Much ado about waste

Jeff Green | May 24, 2017

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.