Atlas landfill site

Walker Environmental is nearly finished with the former Atlas landfill site on River Road, Welland city councillors heard this week. - Julie Jocsak , Torstar

by Dave Johnson
Courtesy of The Welland Tribune

Walker Environmental Group will be finished with the Atlas landfill site by the end of the month and will turn the property over to the City of Welland before year’s end.

“We have a little more waste coming in this month … November will see the final grading of the site,” Mike Deprez, vice-president of transfer and disposal for Walker Industries, told Welland politicians Tuesday night.

Deprez and Walker project director Darren Fry were before council to make a presentation about the property at the northwest corner of River and Woodlawn roads. However, due to sound system problems in council chambers, an opportunity for followup questions was put off to next Tuesday.

Deprez said the access road to the site — people have dubbed it Mount Welland — will be removed as will the weigh-scale house.

“It will be cleaned up before the end of the year.”

Council was told a perpetual care, or post-closure, fund totalling some $3.2 million will be released to the city for use in operation and maintenance of the site along the Welland River.

The 15-hectare site at 685 River Rd. had been an unsecured and exposed waste dump for former Atlas Steels. There had been no environmental monitoring, no stormwater or surface water controls and no leachate collection system. That meant surface water from the site went directly into the Welland River.

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