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Gatineau plans to hire a non-profit corporation to build and operate a composting plant for yard waste and table scraps at the controversial former Cook Road landfill site in Aylmer.
The former regional government, the Outaouais Urban Community, closed the landfill in 1991 after nearby residents complained their well water stank and was so badly contaminated it was not fit to drink.
Councillor Frank Therien said the regional government used water trucks to supply residents for a while and spent $2 million to bring city water to the Cook Road area in the northwest section of Aylmer. Gatineau already spends about $1 million a year to remove waste water from the site and burn methane gas generated by the garbage.
Councillor Alain Riel said yesterday that Gatineau will reject the only bid for the plant, submitted by GSI Environnement Inc. of Varennes, south of Montreal, because the cost is too high and the company’s plant in L’Ange Gardien emits foul odours.
Mr. Riel said Gatineau must open a composting plant within a year because Quebec law requires that by 2008 all municipalities compost yard waste and table scraps, which make up 40 per cent of city garbage. He said La Ressourcerie, which already composts Gatineau’s yard waste at a another site on Cook Road, will run the plant at the former landfill.
The compost will be spread on city parks and playgrounds and sold to consumers.
Mr. Riel said the city is planning a composting site and has no intention of reopening the landfill.
“Council is being responsible in taking care of our own garbage, recycling and composting,” Mr. Riel said. “We already pick up green waste from the entire city and there is no problem. Starting in March 2008, we will pick table scraps as well.”
Mr. Therien said he will support the project only if the city consults the people who live near the former landfill.
“I am not sure of the consequences and would like to know more about the plan before we go ahead with it,” Mr. Therien said. “Will there be an odour from this place and will it be dangerous to the water table?
“We have already polluted the area up there and I don’t think we want a repeat performance. The garbage seeped right into the soil and polluted the wells in the area.”
Mr. Riel said not giving the plant to the private sector means the city will be able to monitor it more closely. He said the plant will not stink because the material will be composted indoors before it is piled outside for a few months.
Cynthia Biasolo, a spokeswoman for GSI Environnement, the Montreal-area company that bid on the contract, said the city rejected its proposal, which she said was the only qualified bid submitted.
“We find it bizarre that the city cancelled the whole tendering process and gave a 20-year contract to a non-profit corporation,” Ms. Biasolo said. “The city said we were going to charge $175 a tonne, but our price is actually $55 a tonne.
As well, she said, composting naturally produces odours.
The Outaouais regional government was fined $4,800 in 1991 for mismanaging its landfill site in Aylmer.
Residents who live near the Cook Road landfill complained for years about rodents and the stench of uncovered garbage.
Those closest to Cook Road refused to drink the black, bubbling water that smelled like manure that came out of their taps during 1991.
It was thought that the fecal matter may have leaked from the garbage dump, where 10,000 tonnes of solids from treated waste water from Outaouais toilets were dumped every year.
Tests on the putrid tap water found it more closely matched contents of septic tanks than treated waste, however.
© The Ottawa Citizen 2006