Landfill Proposal
Before the mine had shut production in the early 1990s, waste management planners from the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto were examining its potential for a massive landfill, with waste to be shipped north in sealed intermodal shipping containers by CN and Ontario Northland on a 700 km (430 mi) route. It would be a municipal solid waste (MSW) facility on fractured bedrock using hydraulic containment and no landfill liner.
Proponents of the landfill plan pointed to its potential for spurring economic development in Kirkland Lake's struggling economy, while opponents pointed to environmental concerns such as the pit's unstable rock walls, which could potentially leach contaminants into the local groundwater supply.
The original landfill proposal considering the Adams Mine for Toronto's garbage can be traced to 1989. The following year, the government of Metro Toronto selected the Adams Mine as the preferred site for replacing the Keele Valley Landfill in Vaughan which was rapidly reaching capacity. On 2 April 1991, Ruth Grier, then provincial Minister of the Environment, stated that the provincial government would not allow Toronto to send its garbage to the Adams Mine. In 1995, Metro Toronto began a formal assessment, and the project passed all environmental tests and assessments. The project was rejected at the final vote, in December 1996, to extend the Toronto option on the ownership of the mine because of erroneous information presented by Jack Layton in which he cited the cumulative cost of the project rather than the year by year costs. At the same vote, the Chair, Alan Tonks also changed his position from support of the project to voting against. The final vote was 19-13 against the proposal to extend Toronto's option to use the site. Ironically, it was this vote that eventually led to Toronto shipping garbage to the US.
In 1996, the mine's owner, Notre Development, announced plans to revive the Adams Mine proposal through the private sector. Later the same year, the Progressive Conservative government of Mike Harris made significant changes to the province's Environmental Assessment Act - this resulted in dropping the requirements for a needs assessment and investigation of alternatives to developing a landfill. Technically, this was irrelevant to the Adams Mine proposal as it had already passed all assessments requested of the project. This gave the provincial government the sole authority to impose time and service limits on environmental assessments.
Investors involved in Notre Development included North Bay businessman Gord McGuinty. Peter Minogue, Harris' best friend whose wife was Harris' local campaign manager, is often mentioned as being involved with Notre but there is no evidence that he ever was.
Notre Development's 1996 proposal involved a consortium that was known as "Rail Cycle North"; this included the mine's owner, Notre Development, along with waste management companies Canadian Waste Services and Miller Waste Services, and Ontario Northland Railway and CN.
On December 16, 1997, the provincial Ministry of the Environment permitted only a limited Environmental Assessment Board hearing on the site's hydraulic containment system. Heavy opposition was expressed in the hearings, but on June 19, 1998, the EAB approved the project. The opponents filed an appeal with the provincial cabinet, which was subsequently rejected that August. An appeal was then filed for a judicial review. In July 1999, that appeal was rejected by the Divisional Court of Ontario and was similarly rejected by the Court of Appeal for Ontario in October of that year.
At the same time, opponents focused on lobbying the recently amalgamated city of Toronto to not accept the Rail Cycle North proposal. On August 3, 2000, Toronto City Council voted to approve the plan to transport the city's waste to Adams Mine. However, due to the volume of community opposition, council reviewed the issue and voted the proposal down that October. Toronto subsequently pursued a proposal to have its garbage shipped to the Carleton Farms Landfill site in Michigan, since the Keele Valley Landfill, as expected, had reached full capacity.
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