York council accepts energy-from-waste facility preferred site recommendation

York Regional Council last week accepted the consultants' recommendation to select the site known as Clarington 01 as the preferred location for a proposed energy-fromwaste facility, as part of the Durham-York Residual Waste Environmental Assessment (EA) Study process.

The decision follows approval by Durham Regional council the previous day.

"York Region is committed to finding sustainable solutions for waste remaining after diversion efforts," said Regional Chairman Bill Fisch. "The inclusion of the Clarington 01 site in the next phase of the Environmental Assessment is an important step in what continues to be a thorough evaluation process."

Mayor Margaret Black said she was delighted to see the facility approved, adding it passed through council with no comment. She was a little surprised at that, since there had been opponents to the plan in Durham, and York councillors had been lobbied by those foes.

"It's a necessary evil, I think," she remarked.

The preferred site, Clarington 01, is a 12- hectare parcel of land between Courtice Road and Osbourne Road in Clarington. This site, owned by Durham Region, is in the Clarington Energy Park (south of Highway 401) in an area that includes commercial/industrial properties, CN Rail tracks, the Courtice Water Pollution Control Plant and the Darlington Nuclear Generating Station.

"More than three years of study, including 70 consultation events, have delivered us to this point," said Vaughan Councillor Mario Ferri, chair of the Solid Waste Committee of Regional council. "We've reached a milestone and can move forward to answer site specific questions now that a preferred site has been identified."

Council also approved a short-list of technology vendors for the proposed energy-from-waste facility. A request for proposals will be issued to these vendors in 2008. Additional public consultations on sitespecific studies and assessments are also planned for later this year. Environmental Assessment and Environmental Protection Act approval applications will then be completed and submitted to the Ministry of the Environment.

York has partnered with Durham on this residual waste environmental assessment study to find a way to manage garbage remaining after diversion efforts, such as re-using, recycling and composting. York is dedicated to increasing waste diversion and has committed to diverting 65 per cent of waste from landfill by 2010.

Earlier this month, the study consulting team presented their final preferred site recommendation at meetings of the Joint Waste Management Group, Durham's Works Committee and York's Solid Waste Committee. The recommendation was endorsed by these three groups before advancing to the respective councils.

Energy-from-waste (also known as incineration, waste-to-energy and thermal treatment) facilities for municipal solid waste have been shown to operate safely and are in use in more than 500 locations in Europe and North America, including Canadian facilities in British Columbia, Quebec and in nearby Brampton.

In comparison to the current practice of remote landfill disposal of residual waste, a modern energyfrom waste facility would create greater energy benefits and have lower emissions of greenhouse gases and smog-causing compounds per tonne of waste processed.

The processing of a year's worth of a household garbage at an energy-fromwaste facility produces enough power to run the energy efficient lights of that household for one year.

Energy-from-waste plants using the preferred technologies identified by York and Durham provide an additional opportunity to recover and recycle metals from the residual waste stream.

Regulations in Europe and other places in the world allow the reuse of energy-from-waste bottom ash in construction materials such as asphalt and concrete. Peel Region has conducted successful pilot projects using ash from its energy-from-waste plant in Brampton in asphalt.

Ontario's energy-fromwaste dioxin emissions limits are more stringent than those in Europe and the rest of North America. The proposed Durham-York energy-from-waste facility will be required to comply with Ontario's emissions limits as well as all other regulations.

Modern energy-fromwaste facilities with current air pollution control technologies have demonstrated capability of operating with emissions well below the most stringent limits in the world.

The annual greenhouse gas emissions of a 250,000- tonne energy-from-waste plant are equal to only three per cent of the emissions that would result from heating all 485,000 homes in Durham and York with natural gas for a year.

The dioxin emissions from backyard burning of the residual waste from one typical Ontario household are 5,000 times the dioxin emissions that result from processing the same quantity of waste in an energy-from-waste facility equipped with modern air pollution controls. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that backyard burning of waste is so widespread that it represents potentially the single greatest source of airborne dioxin and furan emissions in the U.S. today.