"Say No To Landfill in the Sky"

Resolution Re: Proposed Garbage Incinerator in Port Hope

Be it resolved that the Northumberland Chapter of the Council of Canadians is very much in favour of supporting the local group called “Port Hope Residents for Managing Waste Responsibly (MWR)” www.phr4mwr.ca in its efforts to raise community awareness of the potentially disastrous implications of the proposed garbage incinerator in Port Hope.

Background Information supporting the resolution:

Questions about the efficacy of the technology and the process of potentially creating a massive catchment area of new nanoparticle pollutants have to be addressed.

The incinerator would annually burn hundreds of thousands of tons of garbage from across Southern Ontario, including the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). Contrary to what you might expect, Northumberland County is not contracting to send local garbage to this new incinerator.

The available published literature on this technology show that it produces nanoparticles and that there is no known way of preventing their escape into the environment and that this technology puts out a stew of cancer producing poisons. Furthermore, the company Entech has no track record. While Entech has the rights to the technology, the company has never actually built anything. There are no Entech plants doing municipal solid waste anywhere in the Western World—Australia, Western Europe, North America and there are no gasification plants processing municipal solid waste (MSW) anywhere in North America. Apparently all that did exist failed or closed down.

This new pollution, aided by prevailing westerly winds, will have a yet unmeasured adverse effect on people (children in particular), farm animals, all crops (including trees, grapes, apples) and the fresh water supply (including Lake Ontario and Rice Lake) within a wide area that would most certainly include all areas of Northumberland County as well as parts of Peterborough County and Quinte region. While the incinerator may be located in Port Hope the pollution will be shared by all municipalities in the region. Surrounding people could potentially suffer from personal health issues (particularly respiratory) and the greater community could suffer losses in tourist potential, agricultural product sales (especially organic) and depressed real estate values. The creation of a “Landfill in The Sky” is simply not good for people, not good for politicians, not good for health issues and certainly not good for business.

Colm Maher, President of the Northumberland Chapter of the Council of Canadians

289 252 0550 cocnchapter@yahoo.ca www.canadians.org     Chapter Website www.cocnc.ca