The Town of Saugeen Shores is beginning an Environmental Assessment to address the problem of diminishing capacity at the Town’s existing Southampton Landfill Site.
The town has proposed that an Environmental Assessment be undertaken to address the Town’s future waste management needs for a 40-year planning period. This Study will be carried out in accordance with the requirements of the Environmental Assessment Act (EAA).
The first step of the process is the preparation of a Terms of Reference which sets out the framework and work plan including public consultation, and possible options.
Alternatives include doing nothing, which will be baseline against which the other alternatives can be compared. Other possibilities are optimizing capacity at the existing site, establishing a new landfill, using new waste management technologies, or exporting waste to a third party.
"Building upon the recommendations of the Town’s Long-Term Waste Management Plan completed in 2020, preliminary screening of various alternatives in more detail has been completed as part of an overall screening process advanced to support the Environmental Assessment. Background studies were initiated in 2021 to confirm the feasibility of the existing landfill site to accommodate additional waste capacity. Based on the findings, landfill optimization has been confirmed to be a viable waste management strategy," read a statement from the municipality. "In addition, a detailed screening assessment of the ‘Alternative to Establish a New Landfill Site with the Town’ and a review of the ‘Applicability of Alternative Waste Management Technologies’ have been completed and are provided as supporting documentation to the Terms of Reference. The screening of these ‘Alternatives To’ has been undertaken to determine whether a refined range of alternatives may be carried from the Terms of Reference Stage into the Environmental Assessment, referred to as a ‘Focused Environmental Assessment’."
Projections suggest the approved capacity at the Southampton Landfill Site will be exhausted in the next six to eight years, or sometime during the period between 2030 and 2032. Based on a 40-year planning period commencing in 2030, it is estimated that there will be a need for approximately one-million cubic meters (m3) of landfill capacity.
Members of the public, agencies, Indigenous Communities, and other interested persons are encouraged to actively participate in the planning process by attending consultation opportunities, reviewing the project documentation, sharing information, and providing comments related to the project.
The first public information centre is planned for Thursday, May 9, 2024 from 6:30pm tp 7:30pm, followed by a presentation at 7:30 p.m. at the Southampton Town Hall at 201 High Street.