CALEB NICKERSON

LITCHFIELD Dec. 13, 2019

On Friday morning, a press conference was called at the offices of the Pontiac Sorting Centre to announce that they would be laying off 32 workers and closing their facility to the public. The conference was attended by Mayors John Armstrong (Clarendon), Lynne Cameron (Portage du Fort) and Colleen Larivière (Litchfield) as well as Warden Jane Toller.

The site’s director of operations Gerry Philippe explained that the layoffs were due to the company’s difficulties in dealing with the provincial Ministry of Environment.

In February of this year, the Sorting Centre, located on a portion of the Litchfield Industrial Park property, was slapped with more than $40,000 in fines from the Ministry for several infractions, including the improper storage of waste, dating back several years.

Philippe explained that they had been trying to get approval for a technical landfill on a separate section of the property, which already houses a former dump site that was used during the decommissioning of the former paper mill, which would allow them to dispose of residual materials like asbestos. He had received a verbal assurance from an official at the ministry when the site was purchased that the authorization would only take a few months, but those months stretched into several years.

“Our reality is such that until a time where we can get the certificate of authorization for the landfill … then it’s very difficult for us to do something, because all the debris that we have, all incoming matter, have to be shipped to Lachute,” he said. “Now we all know that going to Lachute and back is about a five hour trip all together. So you make two trips a day, it can add up to be very, very costly.”

“We’ve undergone an ordinance from the Ministry of Environment, which has been very costly, which has drawn the majority of our funds actually,” he continued. “So we’ve come to a point where our sister company [Amor Construction] will be taking over the cleaning operations for the rest of the ordinance regulations or requests and then. They will decide what happens afterwards.”

Amor Construction will now use the site as a private sorting centre for their waste, meaning that demolition debris that they had been accepting from areas affected by the spring flooding would also have to be shipped to Lachute, at great cost.

“We’re trying to supply a service, not only to the municipalities and the MRC, but to all those companies that come here, we’ve got probably about 150 companies that come here with asphalt shingles for example, or construction debris, or things like this,” he said.

Philippe said that they had been working extensively with the Ministry of Environment, participating in numerous site visits and emailing dozens of reports to their office. He said that the landfill site is already conforms to provincial regulations and the problem lies with the bureaucracy. He said the Sorting Centre has had to file the same documents or answer the same questions multiple times, and ministry officials often take days or weeks to respond.

“The worst part of it all, is we got a phone call about three and a half weeks ago from one of the civil servants over at the ministry and he said, ‘That’s it, no more questions, everything is ok, we have all the legal documents, the plans, everything. Right now what I’m doing is writing the actual certificate of authorization,’” Philippe explained. “So we thought, ‘Ok good. A week, maybe two, we’ll get it.’ We inquired after and they said, ‘Yeah we wrote it, however, it’s under consideration within the office, and you’ll get an answer in due course.’ Well in due course could be next week, next month, next year, 10 years. We just don’t know. How can you operate a business like that?”

Site manager Raymond Durocher explained that they already pump out the leachate from the dump site and pay to have it treated at UTEAU, which is located on the other side of the Industrial Park. He said that the Ministry’s rules aren’t being applied evenhandedly, compared to the procedures they see at the landfill in Lachute.

“I’m not against the procedure, because it’s a health issue,” he said, referring to the extensive precautions they take to transport asbestos. “But when it gets to Lachute my friend, there’s no procedure. The guy dumps the load and there’s a bulldozer right behind him to bury it. That’s it, that’s all.”

Durocher was visibly upset by the prospect of laying off employees so close to Christmas, and also the ripple effect that it would bring to contractors that use the site. He said that two local companies had purchased equipment to haul demolition waste from the floods to the site, and would now have to reassess their business models.

Philippe also thanked the local officials for their motions in support of the facility at MRC and municipal councils. He added that he hoped the measures were only temporary.

Warden Toller reiterated her support for the site and said she would bring the subject up in her meetings with both the Ministry of Environment and Minister Responsible for the Outaouais, Mathieu Lacombe.