CMC Fills in Two Blanks in the 2015 HRM-Mirror Nova Scotia Ltd. Agreement

In early January, the Community Monitoring Committee received the missing content for two previously blacked out sections of the Dec.23, 2015 Agreement for the Operation of Halifax Regional Municipality’s Solid Waste Facilities at Otter Lake, between HRM and Mirror Nova Scotia Ltd.

The CMC obtained Appendix D: FEP/WSF Performance Standards, and Section 22.4 of the Dec. 23, 2015 agreement. The information was supplied by Andrew Philopoulos, HRM’s Director of Solid Waste Resources, in response to a Dec.10, 2021 letter of request from Scott Guthrie, the CMC Chair.

However a third requested item, Appendix A: Fees and Adjustments in the agreement, was denied.

Mr. Guthrie said he was pleased to obtain the performance standards for the landfill’s front-end processor and waste stabilization facility, and to be made aware of the brief contents of section 22.4, but he regretted the decision to withhold the section on fees and adjustments to verify HRM’s full financial arrangements with the operator.

“What we received, however, will help us in carrying out our mandate of monitoring the landfill on behalf of residents in the adjacent communities,” he said. “For that assistance, we thank Mr. Philopoulos.”

It had been hoped the fees and adjustments section would shed light on the financial arrangement HRM, the owner of the Otter Lake Landfill, recently made with Mirror Nova Scotia, the operator, by which HRM is paying Mirror, effective Jan.1, 2021, a special $170 per tonne rate – a $35.31 increase – for up to12 months, due to the extended timeline of the HRM-Mirror Nova Scotia application. The regional municipality and the company have applied to the Nova Scotia Department of Environment and Climate Change for permission to deactivate the front-end processor and waste stabilization facility at the landfill.

The terms of the new HRM-Mirror Nova Scotia financial arrangement indicate whatever the result of the application, Mirror will lose its pay increase on of before Dec.31, 2022, and return to its former $134.69 per tonne fee. The rollback will be triggered by whatever comes first; the last day of the year, or the departmental decision on the HRM-Mirror Nova Scotia application.

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