By Pepper Parr
April 4, 2015
BURLINGTON, ON
The report before the Development and Infrastructure Standing Committee was a summary of the issues that have been addressed or are in the process of being addressed since the last Airpark Update Report to Council on November 20, 2014.
There hadn’t been much progress – but lawyer Ian Blue was in the Council Chamber and there was a notation on the agenda that Council would be going into a CLOSED session – so you knew something was up.
Properly and collaboratively developed the \Air Park could become an economic jewel – it is currently mired in disputes that are taking up time and chewing up tax dollars for legal fees.
With Blue now back in harness a number of things were going to happen. The legal departments spending was going to increase – we don’t know yet how much the city has spent on this file – but we do know how much the city has recovered from the Burlington Air Park Inc., in legal costs. The cit was awarded $40,000 in costs after the Superior court case and an additional $22,000 after the Air Park lost its appeal.
And we know that the city is working through what its next step is going to be. About time too, according to the Rural Burlington Greenbelt Coalition (RBGC) which in a note it sent to Council set out what they felt was not being done.
It would seem, said the RBGC that based on the report released on Friday very little has changed since our last delegation on February 23rd; except that it has now been nine months since your legal victory with still no remediation on site or to neighbouring properties.
The Coalition went on to point out that:
These people are not drilling for oil – they have sunk a drill to test the make up of the landfill dumped on the property.
1) A highly controversial, and in our opinion woefully inadequate testing program has been approved and carried out. Terrapex has stated that the small number of samples is adequate because the fill is ‘contaminated’. However, all public indications from the Airpark, including a message from the owner on the Airpark website, continue to state that the fill is ‘clean’.
2) Three Burlington citizens continue to spend countless hours and dollars on a defamation suit based on the fact that we’ve quoted the Terrapex reports and called the fill contaminated.
The Air Park corporation dumped more than 30 feet of landfill without a Site Plan. Owner of the adjacent property stands on her property line and wonders why anyone can build a “small mountain” next to her property without getting approval. She is also terrified about what the hill is doing to the value of her property and what the leaching out of the landfill is going to do to her well water.
3) There is still no adequate storm water management in place to control spring runoff onto already damaged neighbouring properties.
4) There is still no resolution regarding the Conservation Halton regulated lands.
5) There has been no staff or Council response to our email regarding the new Aeronautics Regulations surrounding a public consultation process for expansion plans (comments due April 8th), nor was this important development mentioned in the current update.
6) The current Airpark report still lists Ward 6 as the only Affected Ward. The Burlington Airpark and its proposed expansion on contaminated fill is a City-wide concern.
When a council committee comes out of a CLOSED session they seldom say anything other than they are no longer CLOSED but now in a public session.
In the Staff report to city council they did advise that:
On November 14, 2014. A submission package was received that included:
A completed Site Alteration Permit Application form; a Proposed Development Concept Plan and grading plans.
A Risk Assessment was also requested by the city and this was not included. As a result, the submission was deemed incomplete. It was understood that the Airpark’s environmental consultant was reviewing the existing site data and preparing a Scope of Work for the additional site investigation work required for the preparation of a Risk Assessment.
Vince Rossi, president of Burlington Air park Inc., at a meeting with members of the Rural Burlington Greenbelt Coalition that took place in a barn a couple of hundred yards from the end of his largest runway.
A letter was sent to Mr. Rossi on December 17, 2014 requesting the submission of the Scope of Work required for a Risk Assessment by January 9, 2015. The submission was not made by this date.
Subsequently, the Airpark submitted a report entitled “Proposal for Limited Phase II Environmental Site Assessment”, dated January 22, 2015. This report provided Pinchin Environmental’s proposed recommendations for additional site investigation work.
In summary, the recommendations include the proposal for 20 additional boreholes to be spread evenly across the area where fill has been placed on the Airpark property. Two soil samples are to be taken at each borehole location. Of these 20 boreholes, 2 will be utilized as additional ground water monitoring (GWM) wells. These 2 GWM wells are proposed to be located on the west perimeter of the property.
Terrapex Environmental has completed their review of the proposal. The following comments were provided:
Pinchin has proposed 20 additional borehole locations with two samples from each location (various depths) submitted for analysis of a wide range of Contaminants of Concern (COC). This equates to essentially 40 sampling locations which should provide a good data-set for this purpose. It is important to understand that the focus of the “Environmental Site Assessment” (ESA) is NOT to fully characterize the vast amount of material in order to prove that the site is impacted or not. We already know that it is. It is important for stakeholders to understand that the focus of the ESA is to provide a statistically valid data-set on which the modelling for the Risk Assessment can be based.
With respect to the proposed placement of two new monitoring wells for groundwater sampling, Pinchin has proposed two well locations that appear to supplement the western perimeter well network that already exists. While we have no objection to this, we suggest that additional monitoring wells be installed and groundwater analyses be conducted in the interior of the fill areas in order to assess risks of impacts in groundwater which may migrate from the interior of the site to the perimeter (and off-site) in the future.
The city forwarded these comments to the Airpark and requested a response by February 6, 2015. Updated status will be provided at committee on February 9.
The city expects the work schedule to proceed as follows:
Finalized scope of work for additional site investigation work – Feb 2015; Additional site investigation work – March 2015; Phase II ESA and submission of Risk Assessment – April/May 2015.
Given that few if any of the target dates have ever been met – it isn’t difficult to arrive at the conclusion that someone is giving someone a royal run around here.
Getting the Site Alteration Plan from the Air Park (Justice Murphy in his Superior Court decision said the city had the right to demand a site Plan – that decision was upheld on appeal) is not the only Air Park related issues the city is stick handling.
There is the matter of the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change (MOECC) and the Freedom of Information Request (FOI) Request; there is the Groundwater Monitoring Program and City’s Peer Review; there is the Runway Construction, then there is the Drainage and Siltation Control Measures. Add to that the Region of Halton and the Conservation Halton issues and one is looking at a very full and complex agenda.
The municipal world runs at a pace only it understands but reading that at this point there are “no options being presented for consideration” is both disappointing and frustrating.
The issue for most people is the damage that can be done to the water table if the fill that has been dumped on the Air Park property is “toxic”, as one north Burlington resident has stated: for which she, along with the Gazette are being sued for making public.
The weather is getting warmer, those heavy winter snows are melting; that melting is working its way down through the tonnes of fill and into the water table – if it is toxic – we may get to drink that water at some point. And that is a concern for every citizen in the city.
Were it not for the strong delegations Vanessa Warren made to both city and Regional Council there would probably be trucks running along Appleby Line with loads of landfill from who knows where with who knows what in the fill.
That libel case is working its way through the judicial system. It is at that point where lawyers are haggling over what is going to be permitted at the Discovery stage. The defendants; Vanessa Warren, Monte Dennis and Pepper Parr along with the Burlington Gazette want to know the following
1. Financial statements for plaintiff from 2008 to time of trial,
2. All records relating to any testing, or other evidence of quality, of material used for landfill on Burlington Airpark site (the “Landfill”),
3. All records relating to quantities, sources and/or quality of material used for the Landfill,
4. All records relating to charges and revenue for the Landfill,
5. Any records relating to the management and record-keeping of the Landfill operations,
6. All records relating to the Landfill operations from or to Conservation Halton, Region of Halton or other governmental authorities,
7. All records relating to any inspections, studies or tests conducted on Burlington Airpark site relating to the Landfill operations or their related effects,
8. All test reports and results regarding the effects, if any, of the Landfill on the groundwater, streams, fish, amphibians, reptiles and soil in or near the Burlington Airpark site,
Monte Dennis – delegating at city council on an Air Park matter.
9. All correspondence from and to members of the community, including political representatives, concerning the Landfill operations, and
10. All communications to the public made by Vince Rossi or anyone else on behalf of Burlington Airpark concerning the Landfill operations.
There are some interesting times ahead – the questions the defendants in the libel case are asking are questions the city is interested in having answered as well.
Former city manager Jeff Fielding, on the left, giving a lawyer who tried to convince city council that they had no jurisdiction on air park matters gets a bit of a lecture from Fielding while city legal staff on the left look on.
Just under two months ago the Air Park file was on a committee agenda – staff asked that it be moved back to the next cycle of Standing Committee reports so the incoming city manager James Ridge could be fully briefed and take part in the next step planning. Ridge didn’t say very much during the delivery of the report – we hope he is now fully briefed and turns out to be as aggressive as former city manager Jeff Fielding was when he suggested to the Mayor that a delegation explaining the law to Council be dismissed and sent on his way. Council is going to have to be tough on this file – the water table and the citizens of the city are depending on them.
