BOARD OFFICIAL GRILLED ON NEW SCHOOL BY DUMP

'I DON'T KNOW IF THEY'VE EVER PUT A SCHOOL THAT CLOSE TO A LANDFILL'

A citizen member of the Taro industrial dump's community liaison committee is being assured there are no environmental or safety concerns about the Hamilton public school board's plan to build an elementary school near the upper Stoney Creek site.

Jeff Isowa said he expects problems with traffic safety because "very large trucks" exit the dump onto First Road West, which is one of only two ways to get to the school, along with Green Mountain Road.

Add in that both roads only have sidewalks on one side and intersect at a roundabout and "it becomes even more challenging," he said at the liaison committee's

March 13 online meeting.

"I think it's really going to cause a tremendous amount of problems," Isowa said. "Once people get a little bit upset about that, they'll start pointing fingers in the landfill's direction and they'll start complaining up against that, too."

The province is providing a $16.7-million grant for the 650-student school at the northwest corner of Green Mountain Road and First Road West in the Nash neighbourhood.

Coun. Brad Clark, who represents the area, said early plans showed school buses will travel to and from the school via Green Mountain Road "to minimize conflict" with the dump's trucks, which will continue using First Road West.

Ellen Warling, the school board's manager of planning, accommodations and rentals, said "transportation will be looked at" during the school's site-plan approval process.

Besides having buses use Green Mountain Road, possible measures to increase safety include a "kiss and ride" area for parents to drop off and pick up their kids, she said.

"Parents picking up and dropping off kids happens at every other school," said Warling, whose presence ended the board's year-long absence at the liaison committee's quarterly meetings, which typically

run about half an hour.

"I'm not trying to diminish that, I'm just saying that it is an issue for us at every one of our sites," she said. "We'll work with the principal before we start the school to provide information to parents around pickup and drop-off."

Isowa also asked if the board will do an environmental study or take soil samples at the 2.4-hectare school site, also located north of the closed Taro west dump, which doesn't have a liner.

"Our (area's) children are going to be there, so those are things that are going to come up," he said. "I don't know if they've ever put a school that close to a landfill."

Warling said the board does its due diligence before buying a school site and would have done so in this case.

"We would not have acquired the site if there had been any significant concerns," she said, adding she will take Isowa's suggestion that any environmental studies be made public back to her bosses.

Clark said he assumes the board completed an environmental impact study, as was required of any developer building homes within the dump's 500-metre impact zone.

"I can tell you I have asked public health to look at this at least two or three times — not specific to the school — but in terms to risk to the public health, and each time they've come back indicating that there is no concern," he said.

"The only risk to people would be if they were actually getting in the landfill and playing in the landfill, and of course that doesn't happen, so there is no opportunity for anyone to come directly in contact with the residual material that is being landfilled."

The committee didn't discuss former public school trustee Cam Galindo's March 2022 request for help organizing an open house to allay concerns about the school's proximity to the dump, owned by GFL Environmental Inc.

The site received provincial approval in September 2019 to increase its capacity by nearly 60 per cent, including by placing waste closer to Green Mountain Road.