Bylaw blitz hits truckers with 145 tickets for dirt dumping at Flamborough farm
Hamilton has charged the landowner of a fire-razed Flamborough farm over ongoing soil dumping and handed out 145 tickets to truckers bringing in the out-of-town fill, too.
Bylaw officers blitzed incoming truckers with $500 fines last week at 1802 Regional Road 97 for bringing in fill excavated outside of Hamilton's border, which is illegal under city bylaw.
The city also charged the landowner, Justin Holmes, for bringing in thousands of loads of fill without a site alteration permit. That more serious charge will go through provincial offences court, with a maximum possible fine of $25,000.
Bylaw head Monica Ciriello said the enforcement blitz represented a lot more" fines - they total $72,500 - than she can recall being issued at any one property since the city banned out-of-town soil dumping in 2019.
She said the city is aware of neighbour concerns about the dumping and will continue monitoring the property through the holidays. But Ciriello also cautioned the city does not have the authority" to block trucks from entering the farm.
Despite the charge and the city's ban on out-of-town fill, Holmes said he intends to continue bringing in clean soil" from Hamilton and nearby communities like Cambridge and Burlington, arguing he is more concerned about provincial approval than a city bylaw he considers unfair.
He said his goal is to raise the front 40 acres of his low-lying" and stony" farm acreage by 1.3 metres, including yet-to-arrive fresh topsoil.
But I'm going to try to reduce the volume of trucks coming in (daily)," he said in an interview last week. That seems to be the big thing that's bothering people."
Holmes said he has a court date in February, but still hopes to receive a site alteration permit from the city to resolve" the dispute. He said ideally, he would start farming the newly raised land in June.
The landowner previously acknowledged neighbours were worried about the environmental state of the property, which suffered a massive fire in August fuelled by stored pallets of hand sanitizer. The blaze took two days to quench and destroyed two barns and parked transport trailers.
Some neighbours say they are also worried contaminated soil could end up on the farm, affecting nearby creeks or the groundwater. They point to the now-infamous example of Mob-linked mountains of polluted fill left abandoned at Waterdown Garden Supplies on Highway 5.
Holmes, however, said he has given documents to the provincial Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks that show the incoming soil is clean. If the city wants to test the soil, he said, it is welcome to do so.
By email, the ministry said it verified the source and appropriateness of incoming soil in the summer. It added the ministry has since asked for copies of all soil analysis reports and details pertaining to the volume of material received" and will continue to monitor the project for environmental compliance.
Area resident Marie Mcgeachy said Friday she is very happy" the city has taken action at the farm.
I'm glad something is being done," said Mcgeachy, who nonetheless expressed disappointed the city is not looking at the quality of the dumped material.
Mcgeachy argued thousands of additional loads of material have been trucked in since the province inspected the property in the summer. She and other area residents have also insisted in interviews with The Spectator that the soil is coming in from development excavations in cities other than Cambridge.
Ciriello was unable to immediately say whether bylaw officers have determined the municipal source of fill transported by truckers or trucking companies that have been ticketed so far.
Matthew Van Dongen is a transportation and environment reporter at The Spectator. mvandongen@thespec.com