Accessibility and Access Keys [0]
Monday, July 5
From the CBC
Residents in the village of Navan, in Ottawa’s east end, are rallying to stop a waste recycling plant from locating there because they fear it will contaminate their well water.
“If we have our wells buggered up, and water ruined, what do you do? We’re too far away from the city to have city water — it’s strictly all wells,” said Vern McClelland who lives across the street from the area selected for the plant.
The area’s water table runs under an old eight-acre farm, which has been bought by Carl’s Sanitation Service. The company plans to store and sell materials there, such as wood, concrete, and dry wall from construction and demolition sites.
“We want the company to go greener and save the landfills here in Ottawa. We want to put in a holding tank, so anything that’s dumped on the floor that has a liquid to it, will go into the drain,” said Dan Meagher, the company’s vice-president.
The company has yet to do any environmental impact studies, which is why the councillor for the area, Rob Jellett, got a two-month delay in the company’s plans.
He worries that dangerous contaminants could seep into the soil.
“They should be located either in a dump already, that’s an engineered landfill site, or an industrial park that’s in a closed-loop setting, that doesn’t have wells coming from the same water source,” Jellett said.