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Summary
Toronto city council has made a decision to dump its garbage in somebody else's backyard.
On Oct. 11, 2000 voted to ship 20 million tonnes of municipal garbage to the Adams mine site in Boston Township near Kirkland Lake, Ont., beginning in 2002.
The move could have put the lands and rivers of Timiskaming and the Ottawa Valley at risk for 1,000 years. Polls show the decision was opposed by a majority of Native groups, farmers, environmentalists and, citizens on both sides of the Ontario-Quebec border.
On Oct. 20 that year, however, Toronto suddenly announced it had changed its mind and would send its garbage to Michigan.
The reason: a clause in the contract with Rail Cycle North, the conglomerate that would handle the waste, that would have held Toronto responsible for unmanageable costs that could arise from myriad factors.
Native people and northerners were relieved, seeing the reversal as a victory that may have been partly the result of the united stance they took to defeat the proposal. At the same time, they feared that some other municipality will want to dump its trash in the mine.
To read the rest of the story, visit our archives site AMMSA.com: http://ammsa.com/publications/windspeaker/toronto-reverses-garbage-dump-decision-0