The Real Problem of Landfills in Ontario - The Ministry of the Environment

On the web page, http://www.ene.gov.on.ca/environment/en/about/index.htm)the Ministry of the Environment (MOE) trumpets:
"The Ministry of the Environment is responsible for protecting clean and safe air, land and water to ensure healthy communities, ecological protection and sustainable development for present and future generations of Ontarians." MOE cannot fulfill that mandate without requiring site-specific and regional geological investigations to assess the suitability, or lack thereof, of a proposed dump site. However MOE does not even want to know about, nor impose, such requirements on landfill proponents. Instead MOE prefers to remain uninformed, which they are doing very successfully.

During the last 2 years I have written several letters to MOE staff and to the Minister, an example of which, along with a reply, appear below. Besides my letter and many others written by my colleagues in Russell, two of us visited MOE staff in Toronto. During that meeting one member of MOE said that the geological work we proposed, and explained, would be too costly for the proponent. That is an astonishing position for the regulatory body to take. Their mandate is to protect people and the environment, not worry about the financial well-being of landfill proponents.