A consultation with the Ministry of Environment is the next step in turning a former landfill site in Arthur into a public park.
“Most closed landfill sites have ECAs (environmental compliance approvals) attached to them. Those can also be very limiting,” Wellington County solid waste services manager Das Soligo said.
He was speaking to members of the county’s solid waste services committee about a request from a county councillor to explore converting the closed landfill site into a public pollinator park.
The site is located off of Preston Street in Arthur, and it is currently closed to the public, though it has been closed for decades.
“In order to change the use of a site you have to put in an application to the Ministry of the Environment and request a different land use,” Soligo told the committee during its meeting Tuesday.
But that application could mean the site’s ECAs would have to comply with “modern conditions and standards,” he said.
“There’s always a risk that you could open up a small site where there’s no environmental concerns and all of a sudden the ministry’s got you jumping through hoops to comply with the new terms and conditions,” Soligo said.
For that reason, he said, county staff are recommending a pre-consultation with the ministry to share the vision for the property and to learn what potential terms and conditions might be required if the ECA were to be opened up, he said.
The pre-consultation will allow the county to learn whether the project is viable before taking any further steps, said Soligo.
The request to open up the property isn’t particularly problematic, as there are no environmental issues associated with the site, there is no infrastructure on site, and no monitoring wells, he said.
But he also suggested one potential issue – a steep slope that, if there were a need to alter the grade, could mean moving waste.
“There may be some requirements that could make the project untenable,” Soligo said.
The committee received Soligo’s report for information.
Staff have suggested doing pre-consultation with the ministry in the spring months, “when time allows,” said Soligo, with an update on discussions to be brought to council in the fall.