MARK-ALAN WHITTLE
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A TALE OF THREE LOCAL TOXIC WASTE SAMPLES

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After reading Richard Leitner's shocking expose on the cities abuse of the sewer system (Dirty Business June 19), I vividly recalled a lesson I learned about toxic landfill leachate and the harm it will cause to the harbour and the aquatic life that resides there.
About three years ago, I got permission to personally take samples from three local waste disposal facilities and compare them in a McMaster University laboratory for toxicity to aquatic life and discover what would happen when millions of litres of toxic landfill leachate was spewed into the harbour all at once.
Early one bright and sunny morning, I visited the Upper Ottawa Street waste facility. A city worker met me at the gate and opened the forcemain cover so I could lower the rope and bucket into the gushing torrent of toxic leachate spewing into the sewer un- metered.
The outflow was like Niagara Falls, and that was during a dry spell, when low levels of toxic output are the norm.
While scooping up the leachate, I detected an overpowering chemical odor that wrinkled my nose and reminded me of the smell of ether.
The next stop on my sampling tour was the Glanbrook waste facility, which was only partially capped at the time.
When I arrived, there was no need to get at the main collection point for a sample as toxic landfill leachate was gushing to the surface of the landfill in seeps not even ten feet from a tributary of the much-vaunted Red Hill Creek.
I ended up taking my sample from a collection pond that automatically overflowed into a small creek that feeds into the Red Hill Creek, which eventually contaminates the harbour and the city's drinking-water supply.
My final stop of the day was the Taro Waste Facility in upper Stoney Creek. After arriving unannounced and requesting permission to acquire a raw leachate sample, I was denied until I mentioned that I already had samples from the Upper Ottawa Street and Glanbrook facilities stashed in my car in the parking lot.
As it turns out, Taro leachate was less toxic than the samples from the Glanbrook and Upper Ottawa Street facilities, which I had tested at the university. Very cold comfort, considering that aquatic life went belly up after being submerged for less than three minutes in the Upper Ottawa Street landfill leachate, about 10 minutes for the Glanbrook Waste Facility and a lifetime of about twenty minutes swimming in the landfill leachate from the Taro Waste Facility.