Residents up in arms over planned compost site

Residents up in arms over planned compost site

Top Stories

By: Sandra Bolan

It’s not the proposed composting facility to which Bond Head residents are opposed, it’s that a company wants to build the facility on 80 acres of land currently being farmed.

While Walker Industries hosted an open house and barbecue for area residents Saturday, on what could potentially be its new location on County Road 27 just south of Line 3 in Dunkerron, more than 100 people lined both sides of the highway in protest, waving signs that read: We do not want to live near a waste site, Not on farmland, No way Walker, No garbage dump, no poinsoned water, no vermin, no putrid stench and Save our farmland.

“We agree with composting, but not in this area,” community advocate Nicole Belperio said. “They’re taking this land, which is renowned for its food quality.”

“We like the area because it’s 80 acres,” Walker Industries’ IMS facility manager Mike Deprez said. “We need a location that is rural, but close to our biggest contractor, Hermanns Contracting.”

Hermanns Contracting is located just south on Hwy. 27 of the land Walkers Industries wants to purchase, which is owned by Hermanns Contracting.

The proposed Dunkerron compact facility, currently in the conceptual stage, will have a capacity of 40,000 tonnes of waste, but the company plans to initially handle only 20,000 tonnes.

The facility would receive green bin and yard waste from various municipalities, but not Simcoe County, which has entered into a multi-year agreement to trucked its green bin material to Hamilton. In Dunkerron, the waste would be placed in long rows atop concrete slabs and turned regularly to improve its oxygen content and mix and remove moisture, as well as redistribute the cooler and hotter portions of the piles.

“The process they do use is a very good process,” Bradford West Gwillimbury Councillor John McCallum said.

Mr. McCallum represents the ward in which the proposed facility would be located.

Among the concerns area residents have about the facility is the potential for foul smelling air and rodents.

“Nobody can guarantee anything,” Mr. Deprez said. “But a good operator will run a facility that is free from smell and vermin.”

Walker Industries has yet to come before council to request the necessary site plan alterations it requires to change the land from agricultural to industrial, but Mr. McCallum has already made attempts to meet with company officials to discuss keeping the company within the municipality, but in an area already zoned industrial.

“The county needs this, but not here,” he said. “My problem is that I have to encourage them to have it here, but not here.”

For Walker Industries, moving to an industrial area is not an option.
“We need a minimum of 20 acres and 20 acres in an industrial park is quite expensive,” Mr. Deprez said.

Walker Industries wants to establish a community liaison committee.

“Composting is actually closer to farming than people think,” Laura Taylor, a communications specialist for the consulting firm Gartner Lee said. “This is a community that obviously rallies together well and it would be amazing if they poured it into something positive.

But for some, that doesn’t seem likely.

“Walkers won’t get our community support,” Ms Belperio said. “There is no amount of information they can provide to change our minds.”

All content contained in this or any other yorkregion.com website including but not limited to textual, audio, video and any graphics are copyright 2000-2008 Metroland Media Group Ltd. and can not be used in any part without expressed written permission, with the exception of content in the yorkregion.com Pen & Pixel section, which requires the written consent of the authors.