Residents on the Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory, in Tyendinaga Township and others living near the now closed Richmond Landfill site are alarmed about a recent dumping of potentially harmful leachate at the dump.
According to Concerned Citizens of Tyendinaga and Environs, Waste Management believed it had to dump over 13,000 litres (3,500 gallons) of leachate onto the ground at the landfill site instead of a storage lagoon back on January 14.
Normally, leachate is dumped at the Napanee sewage treatment plant but it was closed due to being overloaded because of wet weather.
Because of thawing ground on the site’s fields the truck’s driver believed he couldn’t safely get to the lagoon and dumped the load in a wooded area.
Waste Management has collected water samples in the area but results aren’t known yet.
Ian Munro of Concerned Citizens says the dumping is of grave concern because it occurred near the headwaters of Marysville Creek which runs through Tyendinaga Township and through the Mohawk Territory.
Leachate could poison water supplies for both humans and animals.
Concerned Citizens and others have also said that Waste Management should be barred from ever dumping leachate into the lagoon because it has been proven to leak out into the groundwater.
