Victor Hesse is a frustrated municipal politician. He served, as the sole council rep, on the septic re-assessment committee for Central Frontenac Council for three years. After submitting a draft plan, then holding public meetings, the committee brought their plan to council for approval in October.

And the plan was rejected.

Two weeks later, Councillor Tom Dewey brought in an alternate proposal that set out a phased-in approach to the assessments, delaying implementation for off-water residents for an extra 5 years, and cut the septic pumpers out of the loop as far as conducing assessments is concerned. The Dewey proposal, which was adopted by Council, enlists Chief Building Official (CBO) Shawn Merriman to design a program and bring it back for consideration.

During the debate on the Dewey proposal, Victor Hesse said it was a plan that was “designed to fail” and in an interview with the News this week, some of the feelings of the moment had cooled, but he still thinks there are major flaws with the direction Council has taken.

“The situation now is that staff is being asked to design a program for waterfront properties first, but that is a mistake. They are not the ones who really should be looked at first. The biggest question mark about environmental impacts is within the hamlets. And the hamlets will not be completed within ten years.”

According to Hesse, the focus on waterfront properties is based on politics. The pressure to come up with a septic plan came mostly from lake associations and waterfront residents, whose main concern is the water quality of the lakes, and the main push back against the program was coming from off-water residents who were concerned about the potential cost of compliance with the program.

“But what is more important than politics is coming up with something that serves the long term interests of all residents, and provides more information and assurance to the township about what is really out there. There is a lot that we don’t know about septic systems in our township,” Hesse said.

The third major concern Hesse has is with cost of assessments. The committee had proposed that septic haulers, of which there are 6 working in the township, would be able to complete the assessments at the same time as they are doing pump outs.

“We contacted the pumpers and 3 were in favour of doing it this way, two were opposed and one was on the fence about it. We asked about what they would charge and they placed it at $25 or $50, except for one who said he would have to charge $100.”

Under the newly adopted proposal, pump-out companies will not be doing assessments. A separate inspector will need to be paid, and the residents are going to be paying directly unless the township steps in.

“Now that the pumpers have been cut out, the only option is to use the Mississippi-Rideau Septic office, and their fee is $130. I don’t think residents will like that,” said Hesse.

John Duchene, who lives on Kennebec Lake and was a citizen member of the committee with Hesse, said that he was also disappointed when the committee’s report was rejected, and he shares Hesse’s concerns with the direction that Council has taken, but he remains hopeful that a plan will emerge that does some good.

“I do think that they have placed all the burden on the Chief Building Official to come up with a plan, after we spent years consulting and gathering information from many sources to come up with the one that has been rejected. I hope they follow through in the end,” he said.

For his part, CBO Merriman said he plans to bring something forward in January, following Council’s direction.

“I’d like to get this started in the spring if Council is willing,” he said.

The Dewey proposal also included the following directive: “Staff be directed to develop a program for low income home owners whereby a list of referred agencies that are available to help with funding for failed systems is regularly maintained, and updated along with a municipal program, whereby staff will investigate and bring forward rules and procedures for a municipal assistance program.

As Addington Highlands continues to grapple with dwindling space left in its waste sites and the desire to keep costs reasonable for township residents, Chief Administrative Officer Christine Reed prepared a report outlining the various options for tipping fees that townships of similar size have chosen.

Based on the many issues to be dealt with, including determining fees for loads of various sizes and compositions, Councillor Tony Fritsch said it would be best if a group of councillors, township residents, the public works manager and waste site attendants got together to hash out all the options.

Reeve Henry Hogg said perhaps the Public Works committee, with the addition of two site attendants, could be called together to look at the issues and submit a report.

Councillors Fritsch and Cox sit on that committee, as do three members of the public. Council voted to defer the matter to an expanded public works committee.

Financial statements
Adam Young from Seckler, Ross and Perry, LLP, presented a scintillating account of the township’s finances, saying that based on the information presented to him the township’s finances appear to be in good order. The township carried a working surplus of $65,000 going forward from 2015 on a $5 million plus budget, with departmental actual expenditures tallying well with their budget estimates.

Gravel and Tandem tenders
KCK Gravel, located near Denbigh, was the successful bidder to supply gravel to the township at a price of $67,500 for 1,000 tonnes. The other bidder, Gemmills Sand and Gravel, came in at $75,000.The tandem axle truck will cost $227,350. There was only one bidder, but the price was under budget.

Requests granted
A request for the waiver of the events license fee for the Flinton Jamboree was granted. Also a request by Jen Whalen of Pathways for Children and Youth for space to meet clients on Tuesday afternoons during the summer, was granted. Whalen will also work out of the Land O'Lakes Community Services Office. She uses North Addington Education Centre during the school year.

Better deal for councillors attending conferences
Based on a notice of motion from Councillor Bill Cox, some of the expense payments to councillors have increased. Mileage payments have been set at $0.54 per kilometre for the first 5,000 kilometres each year, and $0.48 after that, for “travel from their residence within the municipality, for all municipal functions.

For conventions, seminars and meetings outside of the township, accommodations will be covered “as per receipts”, meals will be reimbursed at a rate of $15 for breakfast, $25 for lunch, and $35 for dinner. A per diem of $125 per day, “plus bus/rail or mileage plus registration” will also be paid.

How North Frontenac disposes of waste and recycling is about to go through some major changes.

At a special meeting of Council last Saturday at Clar-Mill Hall in Plevna, Public Works Manager Jim Phillips went through the proposed changes, not all of which were met with public, or Council, approval.

Phillips said he expects to have a new bylaw ready for the June 30 Council meeting.

He said that much of the impetus for changes stem from the cost to dispose of bulky waste, construction materials and white goods.

“We budgeted $12,000 last year for this and our costs were double that,” Phillips said. “We’re not collecting enough to reflect the cost of disposal for these items.”

Essentially, the proposals are two-fold. First, tipping fees will increase on things like fridges/freezers (to $30 from the current $20), mattresses/box springs/sofas (to $20 from the current $15), sofa beds (to $30 from the current $20) and recliners (to $10 from the current $5).

Second, bag tags will still be used but only for the disposal of household waste and bag tags will not be issued for additional bags of recycling (Phillips is recommending a 30-days grace period after passage of the bylaw to use accumulated bag tags for bulky waste and items other than household waste.)

Currently, residents have been able to use recycling tags to dispose of bulky items instead of cash at an exchange of one tag per every $2 of tipping fee.

“In order to keep our waste sites for as long as we can, these changes need to happen,” Phillips said. “If we didn’t divert these items, our waste sites would fill up quickly.”

He said current estimated remaining lifespans for the sites are: 506 – 30 years; Mississippi – 34 years; Plevna – 49 years.

“Recycling comes at a cost,” he said. “Recycling goes to a Materials Recovery Facility in Belleville and changing markets determine if we get a rebate, have to pay or it’s free.”

“My concern is that it might encourage people to find a quiet back road (to dispose of bulky items),” said resident Fred Fowler.

“I’m hearing that people want to use their extra tags for building waste,” said Coun. Denis Bedard.

Mayor Ron Higgins expressed concern that a lot of the bulk waste coming in was from outside the municipality.

“Just the other day we had an incident where someone brought in nine mattresses from a two-bedroom cottage,” Higgins said.

Hunting for camps
With improvements to mapping technology, rural municipalities are finding out all sorts of things.

In North Frontenac, it turns out that several hunting camps, once thought to be on Crown Land, are actually on Township land, often on road allowances.

“It was a misunderstanding with the Crown in the ’50s,” said Coun. Gerry Martin. “Now there are liabilities and actual paperwork that has to be taken care of.

“It’s another user pay thing.”

To that end, Tara Mieske, clerk/planning manager, presented a proposal to Council for a $130 application fee and an annual fee of $75 to cover costs for these properties. With the fees, Council enters into licence agreements which allows the use of road allowances for access or for use of buildings on Township land.

“In most cases, building permits were issued and a fee was paid to the Crown, who then paid the Township,” Mieske said.

Shawn Merriman, the new Chief Building Official (CBO), offered his opinion on how Council should proceed with penalizing North Frontenac residents who constructed a yurt in the Township without the proper permits in place.

“This case should still proceed,” Merriman said. “Yurts depend on the usage as much as the actual thing.”

“The previous CBO has agreed that it's a building, I have, from my previous experience at other townships, agreed too,” Merriman said. “If they can be used as a residence, and in this case it appears that it is being used as a residence, even if it's seasonal, it's a slippery slope to get into it.”

Mayor Higgins was adamant about deferring the decision until they could sit down with the planning department, the building department, and Council to better define how they classify yurts in the Township.

“I don't agree,” Deputy Mayor Fred Perry said. “We have a set of policies and we have a building inspector that adheres to those policies. .. we have to accept those decisions,”

“We don't go around questioning when the Inspector says yes or no,” Perry continued. “That's his job.”

“In most situations I would agree but this is a unique situation...” Mayor Higgins said.

“No sir,” Merriman interrupted. “In all situations you hired your Building Inspector to do the job.”

“I'm not trying to circumvent what the building department is doing ...” Higgins said. “We haven't defined yurts in our building code.”

“The building official defines it for you once you hire them,” Merriman said.

“I'm not necessarily looking to punish anyone who truly thought they were doing something that was reasonable,” Merriman said.

“When something goes through that's not safe it's usually not those people that have a problem but the person 4-5 owners down that has the problem,” Merriman said. “… and then they ask the Township 'how could you have done this?' and you find yourself in court.”

In a recorded vote, Council chose to defer the decision. Councillors Good and Deputy Mayor Perry voted against the motion, and Councillor Inglis recused himself from the vote because the resident who put up the yurt is his daughter.

Mayor Higgins said he will sit down with the planning and building departments and try to come to a workign definition of a yurt and will report back to council

Council Approves Official Plan
Megan Rueckwald, the Community Planner for Frontenac County, came to Council on Friday in Ompah to present, and eventually get approved, the final version of the Official Plan (OP) for North Frontenac.

The updated version of the plan featured some policy revisions as a result of the last public meeting and updates to map layers.

The planning staff had recommended that Council consider changing the status of Harlowe and Snow Road Station from their current designation of “settlement” but Council voted against the idea and the two hamlets will retain their original classifications.

During the public meeting in April of this year, local residents had concerns about Snow Road not being considered a hamlet with fears of missing out on future development planning from the Township.

On Friday, Council made one final change to the OP, having Rueckwald adapt the map of Harlowe to show it as a settlement area, and then approved the plan.

If this version gets a nod from the County it will be the first Official Plan approved for North Frontenac since 2003.

Clar-Mill Archives Receives $10K Grant
Brenda Martin, from the Clar-Mill Archives, received a grant from the Community Foundation for Kingston & Area for $10,672 to help offset expenses and to allow them to hire two summer students.

North Frontenac Stands Behind Decision on Cambium
“South Frontenac is ticked off at North Frontenac in the Frontenac News so I felt I had to address that,” Mayor Higgins said.

Higgins read aloud a letter he presented during County council in defence of North Frontenac's decision to vote against applying for funding from the Continuous Improvement Fund that would allow them to hire Cambium to study waste diversion in the County.

Mayor Higgins had hoped that the funding would be used to study more progressive solutions for waste diversion and instead the Cambium study, which would cost $106,000, was highly focused on blue box programs.

“I can think of a few different options such as working with other municipalities, working with the Eastern Ontario Wardens Caucus, an incinerator, reuse facilities,” Higgins said. “That's what we were expecting was going to come back to the County.”

“It just ticked me off that we're spending that money frivolously,” Higgins said. “There's lessons to be learned from each Township before we proceed.”

“A lot of Townships aren't up to where we're at,” Higgins told Council.

“We shouldn't proceed with any studies until all options are identified...” Higgins said

“One of the realities at play is that South Frontenac is not nearly as advanced as we are at blue box recycling and they hold more votes and more power and more people and they're getting a blue box enhancement program that's good for them,” Councillor John Inglis said. “We don't need it.”

“Why are we paying their consultant $100,000 to come in and interview our public works manager to get information that our public works managers already have?” Higgins asked. “It's a total waste of money!”

“The County is good at that,” Councillor Wayne Good added.

At the monthly meeting of Frontenac County Council on May 17th, the longest and most vigorous debate was over waste management, a service that is delivered by the individual townships with no input from county staff.

The context for the debate was a proposal, which was developed with input from the township public works managers (pwm), to apply for a provincial grant which would cover half the cost of a comprehensive study of the blue box programs in each township with a view towards making them more successful in terms of cost and the amount of waste that is diverted.  The potential for collaborative delivery of service is part of the proposal.

Last year the county facilitated a joint tendering for engineering services at waste sites across the county, which resulted in North, Central, and South Frontenac all contracting with Cambium Engineering for those services, at a cost savings. The proposed study would also be completed by Cambium.

Before coming to the county for consideration, the proposal went to North, Central, and South Frontenac Councils. It was accepted by South and Central Frontenac, and rejected by North Frontenac.

The reason North Frontenac said no, according to John Inglis, one of two North Frontenac Council representatives to Frontenac County Council, was that when waste was initially brought forward to be considered by Frontenac County it was for an entirely different purpose.

“Bud Clayton [former Mayor of North Frontenac] was the one who brought the idea of preparing for a post landfill future forward as one of the goals of the county strategic plan. He wanted us to be bold, to look at regional incineration, take some risks and try to promote this to our neighbours. To take the money that was set aside for that and use it for another study into blue box programs is not using the money for what it was intended for,” said Inglis.

Frontenac Islands Mayor Dennis Doyle agreed, but added that “the Eastern Ontario Warden’s Caucus, who would have to get on board with this, have it as their 10th priority, and it never seems to move up from there.”

This point was picked up by South Frontenac Mayor Ron Vandewal, who said “post landfill is something that is way out there in the future. In Europe they have been working on that for years and years but Canada is nowhere close to thinking about post-landfill. Meanwhile our diversion rate in South Frontenac is 25%, which is way way below the target, so anything to help us improve that is something we should consider.”

North Frontenac Mayor Ron Higgins, who was chairing the meeting in his role of Deputy Warden, waded into the debate as well, expressing a concern about the process.

“I don’t see what we are debating here. The application for the grant has already been submitted before this is even being debated. That’s what concerns me. How can we debate something after the fact.”

County CAO Kelly Pender said that the deadline for submitting an expression of interest for a grant to cover up to half of the cost was May 6th, so the county went ahead.

“But there is a second phase, and if Council says no today the whole thing ends,” he said. “We went to the townships first because it was an initiative of the public works managers and it is a township service. It is the public works managers who are driving this, not the county.”

Indeed the report which recommends that Cambium can go ahead and develop the proposal was prepared by Jim Phillips, the pwm from North Frontenac. Mark Segsworth, the manager from South Frontenac has also been involved. He sits on a provincial committee looking at the future of the Blue Box program in Ontario, which is slated to be funded by manufacturers.

“We see our future working with the City of Kingston to try and make sure the new system that is developed isn’t entirely designed only for the GTA,” said Vandewal.

In the end, Council decided it would be okay to let Cambium continue to develop a proposal and prepare a grant application, even if it might lead to spending some or all of the $100,000 that was originally intended for promoting a post landfill future. There were no dissenting votes. Since he was chairing the meeting Ron Higgins did not vote, only announcing that the motion was passed.

The Oso (Crow Lake) waste site probably won’t last much more than five years but with proper management and diversion techniques, the Olden site could last 17-35 years, with 25 years being a reasonable estimate, David Bucholtz of Environmental Services, Cambium Inc. told Central Frontenac Council at its regular meeting Tuesday in Sharbot Lake.

“A new operations plan is being completed (for Olden) and we’ll have a better idea once it’s submitted to the Ministry from review and approval,” he said.

Currently, the Olden site has a remaining capacity of about 92,000 cubic metres and an average annual fill rate of 2,100 to 4,200 cubic metres. The Oso site has a remaining capacity of about 10,000 cubic metres with an average annual fill rate of 2,000 metres.

He said both sites as well as the Hinchinbrooke transfer station and the two closed sites (Arden and Wilkinson) are monitored for both ground water and surface water contamination and once a “minor action” was taken care of at Oso, all are satisfactory. The Township will need a closure plan for Oso, he said.

One plan in the works that could help is a potential agreement between all County members to increase diversion (in all likelihood in conjunction with the City of Kingston).

North Frontenac Council has rejected the plan, South Frontenac has accepted it and Central voted to accept it as well.

“And I’ll be voting for it at County Council,” said Mayor Francis Smith.

“I’ll be supporting it as well,” said Coun. Tom Dewey, the Township’s other representative on County Council.

• Council approved a new half-ton truck at a cost not to exceed $40,000 for new Fire Chief Greg Robinson. The vehicle is not in the 2017 fire budget and will be financed through reserves.

“It is normal accepted practice for municipalities to provide a vehicle to full-time fire chiefs so that they may respond quickly and safely to emergencies when required, both from home and while on duty,” Robinson said.

Mayor Francis Smith said they had discussed using one of two other pickups in the fleet for the chief but Robinson said both were already assigned to other duties at their respective fire halls.

Robinson said there was another aspect to the vehicle request that would have to be discussed in camera.

When Council announced its intension to go into closed session, it gave the reason of discussion of an identifiable individual.

• Public Works Manager Brad Thake said all the rain lately has kept his department busy inspecting, diverting and cleaning out culverts.

“Water is really weighing on my mind but I think we’re in pretty good shape other than 2nd Depot Lake Road,” he said. “I can’t say when that will reopen.”

“We did a lot of work on that road a couple of years ago,” said Coun. Phillip Smith. “Did we not get what we contracted for?”

“We won’t know until we get the engineer’s report,” Thake said. “But if it should have been done differently, then we may have some recourse.”

And speaking of recourse, Coun, Sherry Whan noted the number of guardrails that need replacing and asked if there was some recourse for that.

“Yes, if the incident was reported to the police, we can recoup some of the cost,” Thake said.

• Jerry Ackerman, despite making a compelling argument to change the name of the road he was born on several decades ago, was turned down by Council.

Ackerman made the case that the road, which runs from Tamworth to Parham is known by many names including Wagarville Road when it leaves Parham to 5th Lake Road to Carroll Road to California Road.

Ackerman made the case for Tampar or Partam Road, as well as simplified signage. If successful in Central Frontenac, he planned to take his proposal to adjacent Stone Mills Township.

However, several Council members, while sympathetic to his arguments, pointed out that there are several reasons road names don’t get changed very often.

“Jerry, as much as I sympathize with you, there’s a domino effect that happens when you change a road name,” said Coun. Bill MacDonald. “Everybody along the road has to change their mailing address on everything including their driver’s licence and all the maps in Ontario have to be changed.

“And the number of people who take ownership of a road name is amazing and they would all have to be consulted.”

“There are many roads like that such as Henderson Road which becomes Arden Road which becomes County Road 15,” said Coun. Cindy Kelsey. “And there are costs involved with every change of address and that can get expensive.”

Council did however make it part of its resolution to have the Public Works Manager look at ensuring adequate signage on the the road, at least that part in Central Frontenac.

At a meeting in Harlowe, Meredith Rush-Inglis and Laura Williams, residents of North Frontenac, made a presentation to Council on Mongolian yurts and asked for an exemption from a $300 penalty they were charged for building without a permit.

A yurt is a domed structure originally used in Mongolia by herders who required a portable structure they could pack up easily as the herd moved throughout the year.

Rush-Inglis and Williams had erected a yurt on their property without obtaining a building permit from the Municipality and they were charged a $300 administration fee for failing to obtain a permit before assembling the structure. Rush-Inglis and Williams were asking Council for an exemption from the penalty charge as well as relief from the building permit fee of $1875, which they suggested was high based on the usage of the structure. Their yurt is intended to be used as sleeping accommodations for guests on their property during the warmer months and not as a residence.

Scott Richardson, the Building Inspector, told Rush-Inglis and Williams that their structure required a seasonal dwelling permit and a building engineer's approval of the substructure that the yurt sits on.

“The deck needs to be constructed to a certain standard,” Councillor Gerry Martin suggested.

“The pricing seems out of line,” Mayor Ron Higgins said.

Rush-Inglis and Williams who applied for a building permit in January 2017 and found that the costs of an engineer's approval might be even higher than the permit costs are suggesting to Council a new building category based on the yurt's unique features in hopes of encouraging a safe and affordable housing option in North Frontenac.

This yurt that they constructed cost approximately $8000 and was setup on a platform with an insulated floor.

“I don't have enough information to make an educated decision,” Mayor Higgins said. “I'd like to defer it until we have an admin report from the Chief Building Official (Jeremy Neven).”

Council voted in favour of deferring the decision.

Building Permits Drop In March
Only 3 building permits were issued in North Frontenac during the month of March compared to 12 at that time last year.

These permits totalled just under $5,000 compared to over $25,000 in March of 2016.

This is the lowest amount of permits granted in the last 5 years.

Head Road Bridge Repair Balloons in Price
The Head Road Bridge repair has been awarded to Baltimore Development and Services Inc. at  $447,185.34, which is $112,185.34 over the budget originally set out.

The bridge rehabilitation project was originally estimated, in 2014, by D.M. Wills Associates, a project management firm, to cost the Township $335,000.

D.M. Wills Associates claims increased material supply costs are to blame and probably attributed to the isolated work location.

All ten bids North Frontenac received for the project were over budget.

Inglis Wants a More Creative Waste Solution
Council voted against hiring Cambium, the current Waste Management Consultant for North, South, and Central Frontenac, to conduct a study of potential, regional-wide, waste diversion tactics.

The study, estimated to cost just over $100,000, would be focused on a review of the current blue box program as well as waste audits and current waste management practices and would build a plan to help the Townships reach their waste diversion goals.

“Our strategy was to look at the County as a whole,” Jim Phillips, the Public Works Manager, said. “We're all doing the same thing but a bit differently.”

“Is there a better way to do it?” Phillips asked. “Is there a larger regional approach?”

“Recycling is wonderful but it doesn't deal with the complete waste stream” Councillor John Inglis said. “The County put $100,000 aside to deal with the post-landfill world in, what I thought, were going to be bold and creative ways.”

“I really can't see why we need to spend $100,000 on a consultant to do it,” Inglis said. “It shouldn't be too hard to co-ordinate with the other 3 townships to do that.”

“I blame the CAO,” Inglis said.  “It's kind of scary to look at alternative and new ideas and I think Kelly (Pender) is scared to do it.”

There is some funding available to cover the costs of the project but “in order to apply it has to be more focused on the optimization of the blue box program,” Phillips said.

“From our point of view $100,000 sounds like a lot,” Mayor Higgins said.

South Frontenac Council gave its support to a proposal to explore optimization of waste diversion in Frontenac County at its regular meeting Tuesday night in Sydenham.

Public Works Manager Mark Segsworth told Council the proposal was put together by North Frontenac Public Works Manager Jim Phillips and that it came out of a joint meeting between township CAOs and public works managers.

“We felt collectively this was a most reasonable approach,” Segsworth said. “And it’s an opportune time as there is money set aside in the County budget for one of its strategic goals and there is funding available through the Continuous Improvement Fund (CIF).

“Jim Phillips did a great job putting this all together.”

The proposal is to have Cambium Inc., the current waste management consultant for North, Central and South Frontenac, put together a report as to how to improve efficiencies for all of the townships in the County from a financial, social and environmentally sustainable perspective as well as implications from the Waste Free Ontario Act.

“As an aside, this wasn’t approved by North Frontenac at its meeting Friday,” Segsworth said. “I’m a little frustrated with North Frontenac.”

“So, their public works manager is in favour of this but the Council isn’t?” said Mayor Ron Vandewal.

“They defeated the motion,” said CAO/Clerk Wayne Orr.

“Well, I heard there were some frivolous comments and our public works manager set them straight,” said Vandewal.

By comparison, South Frontenac Council was enthusiastic about the proposal.

“This has been four years in the making and I appreciate all the work that has gone into it,” said Coun. John McDougall. “It’s an excellent initiative.”

“I just think this is a good idea,” said Dep. Mayor Norm Roberts.

Segsworth said that at a recent meeting hosted by the City of Kingston and attended by Brockville, Ottawa and Frontenac County representatives, the idea of bringing all recyclables to Kingston received support.

Currently, North and Central Frontenac ships their recyclables to a facility in Belleville.

Campbell Development
Council passed a bylaw to remove the “H” holding symbol from the Campbell development in Inverary so that it may proceed, however staff still had concerns they wanted addressed before any construction begins such as lighting, how a nearby gas station will operate during construction and the location of two doors near a loading area.

So, staff recommended that while the bylaw be passed, the words “subject to the satisfaction of the Mayor and CAO” be added.

Zoning bylaw amendments
Council also passed zoning bylaw amendments that will allow a farm implements operation at the corner of Perth Road and Davidson Road and improvements at Hiawatha’s Hideaway resort on Dog Lake.

Joint meeting
South Frontenac has invited the three other township councils to a joint meeting May 31 at 7 p.m. in Verona’s Lions Hall to discuss an expected move to digital in-field communications as current analog systems become more and more inadequate.

David Bucholtz, a representative from the consulting firm Cambium, made a presentation to Council on Friday morning regarding the state of the Township's waste disposal sites.

Bucholtz told Council that all of their current active waste disposal sites are meeting the compliance standards, set by the Ministry of Environment, for surface water and ground water contamination.

Cambium's predictions for lifespan on the Township's dumps differ significantly from the predictions that the Township's former consultants AECOM presented to Council in 2015.

Bucholtz said that the 506 dump site has approximately 30 years left in its life cycle compared to the 13 years that was estimated by AECOM in March of 2015.

The Plevna site also showed an increase in lifespan from 19 years to 42 years.

The Kashwakamak disposal site stayed the same with a predicted lifespan of 42 years left.

In 2015, AECOM predicted the Mississippi Station waste site had 46 years left in its lifespan and Cambium has now suggested that the site has 34 years left.

When asked about the disparity between AECOM's predictions for landfill longevity and Cambium's predictions Bucholtz explained that it probably had more to do with the way Cambium uses the data and makes their predictions.

“My only assumption at this point would be the average (of landfill) changing,” Bucholtz said.

Cambium makes predictions on lifespan based on the amount of waste that has been disposed of over the last 5 years.

“What helps also is the fact that we divert all of our bulky waste,” said Jim Phillips, the Public Works Manager for North Frontenac. “The fact that we're diverting all of that, at a cost,  is extending the life of our landfill.”

Bucholtz also explained that the Ardoch waste site, which is temporarily closed, still has approximately 37 years left in it, based on the average fill rates they have on record.

Cambium made a recommendation to Council to install another monitoring well at the Plevna site to test surface water contamination south of the landfill mound and also recommended that they address the issue of a beaver dam at the Cloyne site, which is used as a transfer station.

Building Permits Issued Down Slightly For 2017
A report from Scott Richardson, the Building Inspector for North Frontenac, showed 8 building permits have been issued so far this year which is down from 10 at this time last year.

Last year, 130 building permits in total were issued in North Frontenac which was up from 125 in 2015.

Official Plan Heads to Public Meeting
Council discussed amendments made in the latest draft of their Official Plan on Friday and didn't recommend any further amendments.

A Public Meeting regarding the Official Plan has been scheduled for April 22, 2017 at 10am.

As part of its ongoing effort to control the volume of waste entering its sites, Addington Highlands Council considered purchasing a manual lift gate to stop vehicles at the entrance to the Kaladar site in order for waste attendants to be able to inspect the load and ensure township diversion rules are being followed.

The cost of a solar powered automatic lift arm gate came in at almost $5,000. Deputy Mayor Bill Cox asked if one of the cheaper options that was also included in a report by Roads and Waste Supervisor Mark Freeburn would be a better choice.

“What if we move the little hut to the front, narrow the lane-way with some traffic cones, and put up a stop sign. That might be enough,” Cox said.

“We could try that for a year, and see if it works,” said Freeburn.

Freeburn said he will have to determine if the hut can be easily moved, and if so he will make the change.

The life expectancy of the Kaladar dump has been shortened in recent years, which is one of the reasons that the township is now refusing to accept construction waste, but it still accepts furniture.

A resident in attendance at the meeting asked why the township does not collect garbage from people’s homes as they do in  urban areas.

“I’m a senior and I can’t manage those large bags. Why can’t I at least buy my bags at Wallmart” she said. The township requires all household garbage to be dumped in clear bags purchased from the township.

“I’m a senior as well, and by the time we recycle there is not much left to go in the waste pile,” said Reeve Henry Hogg. “Besides picking up garbage would cost way more than we can afford in our waste budget. We can barely afford what it costs to maintain and monitor our sites.

As of April 5, new tipping fees will be in place. Small loads, measuring 1’ x 4’ x 8’ will cost $15, box springs, mattresses, appliances, sofas and carpets will all cost $30, fiberglass boats $100 and a ½ ton load of shingles will cost $35.

3.9 million in construction in 2016
Permits for construction worth an estimated $3.9 million were sold in Addington Highlands last year. That is up by almost $1 million from 2015 and is $135,000 shy of the total for 2014.

Ninety residential permits were sold in the township. The total value of new construction was $2.45 million. $1.4 million worth of additions and renovations were undertaken, and only $53,500 in commercial construction was undertaken.