Dufferin County Council and its Community Development Committee (CDC) will convene special meetings in August and September in the hope of achieving a triple-majority vote in favour of having the county handle the household solid waste stream.

The CDC meeting, to include a gallery of all local council members who wish to be there, would be in county council chambers on the second Thursday of August. The council doesn’t normally meet in August, but does meet on the second Thursday of every other month.

It wasn’t entirely clear if a special meeting of council would be called immediately following the committee one, although that would be the warden’s preference.

CDC Chairman Ed Crewson has reminded council that the bylaw on waste transfer had already passed first and second reading. He said whatever amendments are required could be made prior to the third and final reading which would he held Sept. 9.

The amended bylaw would be circulated to all eight lower tier municipalities. To achieve triple majority approval, at least five of those would have to be in favour, those five would have to represent at least half the total county population, and then no fewer than 16 of the 30 county council votes would have to be in favour.

Prior to the last council session, CDC had sought an outline of what conditions each municipality would require for the county to assume waste management responsibility. Not all of those had been received.

Chair Crewson gave credit to Amaranth Deputy Reeve Walter Kolodziechuk for suggesting the bylaw be amended to incorporate needed changes – when those had been determined.

“If there are ways of building harmony, I’d like to pursue it. “We could have an open meeting where all councils could come,” he said. Warden Allen Taylor would have liked the special meeting of the council to follow immediately after the CDC one. But the council’s preference was to circulate to the lower tier prior to the county council vote.

A consensus might not be easily attained, but the intent of the bylaw has clearly been set out at several previous meetings. A major one is that the proposed Alter NRG thermal treatment plant in Dufferin Eco Energy Park (DEEP) could maintain a tipping fee in the range of $75-$80 a tonne. The county hopes to negotiate a 12¢ per kilowatt hour Ontario Power Authority contract for its electrical feed to the grid to help achieve this.