21 Years Of Dump Life Left At South Frontenac Waste Site

Jeff Green | Apr 17, 2024

Stephanie Reeder, from Cambium Engineering, attended a meeting of South Frontenac Council on April 9th with the annual waste site report.

Her first report was about the Portland site, the largest in the township by far, which has been dealing with surface water compliance issues. She said that testing has shown the impact isolated, and surface water testing to the west of the landfill on the K&P Trail are not showing any impacts from the site. Her report concluded that the Portland site is operating in compliance with Environmental Compliance Approval (ECA), which is good news as the site has 34 years of capacity left, if the dumping rate from 2023 (5,000 cubic metres) is maintained.

The Loughborough site was not in compliance with the ECA previously, and the township purchased extra land last year in order to contain any potential issues within the site, and while there are still some issues to be resolved in one of the test wells that has been drilled, all of the impacts are retained within the site itself. The site is now in compliance with ECA.

The three smaller sites that Cambium monitors, all located in Bedford District, are all in compliance. Of the three, the largest is the Green Bay site, which is slated for closure in two years, and the Reeder said that a closure plan for that site should be submitted this year. Of the remaining two sites, the Salem site has 18 years of capacity remaining and the Bradshaw site has 8, based on the 5-year average of the amounts of waste they have been receiving.

The overall estimated landfill capacity of the township now sits at 21 years, which is 3 years less than the estimate just one year ago, but Stephanie Reeder points out the number is an estimate based on the average usage of sites over a rolling 5-year average, and is subject to change this far out from the end date. The township is also seeking approval from the Ministry of the Environment for Phase B of the Loughborough site. If approved, that would extend the life of the Loughborough site to about 16 years from the 1.2 that is left on the existing, approved portion of the site.

As pointed out by Councillor Ron Sleeth from Storrington, “the elephant in the room is Storrington, which is shipping its waste out of the country”. Sleeth asked staff to evaluate the cost impact of using the township's waste capacity to handle waste from Storrington, the most populous district in South Frontenac.