THUNDER BAY — Oliver Paipoonge council is concerned about firefighting capabilities at a GFL Environmental waste transfer station and recycling facility in the event that a planned expansion goes ahead.
The operation is located on a 10-hectare parcel on Haniak Road south of Arthur Street.
Council rejected GFL's bid to amend the zoning by-law and rezone the site from light industrial to heavy industrial, which would allow for a major expansion.
So far, GFL has not commented on the dispute.
"There is not a good fire plan for this location," Oliver Paipoonge Mayor Lucy Kloosterhuis told TBnewswatch. "We do not have the capability of fighting a fire there."
Kloosterhuis said Oliver Paipoonge has neither sufficient equipment nor enough volunteer firefighters to handle a major fire at the site on its own, and can't rely on the availability of adequate backup support from the Thunder Bay fire service.
"We do not have a valid fire plan whereby the company can show us that if there is a fire there, they can work and assist themselves in putting out the fire, or having the fire not spread," she added.
According to the mayor, petroleum products are recycled at that location,"and this increase would mean larger containers to hold this product before it's shipped out somewhere else, so it's basically a holding centre for this product...but it is surrounded by all light industrial operations."
Kloosterhuis referred to a fire at a facility in the southern U.S., where the same kind of product is stored, that "burned for days and days and days."
She said the GFL site may never experience a fire, but if one does break out, it will threaten all the surrounding light industrial businesses.
"That's why we, individually, all have fire insurance. We don't get it saying 'We're gonna have a fire so we need insurance,' but we get it in case there is a fire. Their fire plan was not sufficient....They need to have some kind of plan that says if ever there is a fire here, we have these systems set up in our yard and in our buildings to stop that fire."
The mayor said Oliver Paipoonge is not saying that GFL cannot expand its operation, but that it should consider a more isolated location rather than a place that has multiple businesses nearby.
The company has appealed council's refusal to re-zone the property with the Ontario Land Tribunal.
The tribunal recently scheduled a hearing for February 2024, but in a March 28 notice it indicated that the two parties anticipate that at least some matters may be resolved through mediation.
