Massive Liability
How Did Adams Mine Project Get as Far as It Did?
by Charlie Angus HighGrader Magazine November/December 2000

"The pit leaks like a sieve and nobody can stop it." The warning was delivered by Dr. Larry Jensen to Toronto City Council on the eve of the historic Adams Mine vote. Jensen, a retired geologist with the Ontario Geological Survey, had extensive knowledge of the Adams Mine, having spent 35 years working in the Kirkland Lake region.
It wasn't the first time Jensen tried to warn City Council of the dangers of using the Adams Mine as a dump. Just prior to the August 4th Council vote (which gave initial approval to the Adams Mine), Jensen wrote personally to Mayor Mel Lastman warning him in no uncertain terms what was at stake.
"The Adam's Mine Garbage Dump Proposal is a disaster for the not too distant future....for all those people and the wild life to the south and southeast in the Timiskaming region and beyond, as far as to the mouth of the Ottawa River - an area hundreds of times larger than Toronto itself."
But Lastman ignored Jensen's warning. The garbage express was in high gear and Lastman appeared determined to drive it over any opposition.
As the public demonstrations escalated in the north, Jensen continued to speak out against the project.
His seemingly sudden appearance in the garbage debate was problematic for the city dump lobby. Jensen was the only "expert" who could claim actual working knowledge of the mine. Up until then, the city had been relying on the promises of consultants - none of whom had seen the pit before it filled with water. And here was a former provincial geologist, tearing apart, piece by piece, the work of the consultants.
The whole premise for the Adams Mine rested on computer models created by Golder and Associates for the dump proponents Rail Cycle North.
Jensen took exception to the Golder claim that water flowed up into the pit and no water flowed out. Oh contraire, said Dr. Jensen - heavy volumes of water flowed in from the north side walls and flowed out through the fractures in the south end of the pit.
Jensen was bolstered in his attack by the sudden appearance of two "troubleshooting" reports commissioned while the mine was still in operation. The reports mysteriously appeared in a manila envelope just after the August vote by Toronto Council. Up until then, opponents of the dump had not been able to examine any technical reports or pit studies. Rather, they were having to rely on the computer models supplied by the proponent.
The two troubleshooting reports, written in 1985 and 1987, contained detailed photographs of various pit wall and rock slippage problems plaguing the mine during its last years in operation. As well, the reports carefully detailed serious water problems.
A few excerpts from the reports illustrates just how problematic water seepage and rock wall failure was in the various pits:

"The haulage road in the south Pit was undercut by a major fracture surface. Roof bolting, strapping and wire mesh have been used."

"The failure of the haulage road came from an unfavourable rock structure which undercuts the crest of the road. It is likely that during periods of heavy rainfall, water running over the Pit wall may have entered this fracture and contributed to the (ground )failure."

"A major water problem still exists. As pointed out in previous reports ...there are large quantities of water flowing into this sump which runs directly into the southwest corner of the Pit. In addition there are a number of areas along the west wall where water is forming in ponds...The dewatering scheme for this wall needs to be further improved if serious problems from water pressure are to be avoided."

Jensen's persistence was gathering media attention. In looking to derail Jensen's arguments, Rail Cycle North sent forth the Golder consultants to do battle in the press.
As well, Rail Cycle supporters, including the mayor's office and the Premier, dismissed Jensen as a Johnny Come Lately. The argument from the pro-dump people was that the issue had been "studied to death". Enough stalling, they said, it was time to finalize the deal.
Jensen wrote to Toronto Councillors telling them they were being taken for a ride.
"To say that the site has been 'studied to death' is, in my opinion, a gross overstatement. I think if Toronto has spent the amount of money that Councillor Bill Saundercook says it has on environmental studies, the city has been taken to the cleaners."
Jensen's deconstruction of the Golder reports was steadily kicking away at the thin margin of scientific "legitimacy". More and more it was beginning to seem that, far from being the environmental marvel, the Adams Mine was being chosen because it was out of sight and out of mind.

Preliminary Study
Toronto Council's love affair with the Adams Mine rested on two sets of reports prepared by Golder and Associates and Senes Consultants in 1995. The reports were based on 13 test holes drilled on the property in 1990 to check water flows in the fractured rock. When Golder submitted the drill results they pointed out that the results were merely "preliminary." Neither Notre, nor the City of Toronto, however, seemed to think it was necessary to carry out more drilling.
Out of these drill reports, a computer model was developed purporting to show that even though hundreds of millions of litres of groundwater would be contaminated every year, the problem could be contained by a massive pumping system. The concept was known as hydraulic containment.
Nothing of its scale had ever been attempted before. When the plan was reviewed by independent landfill consultant Dr. Fred Lee from El, Macero California, it was roundly trashed. Lee warned area residents to "vigorously oppose" the development of the Adams Mine.
"It became clear during our review," wrote Dr. Lee, "that Metro's consultants' statements on how the landfill would be operated were deficient compared to what would be necessary to operate this landfill in a true hydraulic containment mode for as long as the wastes are a threat."
Shortly after Lee gave his warnings, Toronto Council made it known that they didn't want a full Environmental Assessment done on the Adams Mine landfill.
The red flags were going up but Toronto media barely noticed. They had written off the Adams mine as a boring regional waste issue. Even less attention was paid when the Tories rewrote the Environmental Assessment Act (see Done Deal HighGrader March 1998) which severely limited the focus of the panel to examine the possible failings of what was to become Canada's biggest and most contentious dump.

Little wonder that when the story finally hit the national radar screen last month, many media pundits were left scrambling to get up to speed. And by then, it wasn't the technical problems associated with the mine that was gathering attention, rather it was the prospect of a "garbage Oka." Over the summer, the Algonquin First Nation had emerged in the forefront of growing protests.
As Toronto moved to a final vote at the beginning of October, the Algonquin Nation spearheaded the building of barricades on the Adams Mine Road in preparation for a confrontation over the attempt to move dump machinery up the road.
As Lastman worked to keep his pro-dump councillors onside, hundreds of residents in Temiskaming began the reinforcement of barricades on the Adams Mine Road. Following a one day shut down of the Ontario Northland Railway by farmers in Earlton, the road blockade on the Adams Mine road shifted to the railway.
As police and media poured into the region, all freight in Northern Ontario was brought to a stand-still. With hundreds of cops and national media pouring into the region, the Adams Mine was suddenly on the national and international stage.
At the same time, Grand Chief Carol McBride was beginning to make things hot for the Feds. Calling on the Federal government to exercise their fiduciary responsibility to conduct a Federal EA on the site, McBride won over a surprising number of Liberal and NDP MPs on the Hill.
McBride's call for a proper and full EA was strengthened by the words of Jim Robb, former vice-chair of the board of the Ontario Environmental Assessment Branch. He dismissed the 1998 assessment of the mine as too narrowly focused to properly ascertain the safety of the site.
"If you've got lots of well-paid engineers, you could be sold a bill of goods," Robb told the Toronto Star.
He went on to state that the stakes involved were simply too high to accept.
"(Fractured bedrock is) an inherently difficult and risky place to put large quantities of waste,'' he said. "The reality is, things go wrong. Things fail. It's just a matter of time. Think of the cost involved. Who will be there to clean up?''
Lastman was taking a hammering on all fronts but didn't seem deterred. With Tory lobbyist Jeffrey Lyons working City Council it was apparent that Toronto was going to pass the dump come hell or high water. Then on October 10, McBride led two busloads and a convoy of cars to Toronto from Temiskaming to confront Mayor Mel personally. For Lastman's handlers, hell had come to Hogtown.
Lastman worked hard to avoid McBride. He even dismissed her in the papers by calling her "Mr. McBride" and making the claim that nobody lived within 80 miles of the Adams Mine.
But McBride was undeterred. Flanked by a host of politicians (Bloc Quebecois MP Pierre Brien, Liberal MPs Tony Iano and Ben Serré, MPPs Howard Hampton, Gilles Bisson, David Ramsay, Marilyn Churley and Shelly Martel) McBride stopped the Toronto Council vote dead in its tracks as she stood up and shouted out her message to Mel.
The Mayor, looked less like a leader and more like a trapped ferret. It was by far the most damaging moment in Lastman's political career.
Although police moved to toss out the hundreds of supporters who joined McBride in the City Council chambers, McBride emerged as the media favourite. Her calm demeanor won over many Toronto residents who were beginning to realize the ramifications of the billion dollar dump deal being forced through at City Hall.

As the City fathers were arguing about who should pay for the liability of the controversial site, Jensen sent one last warning to the Council. He painstakingly outlined the scope of the damage their plan could have on the northern watershed.
He based his claims on the reports supplied to Toronto Council by Golder and Associates.
"The volume of water flowing through the pit on its southward journey is between 2,000,000 to 4,000,000 cubic meters per year. The capacity of the treatment plant is to be less than 500,000 cubic meters.....This means that at least 1,500,000 - 3,000,000 cubic meters of leachate per year will enter the ground water table that provides the drinking water for many of the communities to the south. One cubic meter of water equals 1000 litres of water."
Jensen said it was morally unconscionable to deliberately pollute such vast quantities of groundwater.
"No matter what clauses are in the final contract absolving you (City of Toronto) of liability, there will be no escaping that you were made aware of that the pit would leak leachate into the environment. And when the companies handing Toronto's garbage skip the country, it is Toronto that will actually be financially and morally liable."
In the end it was the issue of liability that killed the project. Although it should be noted that the only thing more unseemly than the sight of northerners being dragged out by police while city councillors debated the future of the northern watershed was the reality that the project died because Canada's richest city and America's most controversial corporation (WMI) bickered about who should get stuck with the liability if something went wrong.

Is this the end of the road for the Adams Mine? Don't count on it -- watch for one last nasty set of moves by the Harris government to try and keep this environmental boondoggle in play. And watch for the play to be aimed at the good citizens of Toronto.

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