Six more councils rescind support for incinerator

by Charles Dickson

Pontiac

May 14, 2024

In decisions rendered at their regular monthly council meetings last week, the municipalities of Campbell’s Bay, Fort Coulonge and Mansfield and Pontefract withdrew their support for a project to establish a garbage incinerator in Pontiac County.

Alleyn and Cawood held a special meeting on Monday morning of this week to ensure it rescinded its support prior to this week’s county-wide meeting of mayors on Wednesday. Bryson and Calumet Island followed suit at their regular monthly meetings on Monday evening.

All six were among the majority of local municipalities that had . . .

previously endorsed a proposal brought forward last year by county warden Jane Toller regarding an energy-from-waste (EFW) facility in the Pontiac.

In the face of mounting public opposition to the project over recent months, numerous councils across MRC Pontiac have either rescinded their earlier support or reaffirmed their opposition.

In the process, several mayors have said their councils were not adequately informed on the incinerator question when their support for the project was originally being sought. Others have clarified that their expression of support was for a study on the feasibility of an incinerator in the Pontiac, not a decision that such a facility should be built.

In total, 16 of Pontiac’s 18 municipalities now oppose the project, well beyond the 10 that Warden Toller has said would be required to pass a motion at MRC Pontiac’s Council of Mayors table to stop the incinerator project.

Last week, Litchfield council passed a resolution that a motion calling for the complete abandonment of the incinerator project be tabled at this month’s meeting of Pontiac mayors which will convene at the Campbell’s Bay offices of MRC Pontiac this Wednesday evening.