MPP Andrea Horwath is demanding a provincial investigation into Hamilton's plans to excavate 70,000 tonnes of the toxic Rennie Street Landfill. "This landfill site is toxic," Horwath told the provincial legislature today. "It contains hazardous material including PCBs and old pesticides."

Earlier this month, Hamilton city council approved a $62 million contract to open up the dump as part of the construction of the Red Hill Creek Expressway. The contract was $15.5 million higher that expected, primarily because of the risks of digging into the old landfill.

Horwath cited city contract documents that say "no guarantees can be made regarding the potential health effects associated with activities on this site". The committee overseeing the landfill cleanup has raised similar concerns about the health threats to residents, some of whom live within 200 metres of the excavation site, and Horwath also echoed these. The dump and residents fall within Horwath's Hamilton East constituency.

Four years ago, Hamilton was fined $458,000 for knowingly allowing the dump to leak into Red Hill Creek. It was the largest municipal environmental fine in Canadian history. The excavation for the expressway requires disruption of an $11-million leachate collection system that the court required Hamilton to install between the dump and the creek.

Horwath also pointed to last week's report of Ontario 's Environmental Commissioner, Gord Miller, which included a damning investigation of the failure of the Ministry of Environment to enforce environmental regulations on the controversial expressway project. Miller charged that the "MOE is not prepared to vigorously enforce requirements that flow out of the EAA [Environmental Assessment Act] process."

The dump excavation is expected to start next week, about six weeks behind schedule because of the contract cost issue. Horwath wants environment minister Leona Dombrowsky to investigate the situation before allowing work to begin.

When the city was fined in 2000, local residents demanded the entire dump be removed, but were told that this was much too dangerous to consider. However, Hamilton officials now say the expressway cannot be built unless about a quarter of the toxic site is dug up and trucked away.

The excavation will involve hundreds of trucks and take six months of dawn to dusk work. The city has not revealed where the material will be taken, but Sarnia is the nearest site licensed to receive toxic materials.

The provincial Environmental Protection Act requires an extensive approval process before altering a landfill, but MOE officials decided that the excavation did not constitute an "alteration". The Ministry also dismissed extensive evidence that materials had been added to the landfill in the last 25 years, a situation that would also require special approval to consider building a highway through it.