Councillor Gord Perks is city council's most ardent environmentalist. He is also one of Mayor Rob Ford's sharpest critics. Last week, he scored a two-fer, getting his way on key environmental issues and handing Mr. Ford and his allies a rare defeat in the process. "We had a very good council meeting," a pleased Mr. Perks said in his City Hall office the other day.
But Mr. Perks's victories may be costly for the city. Council's vote to approve a sophisticated ultraviolet-light system to treat wastewater at the Ashbridges Bay sewage plant could carry a price tag of up to $66-million, not to mention additional operating costs of $440,000 a year. Its decision to reject a new incinerator at the Highland Creek treatment plant in Scarborough could cost millions more over time.
Both decisions fly in the face of advice from city staff. In the Ashbridges Bay case, staff performed an exhaustive environmental assessment and concluded that continuing to treat wastewater with chlorine was the best and the cheapest solution. Just to be sure, it hired consultants to review its decision. They agreed.
Now Mr. Perks, in his wisdom, says they are all wrong. "The use of chlorine to bleach out discharge means the creation of a wide range of toxic chemicals that would not otherwise be entering the Great Lakes," he told council. He says that the process leaves behind exotic chemicals like trihalomethanes and organohalogens, which are known "mutagens, toxicants and carcinogens."
Scary stuff, but the respected general manager of Toronto Water, Lou Di Gironimo, says that, after chemical cleansing, any wastewater entering the lake would be well within environmental purity standards. That apparently means nothing to Mr. Perks, who had the cheek to level this blast at Mr. Di Gironimo in front of city council: "The general manager of water believes the right thing to do is spend less money and pollute more. I believe the opposite."
Mr. Di Gironimo takes all this calmly. It is councillors' prerogative to reject staff advice, he says. "I respect the political process and I take my direction from them. Our role as staff is to do the homework." Even so, it seems a little mad to solicit staff advice on such a devilishly complex issue only to reject it. Why on Earth does city hall hire expert staff if it is going to ignore them?
In the case of Highland Creek, Mr. Di Gironimo's staff recommends replacing its out-of-date multiple-hearth incinerators with modern fluidized-bed incinerators. State-of-the-art air scrubbers would get rid of any pollutants that might come out of the chimney.
Again, an outside panel reviewed the decision-making process and declared it sound. Again, that was not enough for councillors like Mr. Perks, who overturned a decision by the city's public works committee that backed staff's recommendation. They argue that any kind of incineration risks fouling the air.
If council's decision stands, the city will have to truck sewage sludge away from Highland Creek. That means building a special loading facility for the four to five tractor trailers that would leave the plant daily, trundling through city streets with their noisome loads. The cost, when an odour-control unit is rolled in, would be $97-million.
It also means finding someplace to put the stuff. The city is already struggling to find takers for the sludge from Ashbridges Bay. Directing it to the city's Green Lane landfill could overwhelm the site's capacity.
Mr. Perks is a passionate and committed councillor with many years of environmental activism behind him at such groups as Greenpeace, Pollution Probe and the Toronto Environmental Alliance. "This is my bread and butter," he says of the campaign against chlorine treatment and incineration. "This is what I've been doing all my adult life."
But passion isn't what is called for here. It is sober, impartial advice. That is just what city staff provided. What a shame that council chose to disregard it.
Marcus Gee