The Kingston Whig-Standard, Wednesday, June 7, 2000
Premier, activist agree on priorities
by Frank Armstrong, staff reporter
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Perhaps for the first time ever, local environmental champion Janet Fletcher agrees with Premier Mike Harris. In the wake of the tainted water crisis in Walkerton, Harris has suggested local governments make infrastructure a priority, and direct money to water and sewage projects before focusing on low-priority programs like community centres and theatres. Fletcher said yesterday it's "ludicrous" for Premier Harris to blame municipalities for not spending money on crucial projects when the province has downloaded so much responsibility on local governments. However, Fletcher said, Harris may be on the mark when it comes to Kingston. "I hate to give him any support, but Kingston's a pretty good example of what he's talking about," she said in an interview. Fletcher, a founding member of the Environmental Bureau of Investigation, successfully took the City of Kingston to court over pollution leaking from the former municipal dump at Belle Park. She said the municipality seems to have its priorities skewed. "They always seem to be focusing on what's going to make them a little money and neglecting what they should be spending the money on." She's talking about the multi-purpose facility proposed for Block D and a $4.5-million facelift planned for Market Square. "To go forward with something like Block D and invest any money in it right now means it is taking away from the [environmental] priorities they have facing them É which they continue to ignore." Fletcher points to the $265 million that is needed to upgrade the city's antiquated sewer system, to stop leachate leaking from Belle Park and to replace an outdated underwater pipe that pumps sewage across the Cataraqui River. Installed in 1955, the pipe was considered at the time to have a 45- to 50-year life span. If it broke, the pipe would release massive amounts of untreated raw sewage into the river. |
Utilities Kingston engineers believe there is little immediate risk and the utility is waiting for mid-July, when councillors will choose a consultant to design a plan to deal with the problem. Engineers expect to have a solution implemented in three to four years. Leonore Foster, chairwoman of the city's transportation and environment committee, said the municipality has made sewers and other infrastructure improvements a priority. "If you look at our capital budget over 10 years' time, we are spending millions and millions and millions of dollars to deal with some of the environmental problems," Foster said. Over the next decade, the city plans to spend $83 million on the Cataraqui River pipe, $53 million on downtown sewer infrastructure and $20 million in its new suburbs. "We know what needs to be spent and we're doing it," Foster said. Mayor Gary Bennett doesn't believe Premier Harris was pointing a finger at Kingston. "There are no plans for us to take money that would be invested in infrastructure into the Block D development," Bennett said. The only local tax money that will go toward Block D would be taxes generated by the condominium and hotel complex planned for the site, he said. For Block D, the city will be asking for government funding through the Ontario SuperBuild fund, a pot of money that matches public funds with private investment. As for the Market Square project, Foster said only about 36 per cent of the cost will come from city coffers. Nonetheless, said Foster, a member of the marketplace task force, it will be money well spent. "Once it's revitalized É tourism will be attracted, we'll gain more money in our coffers and [have] more money on infrastructure programs," she said. |
THE KINGSTON WHIG-STANDARD, Tuesday, April 25, 2000
Guide shows how to attack polluters
by Sue Yanagisawa, Whig-Standard Staff Writer
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For all the people who are frustrated by environmental pollution, believe that the regulators aren't getting the job done and aren't sure what to do, the Environmental Bureau of Investigation has created a guide. The bureau was created three years ago after Janet Fletcher, a local woman with no specialized scientific background, took the City of Kingston to court over pollution at Belle Park and won. Energy Probe Research Foundation subsequently provided seed money to create the bureau, which investigates and sometimes prosecutes environmental crimes. Fletcher was one of its founding members. Now, the bureau has created The Citizen's Guide to Environmental Investigation and Private Prosecution, a kind of whistle-blowers' manual to teach ordinary citizens how to go after polluters - on their own if necessary. The guide, which the bureau plans to sell at cost for $15, explains how to collect documentary evidence and physical samples. It tries to assist people in comparing laboratory results with pollution regulations. It describes how to make a formal complaint to government regulators. It also explains how toget the attention of the media, how to approach experts for help and, if all else fails, how to launch a private prosecution. INVOLVED IN MAJOR CASES The bureau is currently involved in three major pollution cases in Ontario. It initiated the case against the Government of Ontario over its handling of the Deloro Mine, north of Belleville. The prosecution was subsequently taken over by the Attorney General on behalf of the Crown and the case is still before the courts. The bureau is also involved in prosecuting charges over pollution in Hamilton's Red Hill Creek and it's still involved in the Belle Park case in Kingston, which is awaiting a court date for the city's appeal of its convictions. The Citizen's Guide was written by Tom Adams, an investigator with the bureau and the executive director of Energy Probe; Myriam Beaulne, a former staff biologist with the bureau; and lawyer Mark Mattson, who, in addition to being the bureau's executive director and the Energy Probe Research Foundation's lawyer, has roots in Kingston. Fletcher and Lynda Lukasik, who initiated the private prosecution in Hamilton, are both credited as major contributors to the book. Sierra Legal Defence Fund lawyers Doug Chapman and David Boyd and biologist John Werring are cited as having had a significant impact on the book's development. The bureau has investigated dozens of contaminated sites since it was created in 1997, but Fletcher said it's not always easy to keep up with requests for help. That's part of the reason for creating a book, she explained. "If we can't afford to get to them, we can afford to get our material to them." In a release sent out by the bureau, Fletcher is quoted as saying she believes "there are thousands of volunteer environmental investigators facing local problems that they may have unique knowledge of, just waiting for direction on how to help. "This book is directed at them." NOT UNIQUE Contacted at her home, Fletcher said she doesn't believe her willingness to challenge City Hall over the environment is unique. "It just takes the right issue at the right time," she said. For reasons of cost, only 50 copies of The Citizen's Guide to Environmental Investigation and Private Prosecution were produced in the first print run, according to Fletcher. If there's a demand, however, the bureau plans to print more copies. [NOTE: The Citizens Guide is now available online for free at www.e-b-i.net/ebi/guide.html] |
THE TORONTO STAR, Friday, March 14, 1997
Dump poisoning river in Kingston, activists claim
by Brian McAndrew, environment reporter
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Toxic liquids seeping from an old industrial chemical dump are poisoning a river running through Kingston, a local environmental group charges. More than 300,000 litres of toxic chemical leachate - enough to fill 20 tanker trucks - are leaking every day from the closed dump into the picturesque Cataraqui River, the Storrington Committee Against Trash says.
Committee member Janet Fletcher filed private charges under the federal Fisheries Act against the City of Kingston yesterday, accusing the municipality of discharging a harmful substance in the water. Fletcher said she was forced to lay the charges herself after the provincial environment ministry told her staff cutbacks prevent it from running its own investigation. "I'm a wife, a mother and a geography student at Queen's University. I don't really have the time to be doing this," Fletcher, flanked by lawyers from the Sierra Legal Defense Fund, told a news conference. |
"Premier Mike Harris' government has dropped the ball on this one," added Tom Heintznab, a lawyer with the Sierra fund, a Toronto environmental legal clinic.
The province has the ability to quash any privately laid charge before it reaches trial. "A ministry enforcement branch official in the Kingston office was "axed the day before we had an appointment to see him," Fletcher said. The official was one of six supervisors in regional offices across the province laid off this year and replaced by three managers working from the ministry's Toronto headquarters. The ministry is losing about one-third of its staff due to cutbacks imposed by the Tories in their efforts to shrink the size of provincial government. An investigation by the ministry into the dump is taking place, said Ingrid Thompson, an aide to Environment Minister Norm Sterling. The Kingston group conducted its own investigation. |
THE GLOBE AND MAIL, Friday, March 14, 1997
City accused of polluting
| A woman has accused Kingston of allowing huge amounts of toxic waste to leak into a river near a commercial fishery and a children's summer camp. Janet Fletcher said pollutants are seeping into the Cataraqui River from a golf course built on top of a former dump. She has brought a charge against the city under the Fisheries Act. The city, which must answer to the charge in court April 15, could be fined $1-million if found guilty. Ms. Fletcher said the issue came to her attention when her children got a nasty rash after playing in the river near the camp. ~CP |
DAILY COMMERCIAL NEWS, Kingston, March 1997
Kingston faces lawsuit over river pollution
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A woman has accused the city of Kingston of allowing huge amounts of toxic waste to leak into a river near a commercial fishery and a children's summer camp.
Janet Fletcher says pollutants are seeping into the Cataraqui River from a golf course built on top of a former dump. She has brought a charge against the city under the Fisheries Act. The city which must answer to the charge in court April 15, could be slapped with a $1-million fine if found guilty. Shelly Petrie, spokeswoman for the environmental group Great Lakes United, says the Ontario government has known about the leak for years. "If the Ministry of Environment ... and the (Ontario) government are not | committed to providing clean water to Ontario citizens, what are they committed to? It's a fundamental, basic right, and they are not taking action on it. "The Sierra Legal Defense Fund, which helped Fletcher file the charge, says the equivalent of 20 tanker-trucks of waste is oozing into the river daily. The group said samples taken last December were so toxic, they killed fish almost on contact. Fletcher says the issue came to her attention when her children got a nasty rash after playing in the river near the camp. "I find it really upsetting that they allow children to wander into the water there and disturb the sediments, which are obviously loaded with pollutants," she said. |
THE KINGSTON WHIG-STANDARD,
Kingston, 1997
Contaminants threaten future of family fishery
by Sue Yanagisawa, Whig-Standard Staff Writer
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A Brighton family is waiting to hear from the Ministry of Environment whether part of their livelihood from commercial fishing is threatened by the old city dump under Belle Park. Harry and William Quick happened to be on the ice checking their first few nets of the season the same day the city was served with notice that it was being sued for allegedly allowing pollutants to seep into the Cataraqui River. Harry Quick said he and his brother were approached by officers from the Investigation and Enforcement section of the ministry, one of whom asked for some of the fish they'd caught. Quick said there wasn't much in the nets, but he gave them a few bullheads and dogfish [bowfish].
In return, "they gave use the bad news," and he and his brother released everything they'd caught, although they re-set the nets. "If they're polluted, what are we foing to do?" Quick asked. "We can't sell contaminated fish." About six years ago, the Quicks bought the fishing rights to a long stretch of the Cataraqui River from an elderly Kingston man who had fished there for many years. Harry Quick said his family is licensed by the Ministry of Natural Resources for 400 hoop nets on the river, which they set in the spring and fall each year to catch bullheads, eels and pan fish, such as yellow perch and crappies. They divide the nets about evenly between two sections of the river: upstream, from Washburn - north of Joyceville - down to Kingston Mills; and downstream, between Kingston Mills and the La Salle Causeway. The spring bullhead run isn't really underway. The Quicks will wait until the ice breaks to set most of their nets, but three weeks ago they put in seven or eight of them early in the shallows near Belle Park. The spot turned out to be directly offshore from where a backhoe and crew suddenly appeared March 13 to build a barrier that the city hopes will block a controversial seep of water entering the river out of the north-east shoreline of Belle Park. Kingston officials were served with notice, March 12, that the city is being taken to court over what's allegedly leaking from under the |
park - benzene, chlorobenzene, ammonia and heavy metals. Janet Fletcher has initiated a private prosecution under the Fisheries Act, alleging that the municipality deposited or permitted the deposit of a "deleterious substance" on the land, which it then failed to prevent getting into fish habitat, contrary to the act.
Fletcher and the non-profit Sierra Legal Defence Fund sent water from the seep to a lab and she says the samples proved rapidly fatal to some of the rainbow trout used in the tests. A first court appearance on the charge has been schedules for April 15. Waiting for Analysis
The ministry officer told Quick he expected to have an analysis back on the sample fish by the end of next week. The Quicks haven't raised their nets since, but Harry Quicj said hoop nets can easily remain in place for three weeks without being checked, because the fish inside can swim freely and remain alive.
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THE KINGSTON WHIG-STANDARD,
Kingston, Monday, March 17, 1997
City knew of problem, ministry official says
by Sue Yanagisawa, Whig-Standard Staff Writer
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The Ministry of Environment and Energy was "involved in discussions" with the city about contaminants leaching out of Belle Park as early as 1994, according to the local head of the ministry's abatement branch.
John Bishop says a report from CH2M Hill Engineering, Ltd. of Waterloo in April 1994 revealed the contaminants. Three months after the study's completion, project engineer Tom Williams wrote to a ministry hydrogeologist in Toronto. On the basis of additional sampling at the site, Williams wrote, "groundwater and landfill leachate containing elevated levels of phenolics and manganese is likely discharging to the Cataraqui River via groundwater flow and surface water discharges." The ministry didn't order the city to do anything, however. "We have told them: 'It's your site; you have a problem. Deal with it," Bishop said. "And that's what they are trying to do." It wasn't until almost three years later that the city filed its plan of action with the ministry. Two days after the city learned it was going to be sued for allowing the discharge, Bishop said he received the city's proposal for the work. Work crews have been on site since the city was served Wednesday with notice taht a citizen, Janet Fletcher, intends to take the city to court over contaminants that are allegedly leaking from the park's shoreline. The proposal, the Cataraqui Park Development/Management Plan, is not yet complete. Bishop said it proposes a ditch and pond system to collect standing surface water and direct it away from the dump site before it can percolate through and emerge as contaminated leachate. "I understand that they have a fill permit from the [Cataraqui Region] conservation |
authority," Bishop added. The permit is necessary since the patk juts into the Cataraqui River, making it part of the river's flood plain. The study commissioned by the ministry in 1994 notes that some 20 years earlier "several studies reported that unacceptable levels of pollutants were detected in both sediments and waters in the river adjacent to the landfill site."
Since sharing the 1994 study with the city, Bishop said, "one of the things we discussed at length is the need fro the implementation of a monitoring plan." On Thursday, a work crew with a backhoe was driving sheet piling into the bank near a swath of yellow ice offshore. Bishop said the city's short-term plan is to contain the water as it emerges from the bank, pump it into some sort of storage receptacle and then "that they will discharge that into the sanitary sewage system." For the long-term, he said the city now has plans to improve drainage and re-contour the property to slow runoff on the river side. City Councillor Don Bristol, who represents Cataraqui Ward, where Belle Park is located, refused to talk about it. "If it wasn't before the courts, I would comment," he said. Dave Clark, who represents St. Lawrence Ward, just downriver from Belle Park, wasn't on council until December 1994, eight months after the ministry report was received. The first he recalls hearing about the concerns was last Tuesday at an in camera session before the regular council meering. "The first thing was everybody flew into action to try to fix it. " Clarke said. |
THE KINGSTON WHIG-STANDARD,
Kingston, Monday, March 17, 1997
Man finally gets action three years after complaint
By Sue Yanagisawa, Whig-Standard Staff Writer
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Complaint was first lodged in 1994
Bruce MacGregor has been trying to get somebody to investigate pollution runoff at Belle Park since the spring of 1994, when he noticed the river ice turning crayon yellow.
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Three years later, he can no longer remember which told him the staining was from salt, but he didn't believe it then and he still doesn't. Nothing happened then, but just recently, McGregor was contacted by an investigator with the ministry's investigation and enforcement branch wanting to know what he recalls. "There's a hell of a lot of stuff gone in that river since I reported it, " MacGregor said.
As recently as last September, he recalls seeing city trucks hauling something onto the site and dumping it. He couldn't identify exactly what it was, and said it was quickly covered by a bulldozer that periodically appeared at the park. He said he did recognize the trucks as the sort used to clean out storm sewers. |
THE KINGSTON WHIG-STANDARD,
Kingston, Monday, March 17, 1997
Toxic waste: We need answers
By Paul Schliesmann
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In a Brampton laboratory, rainbow trout died within an hour of being exposed to polluted water samples. Why should trout in Brampton be of concern to Kingstonians? Because the water samples that killed the trout were taken from the Cataraqui River at Kingston. As a result of those tests, the City of Kingston faces a charge of having contaminants leaking from its old grabage dump at Belle Park. It appears the environmental sins of past generations are coming back to haunt Kingstonians.
Local environmentalists Janet and Doug Fletcher, backed by the Sierra Legal Defence Fund, found what they suspected were toxic wastes spewing into the river. They commissioned the tests by the independent laboratory in Brampton, which detected the toxic chemicals benzene and chlorobenzene, as well as ammonia and heavy metals used in industry. Last Thursday, Whig-Standard reporter Sue Yangisawa went to Belle Park, where she found a crew of workers constructing what appeared to be a makeshift dike.The workers wouldn't say who they were or what they were doing. Yanagisawa was told to contact municipal operations commissioner Brian Sheridan. Sheridan passed the reporter on to chief administrative officer Rick Fiebig. Fiebig said he didn't know who the workers were or what they were doing. Yet the city had just issued a memo saying "remedial measures" were being undertaken at the site where the pollutants had been found. This kind of bureaucratic buck-passing is intolerable. |
Now the city must follow one of two possible courses of action. If city officials feel there is no pollution at the site, and that tests of their own prove there is no danger, then they can fight the charge. But if the charge is warranted, emergency measures should be taken immediately to clean up the site. Toxic leachate can not be ignored. The environment and the people of Kingston might be harmed by poisons in the water. Adding to the seriousness of the charge, Belle Park is the site of a municipal golf course and a children's summer camp is operated just downstream from the source of the toxins. Residents have year-round dwellings on the water directly across from Belle Park in Pittsburg Township. Anglers fish the waters. As city officials are quickly discovering, pollution charges carry international implications. A representative of the environmental group Great Lakes United says he will tell people in and around Clayton, N.Y., that they may be receiving water-borne toxins from Kingston. Ignoring this situation, or tying it up in lengthy court proceedings, will only hurt Kingston's reputation and endanger more innocent people. Further questions demand answers: Why did it take two private citizens, the Fletchers, to bring this situation to light? City officials were warned in a 1994 Ministry of Environment report that high levels of the toxins were likely filtering into the river. Why didn't they act to clean it up or warn citizens about the pollution? The people of Kingston want answers and quick action. | |
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City Solicitor Norman Jackson will appear in court on April 15 representing Kingston. By that time, city staff should be more forthcoming with information than they were last week. | ||
KINGSTON THIS WEEK,
Kingston, Wednesday, March 19,1997
City faces private charge over pollution from Belle Park
Bill Hutchins
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An environmentalist has started a private prosecution against the City of Kingston claiming a former garbage dump is leaking "toxic" waste. The municipal dump, which operated from the 1950s to the mid-1970s, is underneath the Belle Park public golf course on Montreal Street. In her prosecution, Janet Fletcher alleges that about 68,000 gallons of leachate a day is seeping from the dump into the nearby Cataraqui River. Leachate is garbage juice created when rainwater or ground water passes through layers of decaying garbage.
Fletcher says she laid a private charge because the city is exposing humans and wildlife to hazardous waste. "I don't really enjoy this. But to me, it's sickening," says Fletcher, who lives in Inverary just north of Kingston. Fletcher says an anonymous tip last fall sparked her interest in Belle Park. The tip led her to a liquid substance that was "oozing" onto the beach from the north shore of Belle Park. Sierra Club funding action She hooked up with Sierra Club, an environmental watchdog group, which has decided to finance her legal action. The group took water samples on four different dates last December and sent them to a Toronto-area lab for testing. "The toxic material gushing from the site contains heavy metals and benzene, a known human carcinogen. Test fish that were exposed to (the samples) were killed almost immediately," says Tom Heintzman, a staff lawyer with the Sierra Legal Defence Fund, in aMarch 13 news release. The news release also alleges the amount of toxic material pouring into the river is the "equivalent of 20 full tank-trucks each day."
of leachate a day is seeping into the Cataraqui River Fletcher says the amount of leachate is not based on her tests, but on a 1994 report by the ministry of the environment and energy (MOEE), which she obtained through a freedom of information request. "The MOEE has known about it. |
The city has known about it. But the ministry has never said 'do something or we'll prosecute'," she adds. Fletcher speculates one reason for the ministry's apparent foot dragging on the pollution report is due to staff cuts at the Kingston MOEE office. She convinced a local justice of the peace on March 10 to lay a pollution-related charge against the city under the federal Fisheries Act, which carries a maximum fine of $1.2 million.
City response
City officials are tight-lipped about the legal action, but plan to respond to the private charge at the first court appearance April 15.
Fought city hall before It's not the first time Fletcher has fought battles with city hall. She is a member of the Storrington Committee Against Trash (SCAT) - a group that opposed efforts to reopen the Storrington dump a few years ago. But she says these battles have nothing to do with this current prosecution. "This is no revenge thing," she says, adding "I'm an environmentalist, I can't turn a blind eye to what's going on." |
THE KINGSTON WHIG-STANDARD,
Kingston, Tuesday, March 25, 1997
Council plans to 'tell truth' about pollution
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City hall will break its silence tonight on allegations that Kingston has allowed an old municipal dump under Belle Park to leak pollutants into the Cataraqui River. A public presentation by senior staff to city council will "tell the truth - that's always our policy," says chief adminstrator Rick Flebig.
Councillors imposed a gag order on themselves when it was revealed that environmentalists are taking City Hall to court on pollution charges. The dump is allegedly discharging the equivalent of 20 tanker trucks a day of waste into the river. Janet Fletcher, who initiated the court case, said "a lot of people are watching to see what happens" with her bid to force a cleanup at Belle Park. City officials were served two weeks ago with a notice to appear in court April 15 on a charge under the Fisheries Act. Since announcing her intention to take the city to court, Fletcher is surprised that no ordinary citizens have opposed what she's doing. She expected at least a few people "would come up to me and say:'What the hell do you think you're doing? You're going to cost us money'." Instead, she's been getting calls from people who tell her they've been alarmed and suspicious about the waterfront in and around Belle Park for years. Some claim to have complained to the Ministry of Environment and other government bodies without satisfaction. She's also "had calls from people who live and work in the area and they're concerned abouth their health and the health of their families," although, Fletcher said, "I didn't bring this out to scare people. "I think one of the good things that might come out of this, is if people relaize they don't have to sit back and wait for a government that's not enforcing the regulations." Fletcher has plenty of experience in environmental disputes. |
She is a veteran of the Storrington Committee Against Trash, which spent approximately eight years in a succession of battles over containment at the Storrington Landfill site. This time, she has enlisted the help of the Sierra Legal Defense Fund, a non-profit environmental law organization.
She dismisses the idea that containment and cleanup of aging dump sites isn't feasible because of the enormous cost. "That's a lot of hooey," Fletcher said. Cash strapped or not, she believes that governments "find the money for the things they want to do and they don't find it for the things they don't want to do." Monthly water samples
The Cataraqui Region Conservation Authority collects monthly water samples at the La Salle Causeway for the environment ministry to analyze. Steve Knechtel, the authority's watershed management supervisor, said he is not aware of any problems with the water samples.
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THE KINGSTON WHIG-STANDARD,
Kingston, March 25, 1997
Belle Park: Where was ministry?
Richard D. Lindgren, Counsel, Canadian Environmental Law Association, Toronto
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Janet and Doug Fletcher should be commended for commencing a private prosecution under the Fisheries Act against the City of Kingston in relation to the former dump at Belle Park.
While the Fletcher's allegations against the city must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt in court, this ongoing saga raises serious questions about the role and responsibility of the Ministry of Environment and Energy. For example, it appears that for several years, ministry officials have been aware of the leachate problems at the former dump and have discussed the matter with the city. However, the ministry failed to exercise its powers under the Environmental Protection Act or the Ontario Water Resources Act to order the city to take remedial or preventive measures at the site. |
In the March 17 edition of The Kingston Whig-Standard, a local ministry official defended the ministry's inaction by commenting that it was up to the city to address site problems ("City knew of problem, ministry official says"). In our opinion, the ministry's laissez-faire approach is highly objectionable and clearly inconsistent with the ministry's statutory mandate to protect Ontario's natural environment.
However, due to massive staff reductions and budget cutbacks imposed upon the ministry by the provincial government, it seems likely that Ontarians will be increasingly left on their own to pursue legal remedies against polluters. Regardless of the outcome of the Fletcher's prosecution against the city, the ministry should be held accountable for its continuing failure to promptly and fully exercise its legal authority in this case. |
THE KINGSTON WHIG-STANDARD,
Kingston, March 26, 1997
Pollution leak is not a danger, city claims
By Jeff Outhit and Sue Yanagisawa, Whig-Standard Staff Writers
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City hall has told Kingston residents not to worry - the pollution that is leaking from an old dump into the Catarqui River is no danger to them or their children. "we have everything under control," Mirka Januszkiewicz, the city's director of environment, said last night.
Storrington resident Janet Fletcher brought the Belle Park pollution to public attention this month by launching a private prosecution of the city over the leaking waste. Fletcher was disappointed by Januszkiewicz's presentation. "I'm pleased they're going to be taking some kind of action," she said. "I'm not sure what kind of action they're taking." After first refusing to discuss the issue, in response to the court action, city staff broke their silence in a bid to reassure residents that they have been working on a containment plan for the old dump site for 18 months. |
The pollution leaking from the dump site is being drained into the city's sewers while permanent containment measures are developped, Januskiewicz said. She said City Hall discovered the leaking pollution in January and moved to contain it. The containment wall built this month was a result of that January discovery and is not a response to Fletcher's court action, Januszkiewicz insisted.
Januszkiewicz said she was "very disappointed" that Fletcher did not take her concerns to the city before launching court action. But she refused to discuss the size of the pollution leak, citing Fletcher's court action. Fletcher disputed the suggestion she launched her private prosecution without giving the city an opportunity to address the problem. Fletcher said she initially expressed concerns to city officials about pollutants leaching from Belle Park in 1990 or 1991. |
THE KINGSTON WHIG-STANDARD,
Kingston, March 26, 1997
Charge targets city
By Sue Yanagisawa, Whig-Standard Staff Writer
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Old dump site the centre of pollution allegation
Environmental activitists have brought a charge against the city, claiming its old garbage dump is leakin a "toxic liquid" into the Cataraqui River. The alleged leak is on the east side of Belle Park - near the municipal golf course and a children's summer camp. The area was the site of the municipal dump before 1974.
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They were joined by Craig Boljkovac, a representative of Great Lakes United, another environmental group. Boljkovac has promised to assist the Fletchers by publicizing the Belle Park problem to Kingston's southern neighbors. He has "absolutely" no doubt they will react, he said, because "people in Clayton, N.Y., could be affected by benzene from this [former] dump. It's downstream from this [former] dump."
While the news conference was going on, just down the road, by the river's edge, a work crew, using a backhoe, was constructing what looked like a dike out of three-meter long metal pylons. Water pouring from the river bank seemed clear, but an arc of yellow ice stretched out several metres from the bank. Crew members refused to say what they were doing. They wouldn't even say whether they worked for the city. A man who appeared to be in charge of the crew referred all questions to the city's commissioner of municipal operations, Brain Sheridan. Sheridan, however, deferred to treasurer and chief administrative officer, Rick Fiebig. Fiebig siad he did not know who the men with the backhoe were or what they were doing - even though the news release sent out by the City says: "Upon the issue being raised, the City responded and is undertaking remedial measures at this site." | |
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KINGSTON THIS WEEK,
Wednesday, April 2, 1997
Collecting leachate from former dump site costs
City of Kingston $1,500 per day
By Bill Hutchins
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A short-term plan to control discharge of liquid waste from an old city garbage dump will cost taxpayers an estimated $1,500 a day. "It's definitely expensive," says Mirka Januszkiewicz, Kingston's environmental director. But city officials maintain there is no safety hazard to people who live, work or plau in Belle Park, which is now home to a golf course, ski hill and a children's summer camp. "Those activities will continue," says Januszkiewicz in her first public comment on the matter.
And so will a private prosecution. Environmentalist Janet Fletcher is pursuing a private charge under the Federal Fisheries Act. The charge alleges the former dump on Montreal Street is leaking thousands of gallons of "toxic" waste into the Cataraqui River. The pollution-related charge carries a maximum $1.2 million fine.
contain the discharge from north side of former dump City officials insist they were not aware of the leachate problem until alerted by Fletcher in January. And they maintain the clean-up operations that began in early March are "in no way connected to the private charge sworn against the city". Site monitored continuously The city has hired a local consulting firm, Malroz Engineering, to monitor the site "continuously" until long-term solutions can be developed, says Januszkiewicz. Engineers have installed metal barriers to contain the discharge of leachate from a river bank on the north side of the former dump. |
Januszkiewicz does not know how many truck loads of leachate are being diverted into the sewer system each day, but says melting snow has created "a lot of run off." She estimates the consultants will charge the city $1,500 a day for the stop-gap measure. We are now developing a more permanent solution with our consultants," she explains.
Leachate is garbage juice formed by ground and surface water passing through layers of decaying trash. A sanitation truck is pumping the leachate from the river bank site and then dumping it into the city's sewer system. This remedial clean-up operation has been approved by the Ontario environment ministry. Fletcher says the short-term clean-up measures will not halt her court action. "I don't know if (the city) is actually going to carry through with anything, or if this is just window-dressing," says Fletcher. And Fletcher disputes claims by Kingston officials that they were not aware of a leachate problem until earlier this year. "They knew. And they've known for a number of years. I did bring it to their attention around 1990-91 but we didn't have the evidence to pursue it at that time." Januszkiewicz admits she is "very disappointed" with Fletcher's legal action, and city solicitor Norm Jackson intends to respond to it in court April 15. In her March 25 briefing to council, Januszkiwicz notes the city has spent $40 million over the past five years on other environmentally-friendly projects. Site neglected for too long But environmental lawyer Mark Mattson, who is assisting Fletcher's court challenge, says the city has neglected the dump site for too long. "It's ironic that they're still working on a long-term plan of a site that's been closed for 27 years." |
THE KINGSTON WHIG-STANDARD,
Kingston, Tuesday, October 28, 1997
City's trial delayed as charges combined
By Sue Yanagisawa Whig - Standard Staff Writer
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A trial over the complaint of a private who accuses the City of Kingston of allowing pollution into the Cataraqui River has been postponed.
The charge which was laid under the Federal Fisheries Act was scheduled to begin Monday. But lawyers representing the city, the Ministry of Environment, and Janet Flectcher, the woman who initiated the private prosecution, have agreed not to proceed as scheduled. Instead, all parties will be back in provincial court at 2 pm on Nov. 19 to start again in the process leading to new trial dates. The City was originally served notice in March that it was being taken to court by Fletcher. She is being assisted by environmental lawyers from the Sierra Legal Defense Fund and court time for the trial was set aside months ago. Last week, however, the Environment Ministry's Investigations and Enforcement branch served notice that it also plans to prosecute the city and its director of environmental services and engineering, Mirka Januskiewicz, under the Federal Fisheries Act. The city doesn't want to have to defend itself twice against what Mayor Gary Bennett has said are essentially the same charges. Consequently, the municipality applied yesterday in front of justice of the peace Cathy Hickling to have the two prosecutions joined in a single trial. Both Fletcher's charges and the ministry's charges have their root in the same set of circumstances, if not the same date. |
They all relate to seepages of water that escaped into the Cataraqui River from Belle park during partial thaws last winter.
The park and its nine-hole municipal gold course are sitting on top of an old city dump site closed in the 1970's when environmental laws were more lenient. Fletcher took samples of the water leaking from the site and had them analysed and tested on live fish fry. The fry died and the samples tested positive for benzene, chlorobenzene, heavy metals and ammonia. After the city received its notice to appear in court on Fletcher's charges, in March, Malroz Engineering was hired to deal with the problem. Since then, seepage from the park property has been collected in pits and disposed of through the city sanitary treatment plant with the approval of the ministry's abatement branch. "I would have liked to have gotten started," Fletcher said when asked her feelings about postponing the trial, "I think it's been a long enough delay." She said she's happy to see the ministry come on board, however, and she'll be satisfied if a new trial date can be set before 1998. "I'd hate to see it roll over to the new year," she said. Fletcher has joined the Environmental Bureau of Investigation, a new watchdog group that's being formed under Energy Probe. Mark Mattson, the environmental lawyer who appeared in court yesterday on her behalf, has assumed the executive directorship of the new group. |