The Air Park is an “unlicensed dump that needs to be shut down now” claims Warren.

By Pepper Parr

BURLINGTON, ON.  July 16, 2013.  To say the report was damaging would be putting  it mildly.  It was the disaster too many people thought was probable and now they had the evidence of some of the sloppiest record keeping  on just what was in the landfill dumped on air park property during the past five years.

Vanessa Warren, the founder of the Rural Burlington Greenbelt Coalition who summed it up with some very tough language.

“The Burlington Airpark has lost their right-to-operate.  Every time I have delegated to council, the RBGC (Rural Burlington Greenbelt Coalition) has asked that the Airpark fill site be immediately shut down – now. WHAT What else is in the ground, and where? How safe is our drinking water?  How and when will you and the appropriate provincial bodies close the site, test the soils and groundwater’s, and re mediate the damage?  How will we re-claim the green in our greenbelt?”

I have also repeatedly asked “when does an airpark become a dump” – and now we know the answer: according to Terrapex, the consulting firm hired by the city, the airpark is “an unlicensed waste disposal site” – it doesn’t get much more succinct than that.”

Warren knew that “It’s about to be summer break, and this afternoon the tail gates were still banging at the airpark.  The neighbours inform me that they understand Mr. Rossi is now selling tickets at $85.00 a truckload, and there are concerns he is accepting flood waste sludge from the City of Toronto.

“We are extremely concerned for the neighbours of this Airpark; Rossi, and King Paving and Aecon have dumped contaminated waste on our Greenbelt protected countryside, and potentially contaminated our prime agricultural soils, our streams, our groundwater, and our drinking water wells.”

“What else is in the ground, and where? How safe is our drinking water?  How and when will you and the appropriate provincial bodies close the site, test the soils and groundwater’s, and re mediate the damage?  How will we re-claim the green in our greenbelt?”

“We can’t talk about expansion, we can’t talk about economic benefits, we can’t talk about Cessna’s or jets – all we can talk about now is that the airpark is a dump in the middle of our protected countryside, and now, its everyone’s problem.

Warren thanked the city and added that,” regardless of how damming and horrifying this report is, the City, and its wonderful staff, deserve a huge amount of credit for the way in which it has aggressively faced the airpark issue since our very first meeting in May.  This is a devastating report, and it is what we all feared, but it is so much better out in the light of day than buried under hundreds of cubic metres of waste. 

“This toxic waste disposal site and adjoining lands and streams must be decontaminated.  Neighbouring wells must be immediately tested. The damages done to the environment, the lands, the waters, the neighbours must be corrected, and properly and fairly compensated.”

Warren thanked the city for the work it has done to date, now, she said your job is to keep communicating.

During a presentation to city council Scott Stewart laid out the agenda.  He meets Today or on Wednesday  with Ontario Ministry of the Environment staff to hear their comments on a report they were given Friday of last week.  Stewart and the legal counsel the city has hired meet with the Air Park people on Thursday.

The air park, now defined as a dump in a report given to the city last week, will either be closed by the end of the week or the city will be in front of a judge asking that it be shut down.

Somehow however one wonders if it is going to be that easy.