Orillia - Environmental Issues

Environmental Issues

In 1989, representatives of Ogden Martin Ltd., of Mississauga, approached the City of Orillia regarding the construction of a massive recycling and incineration facility which was to be used for handling the trash of nearby cities and Toronto. This was to be one of three facilities used to deal with the garbage produced by the Greater Toronto Area.

The plan to accept the incinerator was developed by city council with no public input, citing a potentially significant boost the local economy — not only in terms of jobs, but also in the resale of recycled materials, the energy generated by the facility and the duties charged to other cities involved. Some citizens reacted negatively to the closed-doors approach to the talks. Indeed, Orillia's then-mayor, John Palmer, noted on the day of the vote on the plan that Ogden Martin "has asked council not to reveal any details until tonight."(Orillia Packet & Times, 4-9-90).

Many residents were concerned about the environmental effect this would have on the region, leading to protests and public awareness programs by a network of concerned citizens calling themselves Stop Incineration Now. At a protest by a large number of high school students led by ODCVI Student and President of the Environment Club, Chris Thomas, then-mayor John Palmer famously noted that if he had been their teacher, "I'd shoot every last one of you", a quote that was shown on televised news and reported in Orillia and Toronto newspapers.

When city council made no effort to involve the public in the discussions, anti-incineration activists polled over 2,000 residents on Ogden Martin's proposal, and found that 75% were against incineration, 10% for incineration, and 15% undecided. A petition was circulated against the incinerator and was signed by approximately 9,000 residents (out of a total population of only 24,000).

A committee consisting of Orillia's 54 doctors generated a report, based on extensive research of published health data, that recommended a rejection of the incinerator proposal - 52 (and later, 53) of the doctors endorsed the report. Dr. Don Philpott, a member of the committee, noted that: "People can be bamboozled into thinking that acceptable risk means no additional risk, but that is just not true..." In retaliation for the call to reject the incinerator's installation, Ogden Martin threatened to sue the doctors of Orillia for defamation. The Ontario Medical Association (OMA) passed a resolution in support of the Orillia doctors, after which the threat of litigation was dropped.

The provincial New Democratic Party (NDP) government under Premier Bob Rae had a strong agenda of environmental protection and quickly began to fight the initiative to build these incinerators. In September 1992, and citing a number of reasons, the Ministry of Environment under the NDP government banned the development of new municipal solid waste incinerators and enacted stricter standards for existing incinerators. The Environment Minister at the time, Ruth Grier, called incinerators "a technological quick fix which creates new environmental problems without solving old ones."

Incinerators are highly controversial generally, and are known to generate toxic emissions and to produce ash that may itself need to be quarantined as hazardous waste. The energy production value is also questionable, given the expenditure required for scrubbers and detoxification mechanisms. While it was claimed that the proposed incinerator would have produced only a small amount of carbon black, which would have been sent into extreme elevations and eventually fallen in northern Quebec, environmentalists' concerns were more focused on the emission of heavy metals, dioxins and other carcinogens, and other hazardous materials. Moreover, Ogden Martin's questionable environmental record suggests that the filtration of particulate matter would have been imperfect at best. Notably, in 1992 the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) cited Ogden Martin for 6,000 violations between 1989 and 1991 at its Indianapolis incinerator alone.

The citizens' campaign ultimately led to a rejection of the plan by the city council and Toronto now ships much of its waste to the United States, although there have also been recent efforts to improve recycling and composting programs.

Unfortunately, problems remain with the city's current approach to waste management. The city's landfill site is placed near the lakeshore on what was once a bog, with a stream running through it into Lake Simcoe. This has caused the water near the site to have an unpleasant odour. Movements to shut down the dump and create a new one in another location have been rejected due to the cost of such an effort, despite the environmental cost already being paid by the region. The Orillia landfill site also contains an on-site composting, sorting and recycling programme, although it remains the case that the composting site is even closer to the Simcoe waterfront than the other waste.