May 3/04 Report
Scheduled start time: 9:30 am, Actual start time: 9:35 am, Adjournment 11:30 am

Committee Members Present:

• Chad Collins (chair)
• Dave Braden
• Phil Bruckler
• Murray Ferguson
• Tom Jackson
• Margaret McCarthy
• Sam Merulla
• Dave Mitchell

Non-Members Present:

• Larry DiIanni (Ex-Officio)
• Brian McHattie
• Terry Whitehead

2. CHANGES TO THE AGENDA

• Added staff report 8.4
• Added motion 10.1 (to remove item H. from outstanding business list)

3. APPROVAL OF MINUTES

3.1 Minutes of the April 19, 2004 meeting.

4. DELEGATION REQUESTS

None.

5. ITEMS REFERRED FROM COUNCIL

None

6. CONSENT ITEMS

6.1 Speed Limit Request for Amberwood Street (PW04048) - (Ward 9)

6.2 To Incorporate Certain City Land into Various Streets by By-Law (PW04049) - (Wards 7, 8, 12, and 14)

6.3 Tree Removal Request - Mohawk Sports Park Four Pad Arena Site (PW04052) - (Ward 6)
Twenty trees to be removed and replaced at cost of $48K.
Braden - can I request more information on the specific breakdown of costs?

7. PUBLIC HEARINGS/DELEGATIONS

7.1 Suzanne McInnes, MCIP, RPP, Watershed Planning Coordinator, Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority, March 19, 2004, respecting Watershed Plan for Twenty Mile Creek.

7.2 (late addition) Proposed Road Allowance Closure: A Portion of Kingsview Drive.
Staff recommends turning down the application.

8. STAFF PRESENTATIONS

8.1 Contaminated Sites Management Program for Municipal Works - (PW04053) - (City Wide)

(McCarthy/Merulla)

(a) That the City of Hamilton adopt the Contaminated Sites Management Program with full implementation by December 31, 2004, and that City of Hamilton Department Heads be directed to:

1. Use the Contaminated Sites Management Program as a requirement in dealing with contaminated sites associated with Capital Works projects and property transactions by December 31, 2004.
2. Implement the training Program by December 31, 2004.
3. Appoint an Interdepartmental Steering Committee to monitor the ongoing effectiveness of the Program.

(b) That the General Manager of the Public Works Department be directed to act as the lead coordinator for the Program.

CARRIED

8.2 Sewer Use By-law Review - Phase 1 - (PW04050) - (City Wide)

Recommendation to adopt new by-law that raises Chlorides limit from 1500 to 5000 mg/l and keeps Sulphate restrictions at current level.

Merulla - This is an overstrength agreement. Why do we have standards if we can just pay to break those standards?

Jim (staff) - I don't think we're paying to break those standards, I think we're recovering the cost to the City to remove those parameters. We're acting as, the City is not the polluter per se, the City is removing a pollutant from the effluent and the City is charging the discharger to do that.

Merulla - With respect to the treatment plant itself, if you exceed those standards, is th plant cabable of dealing with the increase of the volume of those items?

Jim (staff) - For chlorides and sulphates, the plant has a very low tolerance right now. The chlorides are sitting at about 120-300 on average. The 300 creeps up during the winter from the road salt. And the sulphates being discharged from the plant are around 50 mg/l on average.

Merulla - so why do we have standards again?

Jim (staff) - most municipalities are removing the parameters for chlorides and sulphates, they don't see them as an issue. We would like to keep these in our bylaw just to keep track of them. Right now we don't see any industry discharging them beyond the lower limit, but we would like to keep it in there as a standard to track it. If it does become an issue, the discharger would need to pay for the additional testing. If it does hit over 4000 the discharger would need to pay for the degradation of the sewer system and over 5000 they would need to enter into a compliance report.

Merulla - with respect to enforcement component, how many actions have we taken for all parameters?

Jim (staff) - Approximately 20 per year.

Merulla - how many potential offenders are there? how many businesses could exceed the limit potentially?

Jim (staff) - with respect to sulphites and chlorides, there is nobody discharging over 1500 right now.

Merulla - other parameters?

Jim (staff) - other paramenters currently, it's really a moving target. Part of Phase 2 of this process is other treatable parameters and Phase 3 is untreatable parameters.

Merulla - do we have an approximate number of the number of companies out there that could possibly ever exceed these limits?

Jim (staff) - from my water meter background I know that there are approximately 1200 industrial customers out there in the City, I don't know if that would answer your question?

Merulla - yes, that answers it. So out of about 1200 businesses, we've sent about 20 notices. Thankyou.

DiIanni - I just want to focus on the Taro example re: overstrength agreements, who will be in the position to be over the 1500 mg/l - at 1750 did you say? Alright, so they would then be in a position to enter into the overstrength agreement with us?

Jim (staff) - 1500 is the sulphates limit, Taro is running at an average of 1720 and we wouldn't enter into an overstrength agreement with them but rather a compliance agreement so we would ask them to comply and get their sulphates below 1500.

DiIanni - And what if they don't comply?

Jim (staff) - They by-law lays out enforcement actions for 1 st notice, 2 nd notice, 3 rd notice, and then there is legal action.

DiIanni - What is the implication of this case and others of being over the limit we'd like to see?

Jim (staff) - The 5 items that we looked at: I) the impacts to sewage treatment plant; ii) the impacts to health & safety, iii) the impacts to environment iv) the impacts to our infrastructure v) impacts to biosolids. We set these targets based on the 1988 sewer model from the MOE and the reason we are updating this process is to see if those parameters are still the proper limits to have set. Because the last review was in 1989.

DiIanni - Could you just clarify for me how this differs from the 1989 review and subsequent bylaw.

Jim (staff) - The 2 limits were both 1500 in 1989 and we agreed that those 2 limits should stay. With the chlorides limits we have raised it from 1500 to 4000 with additional testing on the financial responsibility of the discharger. And between 4000 and 5000 you start to degrade the pipe and 5000 was the limit that was going to impact on the waste treatment plant and the environment.

So we've not really relaxed those limits. What we've done is studied them further and got tighter limits to see exactly what their impacts are at various stages.

DiIanni - In terms of the 6 treatable parameters reflected in the bylaw, how does that involve sulphates and chlorides.

Jim (staff) - The 6 treatable parameters are the ones that we do enter into overstrenght agreements with. Chlorides and sulphates are not treatable parameters at the plant right now, so we need to recognize that, and recognize the impact to the infrastructure and that anything over 1500 for sulphates and 4000 for chlorides is degrading our infrastructure. We wanted to ensure that these 2 parameters (which have been associated with leachate) are at appropriate levels with respect to other municipalities and the MOE.

DiIanni - I didn't think that sulphates and chlorides were treatable at our plant. Are they treatable at any sewage treatment plant?

Jim (staff) - No they're not.

DiIanni - Do all communities have this stuff by the way?

Jim (staff) - Chlorides are an issue for all municipalities with road salt in the winter time as well as a majority of municipalities do accept leachate into their sewage system based on a set of parameters.

DiIanni - In terms of the sulphates and the chlorides, the fact that they're not treatable is a concern, but you're saying if you're going to have this stuff, it shouldn't exceed this limit? And did I hear you say most municipalities don't even address sulphates and chlorides?

Jim (staff) - That's correct. The majority of municipalities in Ontario adopted the 1988 model from MOE verbatim but what has happened in the last 5-6 years is that most municipalities have removed sulphates and chlorides from their by-laws altogether.

DiIanni - So then I'm a little confused about that. If you're saying that most municipalities don't even concern themselves with it because it's not an issue, but we're going to set limits (which suggests that for us it is an issue) but those limits cannot exceed those numbers you've just given us. Why have we set those numbers as acceptable limits for non-treatable discharges?

Jim (staff) - We were attempting to track those parameters in our bylaw. Being a heavily industrialized city the possibility of those parameters being exceeded is higher than in other jurisdictions. As well as the fact that we our accepting leachate from 3 different sources, Rennie, Brampton Street, Glanbrook, as well as Taro. Other municipalities have removed it due to either their smaller size or that they are not as industrialized.

(McCarthy/Merulla)

(a) That Report PW04050 be received for information and request for public input.

(b) That Public Delegations be invited to an upcoming Public Works, Infrastructure & Environment Committee meeting, following which staff report back to Committee on final By-law approval.

CARRIED

8.3 Open Space Replacement Strategy - (PW04051) - (City Wide)

Merulla - this plan is for open space on mountain - what about parks in wards next to Valley in lower City?

Chris Murray - this land is all open space right now, so easier - but we haven't ruled anything out and Rennie area is another one up for consideration.

Merulla's Motion (passed): expand Committee membership to include Councillors of Wards 4,5,6 and 9.

McHattie - great to increase greenspace, but concerned about the ecological value - has there been any consideration of this?

Chris Murray - yes, effort made to maximize natural area component of trail network/corridor.

Braden - "Let's not fool ourselves here, this is not an ecological replacement for the Valley."

-Trails and open space is important, generally supportive. Does this trail go anywhere? Have there been efforts to make this trail a feasible way for people to commute to work or do errands or is it just a suburban recreational trail?

-also expressed concerns about opportunity-cost: "Are there some areas here that make more sense to develop as housing?"

Jackson - glad that Chris Murray emphasized that we don't need to purchase private homeowners lands to make this project work because those 12 homes in my ward at the top of the valley that are still semi-rural have been given the opportunity to sell and they have decided that they want to stay there. They know the pros and cons of the Expressway and they have decided to stay so don't want to have to infringe on them.

Voted unanimously to pass the recommendations a-d (with amendment by Merulla).

(Merulla/Jackson)

1. That the open space replacement concept identified in Appendix A be accepted by Council as the basis for developing an implementation strategy that will protect lands for open space and trail purposes in Wards 4, 5, 6 and 9, and that Rennie Street and the Woodward Airport Strip be included for consideration.
   
   
2. That Capital Planning and Implementation staff be directed to develop the strategy referred to in item (a) in partnership with the Hamilton Conservation Authority and report back to Council by the end of September 2004 with details concerning the capital and operating cost, long term funding program, land use policy changes, and overall management framework.
   
   
3. That a nine member Sub-Committee comprised of six City of Hamilton representatives, two Hamilton Conservation Authority representatives and one local Member of Provincial Parliament (and his/her alternate) be formed to guide the development of the strategy identified in item (b).
   
   
4. That the City of Hamilton appoint the Mayor (and alternate), the Councillors of Wards 4, 5, 6, and 9, and the Director of Capital Planning and Implementation to the Sub-Committee described in item (c).

CARRIED

9. DISCUSSION ITEMS

10. MOTIONS None

11. NOTICES OF MOTIONS None

12. GENERAL INFORMATION/OTHER BUSINESS

12.1  Park Development Process & Policies Re: Capital Funding

12.2  Petition and letter requesting that the Parkdale bus route (Route 11) be extended to include Eastport Boulevard.

13. PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL

14. ADJOURNMENT