Georgina ramps up legal action over ‘illegal’ fill operation

Owners of property 'basically thumbing their nose at us at this point,' Mayor Margaret Quirk

Yorkregion.com
June 12, 2018
Heidi Riedner

After a successful four-year challenge to a large-scale fill operation in the tiny hamlet of Baldwin, area residents were alarmed to see hundreds of dump trucks, once again, making a daily trek through their neighbourhood to the same “illegal” dumping site last month.

Under new ownership, the property, located at 6107 Smith Blvd., has been subject to litigation in the past involving the Town of Georgina, the Ministry of Natural Resources and lawyers representing previous owners Marvin Blanchard and Leonard Rosenberg over fill applications and subsequent dumping activities.

Despite Superior Court and Appeals Court decisions, including injunctions against the dumping of fill, hundreds of trucks have been entering the property during the past month.

That prompted numerous area residents, including Sarah Smithias, to raise the alarm with the town.

“This is a huge environmental issue,” Smithias said, echoing the sentiments of many of her outraged neighbours.

“Not only are they ignoring a court-ordered injunction, but there are literally hundreds of trucks going by my house daily into that property dumping who knows what,” she added.

Concerned about potential threats to the soil, groundwater and nearby river from unregulated and potentially contaminated soil, Smithias reached out to various agencies, including the town, the Lake Simcoe Region Conservation Authority and the Ministry of Natural Resources in hopes they could stop the illegal activity.

“Nothing is being monitored and no one is stopping it,” she said. “This is a serious issue that could impact the entire watershed and that affects everyone, not just our neighbourhood or our community. And even if the fill is clean, it is still being done illegally.”

Those facts weren’t lost on Mayor Margaret Quirk, who said the owners of the property are “basically thumbing their nose at us at this point,” during an update on the situation to council June 6.

Aware of the concerns from the community regarding the potential risks to the environment from unregulated and untested fill going on the property, Quirk said, “right now we are just trying to get it stopped.”

Specific options available to the town were being brought back to council this week, but the town’s director of development services, Harold Lenters, said town lawyers have been asked to take “every step possible as quickly as possible.”

After residents notified the town of the ramped up activity in their neighbourhood May 29, town staff went on site for an inspection, advised the people doing the trucking that fill was not permitted at the site and that there were no municipal approvals for the activity, Lenters said, adding a subsequent order served on the owners to cease was ignored.

“It’s frustrating for everybody because of what’s happening, but, unfortunately, there is a due process that has to be taken,” he said.

“The papers that need to be filed and served against the owners are being done now,."