Another Site 41?

Gwalgen Dent — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 03:50:08 +0000

Landfill in Southern Ontario Starts Legal Battle

After years of blockades and campaigning, another battle to protect wetlands and water in Southern Ontario is going to court.

Cayuga is a small community on 6-Nations territory South of Hamilton. For 5 years, protesters, First-Nations and Cayuga community members have been trying to stop the development of a landfill by SF Partnership Chartered Accountants and Haldimand Norfolk Sanitary Landfill Inc. On October 2nd, preliminary hearings to stop the sites development occurred.

“There have been blockades to stop trucks coming in twice”, most recently in late 2008, says Jody Orr, co-chair of Haldimand Against Landfill Transfer (HALT). “What happened in 2007 was an attempt to bring garbage in and some members of the Haudenosaunee and our group stopped it. Since then, there has been little activity on the site. We keep a watch on it.”

Various blockades and legal battles around dumpsites and development have been occurring this summer in Southern Ontario. “Site 41” in Simcoe County was slated to have a dumpsite built on top of it for garbage in the surrounding area. Unfortunately for residents in the area, it was also on an aquifer containing the “purest water in the world”. Protesters and members of the Council Of Canadians filed an injunction claiming the site was operating illegally in July of 2009 and on September 22, Simcoe County councilors voted to stop construction and development of the site.

Just a few weeks earlier, development at the Hanlon Creek Business Park in Guelph was halted for 30 days by a court injunction. The site had been occupied beginning in July by Guelph and 6-Nations protesters. Recently, the City of Guelph then voted to halt construction until July 2010.