McGuinty blames Harris for garbage woes

Toronto is sending its garbage to Michigan because former Ontario premier Mike Harris failed to properly address the issue of landfill capacity, says Gord McGuinty, proponent for the Adams Mine landfill proposal.

McGuinty, left, who has reapplied for a permit to pump water out of the abandoned pit near Kirkland Lake, said Harris failed to grasp what would happen once Toronto’s existing landfill site was closed.

“What Mike Harris never recognized was the magnitude of the problem with garbage in Toronto when Keele Valley closed, that there was no place for the waste to go,” McGuinty said.
“He, like the NDP, used the States as the buffer.”

Harris was not in his Toronto office Tuesday and could not be reached for comment.

Ignored the need to plan
Toronto now sends much of its garbage to a Michigan landfill site after a deal with McGuinty to ship it to the Adams Mine collapsed two years ago.

McGuinty said Harris and his government “ignored” the need to plan for long-term landfill capacity in relation to the Greater Toronto Area.

“And as a result we’ve ended up with no place to take garbage, and no question it was the responsibility of the Harris government to ensure capacity was there,” McGuinty said.

“It came down to Harris saying it’s up to the municipalities to decide about landfills. Decide what? If you don’t have a policy framework in place with either municipalities or private sector companies to move ahead and invest in capacity to handle Ontario garbage, then how is the problem going to be addressed?”

Process screwed up
McGuinty said Adams Mine is the only landfill proposal to have undergone an environmental assessment before receiving a certificate of approval from the Ontario Environment Ministry.

“We’re the only one sent to a public hearing, we’ve been the only one stupid enough to spend the kind of money to do it and get through it because the process is so screwed up anyway,” McGuinty said.

Now the ball is in the court of McGuinty’s second cousin, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty.

“Just because there’s a change in government it doesn’t change the 14 years that nobody’s done anything to manage waste in this province,” McGuinty said.

“So what’s his problem? Well his problem is as it was yesterday, three million tonnes of garbage going to Michigan.”

Prepared to build
McGuinty said there’s no extra landfill capacity in Ontario to take Toronto’s garbage, and no other proponents moving through the approval process to add new capacity.

"So what do we do now? We do have a landfill that has gone through the process, that has a capacity of 1.3 million tonnes a year, 20 million tonnes in total,” McGuinty said, “and we’re prepared to build and bring it on stream.”

McGuinty said he would have enough business just from private sector Toronto waste to eventually fill the site, adding it would take two more Adams Mine-sized landfills to provide enough capacity for all of Toronto’s garbage.

So far, McGuinty’s company, now called the Adams Mine Rail Haul, has spent $25 million over the last 14 years on the site.