By: Pam Wright, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Chatham Voice
Chatham-Kent officials have taken their concerns about the York1 landfill straight to the top.
The pitch, made at the Rural Ontario Municipal Association conference in Toronto, asked Ontario Environment Minister Todd McCarthy to consider the impacts the Dresden dump expansion will have on the community.
Chatham-Kent deputy CAO Dave Taylor, who was part of the group that spoke with McCarthy, said the information appeared to be well-received.
“We had a good meeting with him,” Taylor told The Chatham Voice, noting councillors Jamie McGrail, Amy Finn and Alysson Storey were part of the discussion.
“We are continuing to communicate that the community and our council is opposed to this proposal,” Taylor said, adding the government’s decision to remove the Environmental Assessment from the York1 project by passing Bill 5 is especially concerning.
A dearth of information about what comes next for the landfill is also worrisome, Taylor said.
“The focus we had was trying to get some information for the community,” he said. “York1 has sent out information about changes regarding the proposal, but we haven’t actually seen anything concrete from them.”
C-K officials have many questions about the project and that was part of the “big ask,” Taylor said.
“We don’t know how decisions are going to be made. Is the community going to get details of the proposal? Are there still going to be opportunities for public engagement and feedback? The citizens obviously have questions and the municipality doesn’t have any answers.”
According to Taylor, McCarthy acknowledged C-K’s concerns, and “seemed to genuinely understand residents are in an information vacuum.
“We again conveyed we are opposed to this, but again the main ask was to give us a roadmap as to how decisions are going to be made and how information is going to be shared,” Taylor explained.
The meeting with McCarthy is the latest development in the ongoing saga of Dresden’s derelict dump site on Irish School Road north of town. After the scope of the project was discovered by chance on the Environmental Registry of Ontario in February of 2024, the community, including Walpole Island First Nation, mounted fierce opposition.
Ontario’s opposition leaders have added their voices too bringing the matter to the floor of the Ontario legislature. But their concerns went unheeded and in June 2025, the province passed an omnibus bill called Bill 5. It specifically named the York1 landfill, exempting it from an environmental assessment placed on it by former Ontario environment minister Andrea Khanjin.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford even weighed in on the issue, stating publicly the Dresden dump is needed to handle Ontario’s waste in the event U.S. President Donald Trump closes the border. Currently, Michigan and New York accept Ontario garbage.
Other big-name organizations, such as Environmental Defense Canada, are also part of the opposition.
Mississauga-based York1 is looking to build a regenerative recycling facility there. A leachate ponding system to accommodate soil washing would also be constructed, which opponents say is dangerously close to a sensitive waterway.
York1 officials have stated their main objective is to recycle non-hazardous construction waste.
If approved, hundreds of trucks – as many as 600 a day – will travel to the site transporting construction waste from outside Chatham-Kent.
Throughout the process, York1 officials maintained they have consulted with Chatham-Kent and Walpole Island First Nation, but both parties say this hasn’t been done. And while there were several informal meetings with C-K officials dating back to 2021, Chatham-Kent said they have never received a formal request or application from the company.
In November of last year, York1 launched a legal challenge against Chatham-Kent, saying no additional permit, zoning changes or environmental assessments are needed from the municipality based on existing land-use approvals from the past.
Taylor said C-K has yet to respond to York1, as it has not received all of the documentation.
“Their lawyers have yet to serve us with all the documents,” he said. “We’re waiting for them to get us all the information and we’ll make our full response at that point.
“They (York1) are saying they don’t have to get land-use approvals from our council,” Taylor stated. “We disagree with that and we’ve told them that. We’ve told them that they have to go through the normal process, including changes to C-K’s official plan.”
The matter will go before a judge when the legal documents from both sides are submitted.
