Following a masterful narrowing of divisive issues to four “hot spots” by facilitator Tamara Eberle, representatives of Dufferin’s eight lower-tier municipalities agreed conditionally last Thursday to transfer solid household waste management to the county, effective Dec. 31, 2012.

The four issues were: level of service; timing of takeover; use or disposition of existing landfills; and economic feasibility.

The transfer remains subject to approval of the necessary bylaw at the lower tier and by

third reading at county council next month. Even then, there’ll be no visible changes to solid household waste collection until current municipal contracts with garbage collectors expire.

During the duration of existing contracts, local municipalities would continue to tax for garbage to tax for garbage collection, and the disposal services would continue as at present.

After that, the county would negotiate collection contracts, pay the contractor(s), and levy the costs as part of the county portion of property tax.

The county would not take over the municipal landfill sites. But, so long as those remain open in Amaranth, Melancthon, Mono and Mulmur, garbage collected in each of those dump-owning municipalities would be taken to that municipality’s site.

Melissa Kovac, Dufferin’s co-ordinator of waste management, pointed out at the meeting that the Certificates of Approval for the existing dumps would not permit the dumping of garbage from one municipality into another municipality’s site.

(There was just one exception, several years ago, when Shelburne obtained special dispensation to dump into Mono’s site for a limited period, for a tipping fee of $150 a tonne, when its dump was ordered closed.) A t the lower tier, at least five of the county’s eight constituent municipalities must approve a redrafted and lawyer-reviewed bylaw, and those municipalities must represent more than 50 per cent of the total of electors in the county.

Moving forward to a special meeting of County Council Sept. 9, the revised and lowertier approved bylaw would require the majority of votes favour. The weighted vote would apply at the council. That vote is weighted such that a majority vote would represent more than half of the electors in the county.

The existing landfill sites formed a major issue at last Thursday’s meeting, especially after Mono CAO Keith McNenly offered his opinion that the dumps would have be closed if or when the county took responsibility for waste management.

Perhaps surprisingly

view of her council’s

recent vote on waste management, Mono Mayor Lorie Haddock

said burying garbage is

no longer “the way to go.”

But she also cautioned that

there are variables with

respect to the sites. “We need to understand what’s going on here,” she said. county representatives are to meet with the Ministry of Environment to clarify the impact of county waste management on the dumps that are still owned by the local municipalities.

Committee chair Ed Crewson wants, ultimately, to have three-compartment collection vehicles picking up three waste streams, rather than having three vehicles “running up and down” to collect solid waste, recyclables (blue box) and compostables (organic, source separated or SSO).

He says he believes that would save not only money but the environment by reducing carbon emissions. But this raises the question of how many units of which waste the county would assume.

The meeting’s consensus was that all municipalities except Melancthon would continue to have the same level of service they have now – curbside collection but varying limits to the number of allowable bags of solid waste.

Melancthon is the exception because it does not have curbside collection now, and that service would not be started – at least for now. In other cases, where there is now a single-bag limit it will remain that way and the two-bag limit in other areas would also remain.

If the lower-tier municipalities agree, the county will take over waste management as of Dec. 31, 2012. But the final assumption is based also on the economy.

Despite a presumption that the county takeover would be based on creation of an Energy From Waste (EFW) thermal plant, Dufferin Eco Energy Park (DEEP) was not part of the resolution. But agreement among the municipalities on the building of a $70-million shareholder-financed plasma arc-assisted gasification plant was vital to a feasibility study into the viability of such an undertaking.

The consensus was that the tipping fees for garbage would have to be competitive. “Competitive” is the key word, said Mulmur mayor Gordon Montgomery. “Not exactly the same, but competitive.”

Is the Westinghouse gasification technology the right way to go? Here are two excerpts from Alter NRG’s most recent shareholder information:

Westinghouse Plasma Corp. advanced 20 projects located worldwide which are in the engineering stage of the project development with a total sales value of over $500 million upon successful development. The Westinghouse plasma technology is being utilized in a total of 45 proposed projects being advanced worldwide.

Management travelled to China to follow up discussions with strategic partners advancing waste and biomass clean energy projects. The interest in China and Southeast Asia for the Westinghouse technology has been significant as the government is promoting renewable energy solutions.

Alter NRG, the preferred supplier for DEEP, is the owner of the Westinghouse technology and would be a co-proponent of the DEEP proposal.