Message To London Area Residents From Miller

GO SCREW YOURSELVES......

Dumping on London

Toronto finds a home for its garbage with landmark deal to purchase Green Lane Landfill

By ROB GRANATSTEIN, CITY HALL BUREAU

Goodbye Michigan. Hello London.

Toronto councillors voted 26-12 yesterday to buy the privately-owned Green Lane Landfill just outside London, Ont. in a landmark, swift and strategic move to deal with the city's looming garbage crisis.

"The City of Toronto has been trying to find landfill capacity for 20 years," a beaming Mayor David Miller said yesterday. "We've got it now. You can't go to the local store and buy landfill. They are very rare and unique."

At the local store there are price tags on the goods. The price of this deal will not be known for 90 days, a full month after the next city election. A strict confidentiality agreement is in place until the deal is finalized, but it's believed to be in the $500-million range.

Miller said with this strategic move of buying the landfill, the city now controls its own future and won't be twisting in the wind if the border to Michigan -- where Toronto sends up to 85 truckloads of garbage a day -- is closed.

Toronto is still contractually obligated to ship its garbage to Republic Services' Carleton Farms landfill in Michigan until 2010, so the trucks will keep rolling across the border.

Starting Jan. 1, 2011, if not sooner, Toronto's garbage will still rumble westbound down Hwy. 401, but halfway to the border the trucks will turnoff -- just past London -- to Green Lane's landfill, 10 minutes outside the city.

NOTHING THEY CAN DO

Miller promised to be a good neighbour to London and St. Thomas, and council voted to investigate building an off-ramp from Hwy. 401 directly into the dump.

He said despite outrage from residents in London and the surrounding area, there's not much they can do.

"It's simply a business transaction," Miller said. "It's a private landfill."

Toronto already uses Green Lane to dump some garbage from private haulers. The city of Guelph and York Region also dump garbage at the landfill. That will continue.

The purchase includes everything related to the landfill, including equipment and the signed contracts.

Price remains the question. Works committee chairman Shelley Carroll said buying the dump is more expensive than the $65 a tonne it costs to send trash to Michigan, but less expensive than the $88 a tonne to use, but not buy, Green Lane and other landfills as a fallback plan.

"The reason we're in Michigan is nothing is cheaper than Michigan," Carroll said.

The Green Lane landfill has capacity to take Toronto's garbage for 20 to 23 years, if the city continues with its aggressive recycling.

The move effectively makes garbage and incineration a non-issue in the election campaign, especially with the two key candidates, Miller and Councillor Jane Pitfield, voting in favour of the deal.