AH looking at bringing septic inspections in house

Jeff Green | May 17, 2017

Township resident Frank Smith sent a letter to Council recommending that the township consider taking over the job of septic system approvals and other septic inspections. He said that as a contractor working in the township, “95% of my work is by water access ... in many cases 5-8 miles down the lake in the morning with the building inspector and back down in the afternoon with the health inspector, making things very expensive to operate.”

Councillor Bill Cox said that Kingston Frontenac Health does the inspections for the township and has for years. He made a motion to receive the Smith letter for information.

“I don’t feel like we want to make a change,” he said. “it might end up costing us money.”

Chief Administrative Officer Christine Reed said that when the township hired a full time Chief Building Official/bylaw officer earlier this year, the person they hired, Ken Buxton, has the training and authority to do the inspections.

“It wouldn’t cost us any more money to have him do the inspections,” she said. “but we would be able to keep the fees.”

The fee for the inspection of a new system is about $850, according to Deputy Clerk/Planning Secretary Patricia Gray, there about 20-30 inspections each year for new construction and other purposes.

Councilor Fritsch proposed an amendment to Cox’s motion, asking staff to report back on the operational and financial implications of taking the inspections in house. The amendment was accepted as friendly and the motion was approved.

COFA hopes for clean up at Mallory Lake
Douglas Tocher appeared before Council on behalf of COFA (Conservationists of Frontenac Addington) to talk about a COFA plan to enlist help from students at North Addington Education Centre to do a clean up of the shoreline at Mallory Lake, which is located off Addington Road 5 to the northeast of Mazinaw Lake.

“Mallory Lake is a popular fishing lake, and COFA would like to clean up a mess on the shoreline as far around the lake as we can, with the help of students, who receive credit towards their 40 hour volunteer requirement to graduate,” said Tocher.

Last year, a similar project was undertaken at Deer Rock Lake, west of Flinton.

The township is generally supportive of these undertakings and Council offered to waive dumping fees for anything collected by the students and COFA members.

There is still a major hurdle to be overcome, however, because of the state of repair of much of Addington Road 5.  It is not necessarily suitable for school bus traffic and the students are likely to be coming on to the site via a bus.

“I wouldn’t take a bus in there,” said Reeve Hogg, who owned a school bus company for a many years.

Public Works Manager Mark Freeburn was tasked with looking into the condition of the road and reporting back.

When contacted later, Tocher said COFA needs to make sure the cleanup is a go pretty soon.  The students are only available until June 9 because of the exam schedule.

Tipping fees – its complicated
Earlier this year Council decided that local waste sites would no longer accept bulk construction waste, and made changes to the tipping fees charged.  Last week, the township received a letter from Ken Brown of Brown’s Cottages saying the new rules for trailer loads of waste are unclear. The public works manager and a waste site attendant who was at the meeting, both said there is confusion about dumping items such as “large flower pots, barrels, lawn chairs, large plastic toys, that are not construction waste but do not fit into bags”

CAO Reed said she has looked at the way different neighbouring townships handle waste and there is no uniformity.

After a protracted debate, Council asked staff to consider options for acceptable trailer load sizes, with construction waste continuing to be forbidden at Addington Highlands waste sites.