Category: Hazardous Waste

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No word from the surgeon or the environment department

Not much new, I’m afraid. I see the surgeon tomorrow afternoon and should have a better idea of how my schedule will work out for the rest of the summer at that point. I know two people who have had similar things done and both were off work for three months after. I’m going to probably have to reschedule my classes for this.

On other fronts, it’s the same thing. I sent an e-mail to the department of the environment to see if they have made any headway with the neighbour across the street. I sent that last Wednesday. I did receive an out of office message saying they would be back Thursday and do hope to hear something, preferably something good, sometime soon. Given the few results, I have talked to a friend who produces the local CBC morning show and have rounded up some of the neighbours who are more than willing to talk to the press about our ongoing issues. They are, rightfully, incensed that someone would issue a permit to store hazardous wastes in the middle of a residential neighbourhood without checking, and this should become blatantly obvious rather quickly. The fact that more than a month has passed since this was brought to their attention and nothing seems to have been done has also been noted. Needless to say, someone is going to look rather bad over this one.

That’s all I have. I went back to work, even though I’m on vacation for the next few days, until I find out what’s happening. I’m not really up for work but there isn’t much choice as I have to get courses ready and will have no chance to get up to date if I don’t…

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Now, Time to Talk to Another Branch of Government

Our next step is to deal with the problems associated with having a hazardous waste storage site across the street. Namely, what is my property worth?

I can heartily assure you that no one is going to buy a house on a street with a hazardous waste site on it. That, in consideration with the fact that my property taxes are based on my assessment, we’ve approached the territorial government, who also are the ones responsible for the assessments the property taxes are calculated from, to have our properties reassessed based on the new information available. The deadline for reassessments requests has passed but we think that this is an extenuating circumstance and have asked the department and the minister for an exemption and reassessment anyway. Given that the payment deadline is coming up, I’m probably going to Council Monday evening to ask for an extension on payment to dealt with the administrative issues that may be involved.

Onward into the breach. Again…

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“We Don’t Know How to Remove a Hazardous Waste Permit…”

I asked for a progress report on what was happening with the Special Waste Permit issued to the house across the street. I was expecting that, given that the city has also been pushing to have the permit revoked, we would have heard that the permit had been dealt with appropriately. After all, how long should you expect it to take when the department finds out that it issued a permit for a hazardous waste storage facility on  residential street. After all, the Envirnment Department staff are the ones to issue the permit. This was issued to a company that was salvaging, on contract from the Territorial Government, wastes from 7 community landfills in the territory.

I was incredibly suprised to receive the somewhat weak response that I got. The action taken to date is to ask the guy to store his wastes somewhere else voluntarily! This, by the way, is from the guy who can’t register his vehicles in the territory to meet a court order so is trying to register them in BC.

My particularly favourite response is from the Manager of standards and approvals who stated,

“As I mentioned last week we are looking at what options are legally available to us to amend the special waste permit to specify a different storage location, beginning with a request for a voluntary amendment. Rescinding a permit is not something that is done everyday so we need to be sure we have the necessary authority and evidence before attempting to do so. “

 Equally cheering were the words of the Director of Environmental Protection,

“Unfortunately we are constrained by legislative procedures as outlined in the Solid Waste Regulations on how and when a permit can be cancelled.  Our first and preferred course of action is that the Permittee will voluntarily relocate his operations which we are pursuing.”

So, in other words, while the Department managed to issue a permit that allows a Special (read Hazardous) Waste Storage Facility in the muiddle of a residential neighbourhood, they don’t seem to have the faintest idea on how to remedy their mistake.

Needless to say, our patience is drawing thin and I think that the story should be told to my former senior producer at CBC News sometime tomorrow afternoon…

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Potential Action Against the Neighbour: Revised

I beginning to think my birth certificate is wrong and that I may actually have been born in Missouri, where the motto is “Show me.” If I don’t see it, I’m not going to believe it. I think I may be beginning to believe we may see some motion on the neighbour across the street. I received the following e-mail this morning:

Doug –
I’m following up on your inquiry on behalf of Jon Bowen as he is out of town for the rest of the week. After speaking with the City of Whitehorse Planning department, I have confirmed that the zoning of 15 Maple Street does not support a commercial special waste collection business. As a result Environment Yukon will be examining what steps we can take to amend the special waste permit to reflect that a new storage location for these wastes must be found.
Again, thanks for bringing this matter to our attention.
Shannon Jensen
Manager, Standards & Approvals
Environmental Programs Branch

I’m not going to ask why it was issued in the first place or why the City wasn’t aware of this. I’m hoping now that at least we won’t have to worry about glowing in the dark or some other wonderful consequence. Now, if we could see some action from the city regarding him running his waste disposal business here, since the territorial government has confirmed this, it would be really nice…

Addendum:

As much as the guy applied for a hazardous waste permit for his business on the property, the manager of Bylaw Services for the city says that it’s impossible to prove he’s doing commercial activity on the lot. Sadly, this is apparently not enough for the city to take it to court.

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Environmental Protection’s Response

Well, after much phone/e-mail tag, I did get a chance to talk and correspond with the director of environmental protection at the Yukon Territorial Government. I put forward my question as to why he had a permit in a residential neighbourhood. He seemed to think that this was a good question and he wanted an answer to it as well. He did think that the issue of the permit was probably done in error, although he did wonder if the area had previously been zoned commercially.

Actually, the zoning did change when the City decided to rename some of the zones… although what could actually be there has not with the new name. Inspectors are on their way to deal appropriately with the situation.

Our conversation, though, has raised another question. He no longer has the contract to salvage from seven of the Yukon Government community dumps because of failure to meet its tems. Why does he still have his permit and where is the crap coming from? This is a question for the city potentially and I’ll send a request to the Manager of Bylaw Services to see if he has a permit to salvage from the city landfill and whether or not that can be pulled. And, so it goes…

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You Get What You Ask For

More batteries
He dropped off the last load - and brought back more.

He left a while ago with the truck with the batteries in it. Of course, he came back with another load of batteries… in fact more than the earlier load.

I think I’m giving Environment until noon on Monday…

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So How Bad Is He?

I’ve been asked how bad the neighbour is. So, here’s a few more pictures.

Truck load of car batteries
A truck load of car batteries... hopefully going somewhere else.

 Propane tanks and oil jug.

Here’s an example of what he’s storing on the property that we can see. Large numbers of car batteries and numerous empty, I assume, propane tanks and oil jugs can be easily seen. They’re easy to see, by the way, since these are pictures of his front lawn.

I guess it’s time to ask City Council an important question. If they have no legal way to enforce the Maintenance and Zoning Bylaws, does the same apply to the Property Tax Bylaw?

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Still Waiting for Reassurance…

I asked for  clarification in the ongoing question about “special” waste storage and asked if our neighbour actually had a permit to store it here, as well as why the department would issue one in the middle of a residential neighbourhood. The answer I received was to contact the director of environmental protection.

However, I discovered that trying to get hold of a government department director on a Friday is not an area where one counts on success. I left a lengthy voice mail with his phone, but have  not yet received a response.

Part of the yard across the street.

Now, the neighbour has gone a bit weirder on us. He’s run a rope across the front of his driveway with bizarre things across the front. There’s some chairs, a vacuum, an exercise bike and a toilet seat tied to the rope. I’m not sure why the rope is there. I’m really not sure why the toilet seat is there. I am sure, though, that I don’t want to know why there’s a package of tampons on each of the chairs….

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Our Neighbour Does Match a Certain Stereotype, Doesn’t He?

Looking across the street is a lot like watching Deliverance. We have been trying for three years to get the current tenant across the street to clean up his property. Sadly, this is a losing battle on several levels. The neighbour is running a recycling/dump service/used car business in a residential neighbourhood.

We have made several attempts to have something done through the Maintenance Bylaw and the Zoning Bylaw, but there has been no success. Keep in mind that he previously lived about a mile away and his previous neighbours complained for almost ten years to get that place cleaned up. By the way, the owner sold the property so he had to move before the City was capable of making him clean the property.

What is he like? Well, he’s had about 50 tickets issued against him in the last two years. Yet, here’s what you face when you give him a ticket. He’s from Texas and, as has been mentioned in previous court appearances, believes that he just living his lifestyle. The fact that 7 or more of his immediate neighbours might complain about his property at least weekly is their problem, not his.

The interesting thing is, it doesn’t matter how many fines he gets since he doesn’t own the property. If he doesn’t pay, it just gets added to the property tax bill and the property owner is impossible to find, in Alberta, and his daughter. In short, going to the landlord is not an option.

We have a new ploy. We’ve asked the environment department to guarantee that he is not housing hazardous waste on the street. This was put to the Environmental Protection department and the minister four days ago. Unfortunately, there has been no response. Another request was sent this evening. If there is no answer by Monday, we’re going to ask the new premier and the press why the Minister and the department aren’t answering us.

How bad is it? He moved in after the previous tenants were evicted by the territorial government. If we’d known what we were getting, most of us would have fought the eviction. After all, a crack house was highly preferable to the current neighbour and the particularly telling point is that doesn’t bother him at all….