BRUCEDALE – Farms in Guelph/Eramosa Township will no longer be exempt from a bylaw regulating the movement of fill.
This is after township council adopted a new site-alteration bylaw on Dec. 9.
“Basically, the bylaw was drafted to address changes in provincial legislation,” bylaw enforcement and property standards officer Ivan Lunevski told council during the meeting.
According to a report by Lunevski, the new bylaw replaces an older bylaw and will “better align with Ontario Regulation 406/19 and current industry practices.”
The provincial regulation, subtitled “On-Site and Excess Soil Management,” was created to establish rules supporting the reuse of excess soil and to help stop illegal dumping.
The first draft of the new bylaw came to council in August, and input was gathered from council, as well as engineering consultants, township staff and external agencies. The township’s legal consultant also reviewed the draft.
“The biggest comment we had is from our legal review with regard to the outright exemption for normal farm practices,” Lunevski said during the Dec. 9 meeting.
“The proposed amendment of the previous bylaw draft extends the bylaw’s oversight to all fill operations, including farms, to safeguard against environmental harm, soil contamination and drainage issues in the event of importation of fill,” his report stated.
Lunevski said some of the definitions were updated in the new bylaw, which includes a requirement for site chemical testing before soil is imported on a property where the amount of fill exceeds 30 cubic metres, or about three truckloads.
There is also a prohibition against altering, filling or blocking drainage on any property without a permit, and another against the use of reclaimed fill – soil that was once contaminated but has been decontaminated – on any property.
Lunevski said farms can still bring in up to 10 centimetres of fill without a permit, “as long as they provide fill testing to make sure we know the fill incoming is clean.”
Councillor Corey Woods questioned why the legal consultant would say normal farm practices should not be exempt from the bylaw.
“I just don’t understand,” he said. “They’ve got to jump through all these hoops, when they were previously exempt.”
Lunevski said farmers were already required to provide fill testing, so the change shouldn’t be onerous, but it’s important to ensure fill is clean.
“We have had [a] previous situation where contaminated fill has been brought in, and the environmental implications of that and the cleanup required are just too great,” Lunevski said.
“It’s not an overly arduous process, is it?” asked Mayor Chris White.
Lunevski responded that most places that legitimately move fill should have a certificate already available to them.
“If it’s something that comes out of a construction site, it may need to be tested just to make sure it is not contaminated,” he said.
White said it is a matter of protecting the township’s interests.
“If other municipalities are restricting this and we don’t, guess where it’s going to go,” he said.
Council approved the motion to adopt the new bylaw as written.
