Committee rejects community’s pleas to keep Highland Creek incinerator operating.
Highland Creek Sewage treatment plant
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Toronto's public works and infrastructure committee voted to shut down the smokestacks at the Highland Creek Sewage treatment plant - over the objection of the neighbours, who made it clear they'd prefer a new incinerator at the site.
Residents in the Manse Valley/Highland Creek community came to committee arguing that there would be far worse environmental damage done by having between three and six trucks a day hauling biosolids out of the plant than would happen using a newer incinerator.
Betty Smith, secretary for the Manse Valley Community Association, argued that because the east-end sewage treatment plant is so close to residential communities, trucking human waste through the neighbourhood poses an unacceptable risk.
"I think the impact is that there's always room for accidents," she said, pointing to a recent truck breakdown coming from another plant that left its "fairly innocent" cargo spewed all over the street.
"The axel broke right outside the sewage treatment plant, and the goods went all over," she said.
"If that was biosolids, it certainly wouldn't be very pleasant."
The decision comes at the end of a lengthy public consultation over what to do about the aging plant. The current incinerators are 35 years old and don't meet up-do-date emission standards. The city is faced with a decision over whether to replace them, or truck the biosolids off to landfill, and possibly be treated and used as fertilizer. That is currently how the city deals with biosolids in other treatment plants.
But Scarborough East Councillor Ron Moeser said the Highland Creek site is unique - and supported the community members in their desire to have it operate as it always has. He said there are simply too many homes along the route the trucks will take.
"You've got to get them all the way to the 401," said Moeser. "The truck traffic going to landfill - and the gas that comes off the biosolids - is a worse option than what's coming out of the stack."
City water staff agreed, and recommended installing a new fluidized bed incinerator to meet contemporary air quality regulations. The report said it makes sense to continue to incinerate at that site. Staff said that it's unlikely that solid waste from the site can be marketed - when only 48 per cent of those produced at Ashbridges Bay can be sold for beneficial use.
But committee members felt differently.
Parkdale-High Park Councillor Gord Perks said air quality issues trumped both financial and community issues.
"To my mind the good public policy is clear," he said.
"It protects the environment and operates in a way that is moving us forward, not backwards. And I can't say that it's a group's right to veto something that improves the air quality for the city as a whole. Our own MoH (medical officer of health) indicates that people die from poor air quality."
Toronto's budget chief Shelley Carroll, who also sits on the committee, said she recognized the difference of opinion - but voted not to incinerate.
"We're not making a decision for one neighbourhood - we're making a decision for the planet," she said.