While news of its buyout bids has brought fresh attention to the company’s financials, The Local and The Narwhal dug into instances where GFL was found to be out of compliance with environmental rules and examined the response from officials. GFL did not reply to our repeated requests for an interview or comment. Here’s a sampling of what we found at three of its Canadian locations. Dead fish in North Stormont, Ont.GFL’s facilities in the township of North Stormont, southwest of Ottawa, were highlighted in a 2021 report by the office of the auditor general of Ontario as an example of how the provincial environment ministry allows companies to continue operating and growing despite repeat offences. In North Stormont, the auditor general’s report said, the ministry found GFL was contaminating surface water by repeatedly discharging treated leachate (sometimes described as “garbage juice”) “at concentrations resulting in 10 per cent fish mortality.” GFL, meanwhile, was falsely reporting test results to the ministry that showed zero per cent fish mortality, the report added. Despite this, the report said, the ministry granted new approvals to the company, including for the expansion of the landfill where the issue was occurring.In an email, Craig Calder, chief administrative officer and clerk for the Township of North Stormont, did not directly answer our questions about how the township responded to this issue, nor whether the contamination was still happening.Instead, Calder suggested we contact the Environment Ministry about any enforcement efforts pertaining to this landfill. “The safety and wellbeing of our community, and constituents, is of paramount importance to the Township of North Stormont,” Calder said. “The township has confidence that our provincial regulatory partners investigated, and took steps to remedy, any deficiencies identified.”
Source: What we found at three Canadian GFL locations | The Narwhal
