Issue of the ongoing saga of
TRAIL ROAD'S LEACHATE MISMANAGEMENT
 

 
 


"There's more 'garbage' emanating from city staff... over their disingenuous search for a safe, environmentally-correct, solution at the Trail Road landfill site... than all of the leachate oozing into groundwater around the dump!"
                                                                        -Nepean Resident (April, 2004)
 
 


The city seems to have been playing a charade, for years, pretending to be seriously considering the superior on-site treatment technology ---all the while, doing everything possible to scuttle the on-site public preference, in favour of its own, inferior, PRE-SELECTED pipeline preference.

(See September 2000, Letter to the Editor, immediately below)

 

 

  
 
 


(EXCERPTS)

Letter to the Editor:                      
The Ottawa Citizen                                                          September 14, 2000

Region has chosen outdated
technology to treat landfill leachate

   As a community, we can do better. We can treat landfill leachate and leachate-contaminated groundwater on site at the Trail Road location. We in Barrhaven know that. The private-sector engineering community knows that. The academic community knows that. In fact, the City of Nepean prepared detailed plans for constructed wetland to treat the contaminated groundwater on site.
   The Region, however, even after paying several tens of thousands of dollars for consultants, who advised the use of constructed wetlands, has chosen to use yesterday’s technology, that will ultimately result in known toxins entering the Ottawa River
....We in Barrhaven have said to council, "If you disregard our research,

 

  

at least get all the information available from your staff before you make a final  decision." But, no, council, through its planning and environmental committee and Coun. Molly McGoldrick-Larsen, chose to let staff dismiss council motions to bring forth information for an informed decision.
   Like Ernie Lauzon says, "This is reminiscent of the South Ottawa Collector fiasco" ("Treat landfill leachate on-site," Sept. 11).
   We continue to call upon Regional Chair Bob Chiarelli to bring reason and his participation to this decision and save the taxpayer up to $3 million.

Joseph King,
Nepean

(Highlighting added)
 

 

 

Related link:
Quick Internet Search: "Leachate Treatment, Tertiary"  ...over 800 websites!

 

  

February 2004:

Newspaper notice of the city's re-opening of the Trail Road
 Environmental Assessment Process:

At  right ►

The newspaper notice from the city, regarding the re-opening
of the Environmental Assessment Process:

"DUE TO CONCERNS EXPRESSED BY THE PUBLIC"

seem somewhat duplicitous to Richmond residents who are faced with city- unresponsiveness to their clearly voiced concerns over the health hazard that would be created by a sewage forcemain planned to be put through their shallow aquifer.

The irony of the two situations is that Stonebridge already has municipal water servicing to its homes...

 while 90% of Richmond residents

RELY ON PRIVATE SHALLOW WELLS FOR THEIR DRINKING WATER.
 

                  p For more information on the "Richmond Sewergate" scandal, referenced above: LINK HERE
   Trail Road, Environmental Assessment - PLC proceedings - Spring/Summer of 2004:
 
 

To follow the discussions which took place at
the Public Liaison Committee (PLC) Meetings:   CLICK HERE

  

 
Media Coverage and Up-dates:

Public Open House (October 26, 2004), reported in The Ottawa Citizen

No great rush for a pipeline - Ottawa Citizen Editorial - Nov 3/04

Waste pipeline chorus still off-key - Ottawa Citizen Special - J. White, P.Eng - Nov.10/04

Planning and Environment Committee Meeting
 November 23, 2004

City staff followed through with their recommendation of a forcemain option rather than the on-site solution preferred by most residents.

The staff presentation was appallingly weak by its omissions and illogical rationales.

First, while the safety of the on-site option was self-evident in terms of containment because the treatment process would occur at the source of the pollution, the same level of containment could not be claimed for the pipeline.

  • Transportation of leachate across the city from Trail Road to ROPEC (some 40km) would be introducing another whole level of risk, not associated with the on-site solution.

  • While staff argued that travel of pollution through soils can be from "inches to feet" per year (a claim they did not substantiate with any supportive data), they admitted that leachate from any forcemain break would travel with the greatest ease and distance along the pipeline excavation itself. This would make adequate clean-up virtually impossible.

  • With risk to human life in the equation, in the event of a forcemain rupture, the city's refusal to perform a proper "risk assessment" of the pipeline option casts considerable doubt on the credibility of this option. Every objective non-city observer agrees that the risk assessment was not performed by the city simply because it would have resulted in obvious (no-brainer) elimination of the pipeline option.

Aside from the fact that safety should have precedence over cost: the city's arguments relating to costing were spurious as well. The public members of the PLC had repeatedly asked for accurate examples of costing on pipelines and on-site options, and were ignored. At the Environment and Planning committee meeting of November 23, 2004, the pipeline costs were understated by close to 50%, (based on the previous environmental study on the very same Trail Road issue). Also, the price quoted for the on-site was skewed by the fact that the evaluation team ---at the very last minute, and in the absence of the public members of the PLC--- used the example of the most-inefficient ROPEC-type "activated sludge", secondary treatment method. This has the highest known relative capital cost, plus operation and maintenance (O&M) costs over anything else they could have chosen.  There are several far more efficient technologies available at HALF the capital cost of the example quoted. (See more on this at the bottom of this page.)

The city's third flimsy argument, was based on time to implement. The public battle for an on-site solution at Trail Road has continued for close to ten years. At a time when the public is more adamant and more organized than ever before in defense of their argument that on-site technology is the right option now, and for the future, what credible argument could the city possibly make to convince us that the pipeline could be implemented in a shorter time frame? ...Environmental bump-ups and legal battles against a forcemain could continue for another ten years! (See more on the 'time to implement' issue, at bottom of this page.)

The bottom line is, that city engineers ---with all of their high-paid consultant's advice-- have failed to deliver what the public considers to be the only credible and safe way to treat leachate, that is: At SOURCE (ON SITE).

With the adept guidance of Ward Councillor, Jan Harder, the council members of The Planning
and Environment Committee appeared to arrive at the same conclusion as the public, and
VOTED UNANIMOUSLY FOR AN ON-SITE SOLUTION.

 

Ottawa City Staff Report, to Planning and Environment Committee

Environmental Advisory Committee - Motion to Planning and Environment Committee

Letters and written presentations to Planning and Environment Committee, from concerned residents, favouring the on-site treatment option.

PowerPoint presentation prepared by the public members of the Public Liaison Committee (PLC), showing the valid reasons for their support of the on-site solution.

Planning and Environment Committee - Motion To Council

 

Bulletin - from Councillor Jan Harder's website - regarding outcome of the November 23, 2004, Planning and Environment Committee Meeting, dealing with the Staff recommendation for a pipeline, to transport leachate from the Trail Road Landfill site, to the ROPEC plant in Gloucester:
                                                          CLICK HERE

 

Planning and Environment Committee decision reported by... 

                                                   THE OTTAWA CITIZEN
 
Residents win latest round in landfill battle
Committee advises on-site treatment of runoff at Trail Road
 
Daniel Tencer, with files from Aron Heller
The Ottawa Citizen

November 24, 2004

The long-running contamination problem at the Trail Road waste site came a big step closer to resolution yesterday when the city's planning and environment committee approved a plan to build an on-site leachate treatment facility.

The committee unanimously rejected city staff's proposal to build a pipeline through rural and suburban areas of South Nepean that would bring the contaminated water into the main sewage system, which would then carry the leachate to the Pickard Treatment Centre in the east.

The decision marks a victory for Barrhaven and Stonebridge residents who opposed the pipeline proposal, fearing a burst in the pipeline could contaminate their neighbourhood with landfill runoff.

 
 
Councillor Jan Harder, who represents Barrhaven and had championed the on-site facility... ...(pointed) out that the Trail Road landfill is expected to be the city's primary garbage site for the next 40 years and beyond. She said the on-site facility would allow the city to more quickly recoup the land it has lost to contaminated ground water.

  
 

City staff had supported the pipeline idea principally because the $3.8-million cost of building it is significantly less than the $8.2-million price tag for construction of an on-site facility.

The city has been studying and reporting on the leachate problem for nine years, and, according to a city document obtained by the Citizen, those studies have themselves cost more than $2.6 million.

There is now barely more than $3 million in the city's account to deal with the problem, meaning it will have to find funds elsewhere to cover the cost of the on-site treatment facility, Rosemarie Leclair, the deputy city manager for public works, said.

The planning and environment committee yesterday approved construction of the facility on the condition that the money not be taken away from other municipal projects in 2005.

 
 
Councillor Alex Cullen argued that the on-site facility would be far more environmentally friendly than piping the contaminated runoff to a waste water treatment facility.
 
 

City treasurer Lloyd Russell said his department would look at a number of ways to cover the shortfall, from issuing debt, to transferring money from other projects, once the committee's restriction on doing that lapses after 2005.

He noted the city still has $3 million for the project, which could carry the two- or three-year construction of the facility a long way before more funds have to be found.

Councillor Alex Cullen argued that the on-site facility would be far more environmentally friendly than piping the contaminated runoff to a waste water treatment facility.

The Pickard Treatment Centre "does not treat leachate," Mr. Cullen said. "Sewage yes, but not the chemicals seen in leachate."

Mr. Cullen said studies show there is "a plume of metal" in the Ottawa River below the Pickard centre caused by the leachate.

 
 
"I will be supporting it," said Councillor Rainer Bloess. "It is a valuable solution. It's what the local community wants."
 
 

Councillor Jan Harder, who represents Barrhaven and had championed the on-site facility, said the additional $4.4 million needed to build the treatment plant would be good value. The extra money is "next to nothing" given the city's growth, she said, pointing out that the Trail Road landfill is expected to be the city's primary garbage site for the next 40 years and beyond. She said the on-site facility would allow the city to more quickly recoup the land it has lost to contaminated ground water.

Since the early 1990s, the city has spent millions of dollars to buy land around the dump to create a buffer zone for the contamination, a policy Ms. Harder says continues. As of last year, the city had spent $8.5 million to buy that property.

Leachate -- water that has been filtered through garbage -- has been a problem at the now-closed Nepean landfill, near the operational Trail Road landfill south of Barrhaven, for several decades. Leachate carrying mostly heavy metals and solvents pollutes land and groundwater at a rate of about three metres a year in that area.

The city is currently trucking leachate from the site to the Pickard centre at a cost of $500,000 a year, Ms. Harder said.

 
 
"The committee's unanimous vote is sending a strong message. We're only going to get one shot at this thing and we can't mess around."
                                                              -Councillor Maria McRae
 
 

During a flash flood in September, trucks were hauling leachate out of the landfill at a rate of one truck per minute. That raised safety concerns with those who felt trucks carrying heavily polluted water could pose a hazard on the streets.

The Trail Road leachate problem has been a major controversy in Barrhaven since 1998, when the former regional government first proposed construction of a pipeline to carry polluted water out of the landfill. That plan was scrapped after Barrhaven residents strongly opposed the pipeline's proposed route along the VIA Rail route.

The issue of piping away the pollution came up again in 2000, when the region considered a pipeline to run east along Cambrian Road to Jockvale Road, where it would join with an existing waste water pipe. That proposal was also rejected by the region after neighbours opposed it.

Many council members are taking a "wait and see" approach to yesterday's unanimous vote at committee. Early indications, however, lean toward council adopting the recommendation.

"I will be supporting it," said Councillor Rainer Bloess. "It is a valuable solution. It's what the local community wants."

But at least three other members reached last night by the Citizen said they would wait to hear all the arguments before taking a firm position.

Councillor Eli El-Chantiry said he had already received hundreds of e-mails on the controversial subject.

"My biggest fear is that there is no other plan," said Mr. El-Chantiry. He expressed fear that the plan would end up costing more than projected.

Another potential supporter is Councillor Maria McRae.

"Unless I hear something drastic, I am leaning toward supporting it," she said. The committee's "unanimous vote is sending a strong message. We're only going to get one shot at this thing and we can't mess around."

© The Ottawa Citizen 2004
 

Follow-up Information:

  • Proof that the city-staff costing figures are inaccurate, will follow shortly:
    Independent evidence will soon show that the pipeline option and on-site treatment option will be     close to equal in cost, with perhaps a slight edge in favour of the on-site option, on both capital and O&M costing.

    Isn't it interesting, that the example of on-site technology used for costing purposes, by the city's "evaluation team" is the same "activated sludge" process that is used at Ottawa's inefficient ROPEC secondary treatment plant! If the public members of the PLC had not been shut-out of the process, but instead, had been given an opportunity to look at several of the excellent onsite treatment alternatives available, they would have undoubtedly placed the activated sludge process last, because of its high capital and O&M costs. As it turned out, the "evaluation team" met without the public members of the PLC when they decided to slip in activated sludge as their worst on-site cost-example. What are the ethics and transparency of that?

  • Proof will soon be posted, showing that the on-site treatment option could be built
    in less time than the forcemain option, a point which is already self-evident by the fact that a pipeline choice (by council) would result in multiple environmental "bump-up" requests, and most certainly a drawn-out legal challenge, which would delay construction of any forcemain option selection for months to years longer ---only to end with an on-site solution, anyway.

  • Letters and written presentations to Planning and Environment Committee, from concerned residents, favouring the on-site treatment option, are be added daily: CLICK HERE

Council Decision:

The onsite treatment solution was selected by Council on December 8th, 2004, as the only logical and safe solution. The vote was 19 FOR, and 2 AGAINST. View final MOTION
 

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