North Dundas Council held their regular meeting on Wednesday May 12. The meeting began with a presentation by Derek Ali, President of DFA Infrastructure International Inc., regarding the Regional Waste Management Study: A Roadmap to Collaboration.
The United Counties of Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry are looking at the possibility of encouraging or facilitating the various townships in SDG to work together in waste management going forward. The purpose of the presentation was to identify opportunities for potential collaboration among the Local Municipalities (LM), including the possibility for SDG and /or Cornwall to be involved, to improve efficiencies and overall service delivery for all communities.
Mayor Fraser and Deputy Mayor Armstrong both serve on the SDG Council, representing North Dundas, but the other three Councilors in North Dundas do not attend the SDG Council meetings, so this was an opportunity to catch them up on what’s been discussed at County Council.
Each township deals with its own waste, and each township’s approach is different. Each municipality is facing their own challenges, such as the possibility of the Boyne Road Landfill in North Dundas closing in 2022 if an extension is not granted, and the entire region is facing other changes and challenges, such as the banning of organics in landfills and the shift to the producer being responsible for all recycling costs by 2025.
The County Council is expecting a formal response to the presentation within the next couple of weeks. There are many questions and considerations surrounding waste management going forward for our municipality, for SDG, and for Ontario. Challenges include: closing landfills that are reaching capacity; ongoing costs of maintaining landfills once they are closed; high truck maintenance cost; a change to the producer being responsible for recycling, and costly organics programs. Possible benefits to collaboration include: unified public relations, education, and communications; sharing of equipment and staff, saving money by not duplicating positions; sharing landfill capacity; collective power of accessing private sector disposal; possibility of working with Cornwall; and, consistency across the various municipalities. Council has an opportunity to discuss what their concerns are as they prepare a response to County Council. It is not the mandate of SDG to manage waste, and Deputy Mayor Armstrong, for one, made it clear that any collaboration was not a foregone conclusion, indicating that Mayor and Council will be engaged with the process going forward.
On a another note, Mayor and Council re iterated the importance of hiring students for the summer months, with Mayor Fraser stating that “we do the best we can to provide opportunities for students in our community.”
Being that summer throughout Ontario is roadwork season, tenders and quotations were on the agenda at the meeting. Paving of various roads in North Dundas will cost almost $3 million. This is for North Dundas roads. SDG maintains their roads. A list of the roads to be re done, with their associated cost, is available in the meeting package for the May 12 Council meeting which can be found on the Township website. Gravel for construction and maintenance of gravel roads will cost $230K this year.
The Community Improvement Plan, and the Regional Incentives Program (SDG) were both accepted. The Township’s new website will be up and running this month.