North Frontenac Council - Mar 17/14

Jeff Green | Mar 19, 2014

Statistics show slight drop in diversion rates 

In his annual report on the state of the waste management sites in North Frontenac, Guy Laporte from AECOM engineering said that environmental monitoring of the active and closed sites in 2013 delivered similar results to the previous year. All of the sites are within provincial standards.

On behalf of the township, AECOM has applied to the Ministry of the Environment to temporarily close the Ardoch waste site. The plan is to divert waste from the seldom used Ardoch site to the one on Road 506/509 until that is full and then re-open the Ardoch site. This will save on operating costs and is considered a more efficient way to make use the township's dumping capacity.

At current rates of dumping, the 506 site, which has the least capacity, will be full in 16 years. The life spans of the other sites range from 25 to 44 years.

Diversion rates in the township continue to be good, although they did drop this year, according to some measures. Comparing on a bag-to-bag basis between bags of garbage and bags of recycling, the township receives 1.4 bags of recycling for every bag of garbage.

However, using another measure that is based on the industry standard assumption that each individual produces 1.5 kg of waste per day, and applying that to seasonal and permanent residents in the township, it turns out that by weight, 61% of the waste produced in the township ends up in landfill, up from just under 60% last year. About 15% of the waste is recycled through the Blue Box program, and another 24% is recycled or re-used before getting to the landfill site.

Mayor Bud Clayton said, “When we think about landfill we have to look at the long term. We might have enough space for 25 or 30 years, but then what will we do? As well, our neighbours in South Frontenac could lose their sites in a flash if their plans to improve them don’t pan out and. Don’t think the ministry won’t say - 'they have lots of space in North Frontenac, go dump there'. That would fill us up in no time. At the county we have identified as a priority finding the next solution for waste. It will not be done by us alone, but we are working with the Eastern Ontario wardens on a long term solution, which could be gasification.”

When asked, Guy Laporte said he has not heard of a circumstance where the Ministry of the Environment ordered a municipality to take waste from another municipality. “But it is always wise to think about the future,” he said.

NFCS receives funding for youth

Don Amos and Maribeth Scott outlined the programs for youth that Northern Frontenac Community Services provided in North Frontenac in 2013, and proposed to maintain those programs and enhance those that are seeing the best response from the local youth population.

“We are asking for the same amount of support as last year, $5,400. That money not only helps cover some of the costs of our youth programming in North Frontenac, it is also a demonstration of support from the municipality that we always point out to other potential funders, such as the Trillium Foundation and the United Way,” said Amos.

Council approved the $5,400 grant.

Spring Bear Hunt

Noting that MPP Jerry Ouelette is proposing a pilot project be set up in some Northern Ontario municipalities to bring back the spring bear hunt, partly in order to curb the bear population, the township is sending a letter to the Ministry of Natural Resources requesting that North Frontenac be included.

“Why shouldn’t we have a chance to deal with our nuisance bear problem?” asked Councilor Betty Hunter. “If it is important in Northern Ontario, why not here?”

Frontenac Parklands

Noting that the revenue for the Parklands has flattened out after going up for several years, Mayor Clayton said, “We might need to get together to look at that.” Clayton then noted that the program is running a surplus so it is not a drain on the ratepayers.

Notice of Motion - capping Ompah fire hall costs.

Councilor Wayne Good has put in a notice of motion to be debated at the next meeting. He proposes that $40,000 be left in the reserve fund for improvements to the Ompah fire hall, in addition to a $10,000 provincial grant towards the project. The motion then says that all the rest of the money in reserve for the fire hall project be transferred to a reserve devoted to building a new township office.

Error re LOLCS grant – Hopefully, the board members and staff at Land O’Lakes Community Services didn’t get too excited when I reported two weeks ago that Council had approved a $19,000 grant for them this year. Although the grant that was approved was higher than the year before, it is still just under $1,900 ($1,875 to be exact). My apologies for the error.