“Ryley has to be protected” – Brian Strilchuk, RPAC chair at public meeting

“This is going to be tough,” so said Brian Strilchuk, chair of the Ryley Public Advisory Committee, in beginning his presentation on Clean Harbors and Beaver Municipal Solutions (BMS).

Strilchuk apologized “for bringing the landfill to Ryley 20 years ago,” and then not working to ensure that environmental and compensation concerns were met.

In speaking of Clean Harbors, he stated that “Class 1 landfills take in some pretty nasty stuff, this stuff can kill.” The Ryley landfill is only one of three such landfills in Canada.

“They are very expensive to build and bring waste to,” he said, but “they are better than having hazardous waste all through the country.” Clean Harbors takes ex-plosives, radioactive ma-terial, and medical and municipal waste, among others. But a lot of the waste taken by Clean Harbors is actually non-hazardous Class 2 type material, he said.

But when Strilchuk started talking about the big mound of black dirt to the north of Ryley, his voice changed.

By Patricia Harcourt
Editor

For more see the April 3/13 issue of the Tofield Mercury