidated by delegations is another of his newly off-the-wall ideas. We see it as you listening to residents, not being intimidated by them. You have shown strength and caring and a loyalty to Clarington that the other 3 could learn from. We thank you and will continue to support your efforts.
