For many residents, what happens to their garbage is of little concern to them after it leaves their driveway on pickup days. It’s a generally accepted belief that the government’s environmental agencies, and the companies licensed to manage our waste, practice sound strategies to ensure that our landfills have the smallest possible negative impact on the environment.
Typically, landfills are located well away from residential communities. Out of sight, out of mind, as they say.
But for many residents of Île-des-Chênes, the Ritchot dump site is neither out of sight nor out of mind.
The Ritchot dump is located one mile west and 800 meters south of Île-des-Chênes, and at least one resident of the newer developments along Habitant Road say the landfill has grown significantly higher in height since they moved there. He and others are also concerned about the constant coming and going of highway haulers as well as the steady movement of equipment at the dump, which they say indicates that this site has a purpose beyond just dealing with the municipality’s trash.
“When we moved to Habitant Road five years ago, the whole dump was 13 feet, eight inches lower,” says resident Dan Masse. “Now that the dump is certified as a Class 1 landfill, it is able to accept 75 kilotons per year. Right now, they haven’t even met 54 kilotons, so they can ramp it up almost another third.”
What Masse refers to is a partnership that was created between the RM of Ritchot and MidCanada Environmental Services Ltd. in approximately 2001. Currently, and possibly from the outset, the RM shares the assets and potential profit with MidCanada in a 63/37 split. The RM maintains the 63 percent.
Income from the Shared Landfill Site
Before 2001, the site served as a small-scale landfill for the RM’s use and contained no safety liners for leachate filtration, says Ritchot’s CAO Mitch Duval. Today, under MidCanada’s management, the site has become a full-scale Class 1 licensed waste facility, receiving industrial, commercial, and institutional (ICI) waste. Also located on site is a licensed soil treatment facility and a residential recycling collection station.
“ICI solid waste is accepted from anywhere, not just within the RM of Ritchot,” MidCanada’s website states, although the company’s manager, Stephen McCabe, says that they limit incoming refuse to areas within Manitoba only.
In the eyes of council, outsourcing the management of the landfill site has been the answer to the increasing environmental legislation placed on waste managers. It also provides an additional source of income for the RM to the tune of approximately $1 million per year without the RM incurring any expenses.
“[MidCanada has] a formula that, once they reach a certain plateau with their payables… and they have their cashflow at a certain threshold, they can then ask to reduce that cashflow… based on a 37/63 ratio, which they split [with us],” Duval says.
Masse and other residents say they have been led to believe that this extra million dollars in revenue creates a property tax break for RM homeowners.
“Council said if you had a $200,000 house, it would cost you $200 more per year for taxes without the offset of landfill revenue,” Masse says, “and I think probably almost everyone in this area would say, ‘Bring it on!’ Because they would rather pay the money than look at that dump.”
But Duval clarifies that the revenue goes into the RM’s general reserve and is not allocated directly to reducing residential taxes.
“There’s different projects out there and there’s not only the landfill revenue that goes into the reserve,” says Duval. “So to say that Ritchot residents are benefiting because of it [through a reduction in taxes], it’s a hard question to answer. There’s too many moving parts to it.”
But Masse is also frustrated with the disparity of the situation. While the revenue from the dump is shared with the entire municipality, Île-des-Chênes residents are the only ones who have to deal with the problems associated with having a landfill in their backyards.
Landfill Ramifications
While council sees mostly pros in this scenario, some Île-des-Chênes residents are calling it a “cash cow” that has the potential for serious ramifications now and into the future. Four years ago, Dan Masse made it his business to search for answers to his many growing concerns. He spent hours researching environmental laws, MidCanada’s site alteration requests, and questioning council and other sources.
In August 2018, Masse and a group of Île-des-Chênes residents filled council chambers. Masse presented a lengthy PowerPoint presentation, showing recently obtained pictures from the landfill site, which is bordered on the north by a farmer’s field and on the south by the Seine River Diversion.
Photos showed plastic, Styrofoam, and other debris collecting in the diversion and flowing toward the nearby Red River. According to the photos, fencing on the north and south side of the dump site appeared to be inadequate, despite the claim on MidCanada’s website that a 25-foot fence was being utilized to contain blowing litter.
McCabe says that fences are located along the entire north property line as well as along a shorter portion of the south property line. The south fence can be moved to accommodate for active cells on that side, although the last two active cells being utilized have both been on the north half of the property.
“All cells that aren’t active have been covered with clay, and only one cell is ever active at a time,” says McCabe. “There is no regulatory requirement for a fence of this magnitude. We have gone above and beyond the requirements in order to minimize the release of any wind-blown debris.”
McCabe adds that active cells are regularly compacted and covered to further minimize risk. As well, the company hires an independent contractor to collect debris outside the landfill boundary, most typically after severe windstorms and following the spring thaw.
A Landfill Next to a Waterway
Further questions have arisen regarding the dump’s proximity to the Seine River Diversion. While a municipal road creates a nominal buffer between the dump and the diversion, it’s nowhere near the current required setback of one kilometre, as laid out in the provincial government’s standards for landfills in Manitoba.
In today’s day and age, and with our greater understanding of the damage done by toxic pollutants, Masse and other residents question the wisdom in creating a dump so near a waterway that feeds into some of our province’s most important waterbodies, including the Red River and Lake Winnipeg.
Water runoff from the dump site needs to go somewhere. A document created in 2015 by D. Ediger Consulting Services for the RM and MidCanada outlines the site’s drainage plan.
“A small percentage of surface run-off will be picked up by the drainage ditch along the main access road going through the approximate centre of the area,” the document states. “On the south side… run-off will enter a municipal drainage ditch on the north side of the road adjacent to the Seine River diversion. The majority of run-off entering the ditch will flow east and enter the diversion via a culvert under the road… A smaller volume of run-off will flow west and enter the diversion near the south-west corner of the closed Class 2 waste disposal ground.”
For Masse and others, to knowingly allow any amount of toxic leachate or run-off into waterways is unacceptable when these same waterways are sources of life for animals and humans. The Manitoba Environment Act describes pollutants as anything “that is foreign to or in excess of the natural constituents of the environment” and affects the quality of the environment or is likely to be injurious to health or safety of persons or property, or plant and animal life.1
Penalties for such a pollution offence, the Act states, include a fine of up to $500,000 for a first offence and up to $1 million for each subsequent offence.
“In my mind, it’s either pay now or pay later,” says Masse. “If we have an issue where we’re leaching contaminants into the waterway, who’s going to be paying for it? It states in The Environment Act that whoever is responsible for the pollutant is responsible for the cleanup. So, since the RM has accepted the garbage, does that means that we as people living in the RM would be accountable for paying for the cleanup, or at least part of it?”
McCabe assures Ritchot residents, though, that measures have been taken to ensure that the only water running off the site and draining into ditches is clean precipitation that has not come into contact with contaminated soil or solid waste.
“All water within the soil facility is contained in water storage areas within the bermed area,” McCabe adds. “All water that runs through garbage is contained within our leachate collection systems that is monitored and tested on an annual basis.”
While MidCanada doesn’t test soil or water offsite, he says the landfill’s discharge design is such that no contaminated water is able to leave its storage area. As well, the site is surrounded by groundwater monitoring wells to ensure the safety of underlying water aquifers. Testing of these wells is undertaken on an annual basis by an independent engineering firm. Surface water which has the potential for contamination is collected and stored safely on site.
Soil Treatment Facility
Another issue for Masse and residents is the soil treatment facility on the Ritchot site which, according to MidCanada’s material acceptance application, will accept soil from petroleum storage sites, industrial sites, spill sites, and other sources. As well, the recycling collection station accepts used oil, used oil filters, paint, electronic waste, pesticide containers, tires, fridges, and freezers before they are hauled to appropriate recycling facilities.
“Many materials that end up as waste contain toxic substances,” reads an article entitled The Problem with Landfill on the website of Environment Victoria, a charity in Australia that has been campaigning for environmental issues for 50 years. “Over time, these toxins leach into our soil and groundwater, and become environmental hazards for years. Electronic waste is a good example. Waste such as televisions, computers and other electronic appliances contain a long list of hazardous substances, including mercury, arsenic, cadmium, PVC, solvents, acids and lead.”
Stephen McCabe of MidCanada says that every load of soil entering the facility must be accompanied by a soil analysis.
“The generator of the soil has to fill out an application that needs to be approved by the regional manager for emergency spills like a highway accident,” McCabe says. “The soil is then segregated and we take soil samples for a lab analysis. There is specific criteria in our soil license for what we can receive.”
McCabe adds that once MidCanada has treated the accepted soil, a third-party engineer takes samples which are sent to a third-party lab. If the analysis indicates toxin levels below landfill criteria, MidCanada can use it for cover over the landfill. If the analysis indicates that levels are still too high, further rounds of treatment and testing are done until it meets criteria.
Recyclable Materials Criteria
As to recycling collection, McCabe says that sealed tanks or totes are used for paint and oil products, and pesticide containers are not accepted unless they have been triple-rinsed—and even then, only from local farmers within the municipality. All containers of toxic materials are shredded offsite by a qualified contractor.
“The transfer station is frequently monitored by staff to ensure proper protocols have been followed,” says McCabe. “Signage [for proper disposal] is provided at the transfer station and is posted in both English and French.”
Expansion or Relocation
One landfill concern that everyone does seem to agree on is that the dump is nearing its maximum potential and that expansion or relocation is inevitable. Duval estimates that the current site will only provide space for waste collection for another four to eight years.
“Back in 2001, my assumption would be that if the province wouldn’t have wanted us there as a Class 1 [landfill], they would not have granted the licensing for it,” Duval says. “As they changed their regulations, things got grandfathered in. Now, if we need to look at expansion, do we fall under the old license or will a new license be required? That I don’t know. We’re working with the province in order to figure that out.”
Council has been proactively looking at options for expansion at the immediate site, but should the province not relicense the landfill due to its proximity to the diversion, they are as yet unsure where they would relocate.
If expansion is a possibility, consideration will be given to decommissioning the old lagoon, which borders the landfill on the east side, and repurposing that area as a dump. In order to do this, the new lagoon on the south side of Twin Creek Road would need to be expanded to accommodate Île-des-Chênes’s needs. As well, the old lagoon would require a potentially expensive remediation process to eliminate contaminants according to provincial standards.
Another option may be to expand the dump to the south, across the municipal road and next to the new lagoon site. Duval says that the RM already owns 78 acres of land in this area and has been granted first right by the current property owner to an additional 67 acres.
“One of the [residents’] concerns is that we’re going to go closer to their [residential district] and that’s really not the case,” says Duval. “We can’t go north because of environmental setbacks because of development.”
In preparation for the closing of the current site, Duval says that two accounts were set up a number of years back—a Ritchot Closure fund and a Soils Closure fund. The former is intended to cover the cost of closing the landfill and the latter the cost of contaminated soil remediation. Each fund contains $500,000.
“Those funds are in place in case the day comes, but we’ve got enough money there now,” says Duval. “So now anything that comes in will go straight into the general reserve. Council then decides what they want to do with that reserve. If we need to acquire more land, that’s where they’d go get the money from.”
But Masse says that it’s still a short-sighted approach when there is no reserve in place for mishaps that could occur and result in large fines and toxin clean-up costs, especially when dealing at arm’s length with a company the size of MidCanada, which was bought out by a multinational company, GFL, in 2011.
“One way or another, we’re going to pay for it,” Masse says. “Either we’re going to pay through surface water pollution, ground pollution, or groundwater pollution. If we had a spill in that waterway and it got into the river, can you imagine the costs? …If we had to deal with an environmental impact issue, $1 million would be gone in a heartbeat. Where does the money come from after that’s gone?”
Duval was unable to provide The Citizen with a firm answer to that question.
The Question of Property Values
In the meantime, Masse and residents in the nearby development wonder how their property values will be affected as the dump keeps growing in size, both in height and in area. For years now, residents have been exposed to the sights and noxious smells of a very busy Class 1 landfill site. They also say that noise from heavy equipment has awoken them at 5:00 a.m. on a regular basis. Who, Masse asks, would want to buy a property near that?
“The noise [problem] has come to my attention a few times,” says Duval, “and I’ve tried to communicate that to Stephen McCabe, so we’re trying to improve on that.”
McCabe says that the only time equipment would be required during off-hours is when there has been significant snowfall overnight which would prevent access to the trucks arriving that morning.
As to the industrial lighting installed at the landfill, McCabe says that it’s there for safety and security reasons, helping prevent trespassing and providing emergency after-dark lighting for staff and first-responders. Recently, he says, the lights were angled downward to prevent light from spilling into the surrounding area more than necessary.
A New Contract with MidCanada
In the meantime, MidCanada’s ten-year contract with the RM is up for renewal. Council is currently in talks with them for a new agreement, the details of which cannot be publicly shared until all parties have signed on, Duval says. He assures residents of Île-des-Chênes that clear hours of operation will be included in the terms of the new contract.
According to Duval, the length of this new contract is also still under negotiation. Masse says he’s been told it will likely only be a four-year term this time around, which opens up several new questions for him. Is MidCanada worried that the province won’t approve an expansion once the landfill is full? What if MidCanada doesn’t re-sign after this term? Will Ritchot be left to deal with the landfill’s issues on their own?
Duval says that as far as he’s aware, council hasn’t given any consideration to what would happen if MidCanada doesn’t recontract at the end of the current term.
“I think it’s [because of the] long-term relationship that Ritchot has had over the years with MidCanada,” Duval concludes. “There’s a comfort there.”
McCabe says that MidCanada is unable to speculate on the future of the site, as the matter is under the province’s control.
“Waste management facilities are permitted, licensed, inspected, and monitored by Manitoba Sustainable Development,” Ritchot Mayor Chris Ewen assures residents. “Together with the department, we strive to make sure waste is handled in a responsible way that protects the environment and we are proud of our track record of compliance. Working with others, including the Winnipeg Metro Region, we in Ritchot continue to look for better ways to manage and reduce waste. Council’s focus is to ensure our team is leading the field to see to it that quality and quantity is both maintained at a top-notch level, and every year, our landfill team continues to do so.”
