Should city clean up dirt mountain?

Residents living near Waterdown Garden Supplies in Troy want to know what a new council will do to get rid of polluted soil

For Jim Whelan, the upcoming city election marks the four-year anniversary of government failure to prevent a dirt-dumping “disaster” across the road from his rural Troy home.

In 2018, trucks started piling what would become 24,000 loads of mystery soil at Waterdown Garden Supplies on Highway 5. The polluted dirt mountains remain four years later — despite multiple provincial cleanup orders, environmental charges and unproven lawsuits alleging a Mob-linked illegal dumping scheme.

Whelan and his neighbours worry pollutants in the soil — including lead, cyanide and oil confirmed in past tests — will eventually end up in the groundwater they drink. (Recent city tests show nearby wells are clean so far.)

With an election looming, the well-known horse farm owner wants to know if a new council “will do more to protect us.” The outspoken advocate even argues the city has an ethical obligation to help clean up if no one else will.

“They let (the dumping) happen — and we still don’t know why,” said Whelan, who believes the city had the ability to stop the trucks that regularly lined up outside the property. Despite resident complaints, dumping continued for months — including 500 loads of soil excavated from a municipal water-main project in Dundas.

The city did seek a court injunction against dumping at the property as far back as 2015. Citing ongoing litigation, the city has refused to explain why it did not or could not use that injunction to prevent the mass dumping that occurred three years later.

The province has ordered both the corporate landowner, Waterdown Garden Supplies, and the main alleged soil-dumper, Havana Group Supplies, to do testing and

cleanup. Three years after that order, the piles remain.

But unpaid taxes on the property are also piling up. So, in theory, the city could soon put the property on the market via tax sale, or even take it over and clean up.

That doesn’t happen very often — but Hamilton did it in 2017 in order to clean up barrels of toxic waste at a polluted North End property that the city now hopes to sell to a film studio.

Property records obtained by The Spectator show Hamilton registered a tax arrears certificate for Waterdown Garden Supplies in June related to an unpaid amount of nearly $580,000. That means the owner must settle up before next summer or risk a tax sale.

Gary McHale, the sole director of Waterdown Garden Supplies, maintains he was also a victim in the dumping scheme because the company was evicted from the property by court order over a mortgage dispute in late 2018.

But he added the company is nonetheless trying to raise money for a cleanup by renting out the property again — despite neighbourhood unease and a new bylaw probe. McHale said via email that the company has started testing soil piles to determine contamination levels and the “long-term” plan is to return the property to agricultural use.

He dismissed the idea that the city would ever consider seizing the property. “I doubt the city will suddenly take responsibility for the whole property if they won’t deal with the soil they dump there,” he said, referring to 500 loads of soil a watermain contractor for the city was found to have off-loaded in Troy.

Regardless, McHale and the corporation have also launched multiple lawsuits claiming hundreds of millions of dollars in damages against other parties they allege are responsible for the polluted mess — most recently against the City of Toronto and Town of Oakville. The untested suits allege polluted soil from municipal projects in those cities ended up at Waterdown Garden.

McHale has also launched a constitutional challenge aiming to have all environmental charges against himself tossed and recently filed a $35,000 small-claims action against Whelan, alleging the Troy resident has trespassed at the soildumping site, in person and by

f a drone, thus “interfering” with business on the property.

Whelan denies the claims, arguing he received permission from a past site operator and the ministry to check on “unusual activity” at the infamous illegal dumping site. He labelled the imidate” legal action him. an effort to “intt

McHale’s most notable civil claims were filed last year against Havana and the City of Hamilton, alleging municipal officials conspired with the company to illegally dump polluted soil on the Highway 5 site. The Spectator previously reported Havana was headed by convicted fraudster Steve Sardinha and counted slain mobster Pat Musitano as a silent partner.

The city hired a third-party investigator to probe the lawsuit allegations and announced last year it found “no evidence” to support the conspiracy claims against municipal employees. The probe did confirm, however, that a city contractor used Havana to truck 500 loads of “clean” soil from a Dundas water-main project to the Troy site.