Oneida Nation of the Thames says Toronto's landfill is not a good neighbour

A First Nations community located near a landfill that accepts trash from the City of Toronto says not enough is being done to curtail the dump's noxious odour. The landfill continues to stink up their community despite ongoing improvement the city says it's making.

Marsha Cornelius lives with her five children in Oneida, which is 25 kilometres southwest of London, Ont. Her house is approximately three kilometers away from the landfill.

"It's almost like something is rotting and eggs, really sulphuric. And that smell comes right into your house. It's the worst when it's foggy," she said.

Smell is horrific  

It's been seven years since the City of Toronto started dumping its waste at the Green Lane Landfill in Southwold Township. Fifty truckloads of waste go to the landfill each day.

Randall Phillips is the elected Chief for Oneida Nation. He says its smells like rotten eggs, dirty diapers and vomit. 

"What I would love to do is put a little sign down [Highway] 401 that says 'Honk if you can smell Toronto's garbage. This is what Toronto smells like,'" said the chief.

In an email, a spokesperson from the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change said that complaints about the Green Lane Landfill have drastically decreased from more than 300 complaints in 2012 to 61 in 2017.

"While the odours can be annoying, the smell generated by landfills is not typically hazardous to human or animal health," said the ministry's spokesperson.

Cornelius disagrees.

"That smell can get very strong and it can make you sick to your stomach, it's even hard to be outside sometimes, because if it's windy and that smell comes it's just nasty. And there is nothing you can do about it. You just have to sit there and wait for it to go by," she said.

Chief Phillips thinks that community members have become used to the smell and given up complaining about it, but he thinks the smell hasn't improved. To the best of his knowledge there hasn't been any environmental studies done in his community.

Chief Phillips also hears complaints about the amount of rodents in the community.

Cornelius said her family had a problem with rats. "We had rats, we had to get pet control to come and then they noticed that you guys are so close to that dump over there, that's where they are all coming from," she said.  About five rats were found in her house.

City of Toronto trying to manage the smell

Derek Angove, the director of processing and resource management for the City of Toronto, admits that Green Lane is not the best neighbour to have.

"We are a large municipal landfill, but we are doing our best to make as little impact on the community as we can. And certainly we want to have very good relations with our First Nations neighbours," said Angove.

Angove explained that since 2012, a time when complaints about the smell were the highest, the City of Toronto has put significant effort into enhancing its landfill gas collecting system and that it continues to be a work in progress.

"You have to realize that this is a large landfill that is outdoors, so when the garbage arrives it does smell. What we do is we cover it as quickly as we can at the end of every day and make sure it has a good amount of cover on it."

Angove said the rats in the community are not coming from the landfill. He also says wild animals are not feeding off the garbage. "It is not available for them to feed on, because overnight and on weekends it's covered and away."

Community benefit agreement

Oneida Nation and Chippewas of the Thames are both compensated through a community benefit agreement. They split 4 per cent of the gross revenue and $4 per tonne from the landfill. The two communities split about $1 million dollars a year. 

Chief Phillips said they just recently gained access to the funds that will be used for youth programming, summer students, recreation and other programs and services that will benefit the community.

The community benefit agreement was signed only after Oneida's chief and council fought for fair treatment and to be included in talks Toronto was already having with local municipalities.

Oneida was not consulted by the City of Toronto about the landfill and only became aware of it after reading about it in a newspaper. After several attempts to have the community included in the talks, Oneida's chief and council eventually filed a lawsuit against the City of Toronto for lack of consultation. Once filed, Toronto was finally willingly to talk. 

Chief Phillips said that he is going to continue to push for the landfill to be closed completely and will continue to call for additional resources to test the environmental impacts that landfill has on the water in his community.

He encourages Toronto to continue to invest in new technologies so they can use their waste within Toronto