Ontario's Liberal government is trying to forestall a $300-million legal battle over its decision to block the politically entangled plan to use the Adams Mine pit in Northern Ontario as a dump for garbage from Toronto.
Legislation introduced yesterday would prevent the mine's owners from continuing a lawsuit they have already launched in the battle over the garbage plan.
The government's decision yesterday reverses earlier environmental approvals by the government and a go-ahead that the previous Progressive Conservative cabinet gave the scheme in August, 1998.
As a result, the promoters of the project have filed a lawsuit seeking compensation not only for out-of-pocket expenses but also for the loss of what they said would have been future profits.
Natural Resources Minister David Ramsay yesterday told residents in the area of the mine pit, 600 kilometres north of Toronto, that legislation would permanently prevent the water-filled excavation from becoming a home to garbage.
Under the scheme, Toronto would have signed a 20-year contract worth about $1-billion to send 700,000 tonnes a year of garbage to the mine pit. Other Southern Ontario municipalities were considering similar deals.
Toronto council approved the proposal in August, 2000, before reversing itself about two months later.
The pit now is being used for fish farming with hatcheries raising trout and Arctic char.
"This has been a long time coming. The people of Temiskaming have been fighting this project for at least 15 years now. It's a project that has really divided our community," Mr. Ramsay said in a telephone interview yesterday.
"People have invested so much of themselves and their time and their money and emotions into this. It's a great day for the people who led that fight," said Mr. Ramsay, whose home community of New Liskeard lies south of the controversial site, formerly an open-pit iron mine.
The government's decision yesterday has no immediate impact on the contentious question of how to deal with the garbage produced by Toronto and surrounding municipalities.
Toronto now sends its garbage to Michigan, but that state has indicated its displeasure with being host to foreign waste.
In fact, Toronto politicians endorsed the government's decision, which Environment Minister Leona Dombrowsky announced in Toronto.
"Good for them," Mayor David Miller said. "We are better off not having that option on the table. We can focus on what really needs to be done, which is to move ahead significantly with progress on environmental initiatives."
Asked whether the Adams Mine now is, in the words of his predecessor, Mel Lastman, "D.E.D," the mayor smiled and said, "I think it is D.E.A.D."
The city has pledged to end its reliance on landfill, including sending garbage to Michigan, by 2010.
City works committee chairwoman Jane Pitfield said the province's decision "will come as a great relief to many residents in the city of Toronto but also to the communities in the north."
Mr. Ramsay's long-time foe on the issue, the chief proponent of the mine project, Gordon McGuinty, had been anticipating the decision. In November, Mr. McGuinty and the company of which he is president, Notre Development Corp., launched a lawsuit against the government for $301-million.
"We've done everything absolutely the way every statute and piece of legislation indicates," Mr. McGuinty told The Globe and Mail at the time. He did not return telephone calls from The Globe yesterday.
(Gordon McGuinty is a distant relative of Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty.)