The Ontario Ministry of the Environment had put Harkow Recycling Ltd. on notice about the potential fire hazard from accumulated debris at the site months before a fire that took four days to bring under control broke out, Toronto Free Press has learned.
‘The handling of their outdoor waste was found to be in non- compliance and Harkow was given one week to come under compliance on October 21, 1999,’ ministry spokesperson Gerry Merchant told TFP.
The ministry’s warning turned out to be prophetic, and taxpayers are now on the hook for an estimated $2-million for the massive fire which broke out in February, and raged on for four straight days before local firefighters were able to extinguish it.
According to city staff, several confirmed past fires at the Commissioners Street recycling plant were caused by the way Harkow was managing its material. In those fires, staff report that ‘the employees would just put out the fire themselves.’
Closing chapters of Harkow, which operated from its east port lands location since the mid-1990s, contain an ironic twist for a plant that had a mandate to protect the environment and was built with taxpayers’ money.
With the almost $4.6-million in funding chipped in for Harkow by both the municipal and provincial levels of government, the $800,000 it owes in back taxes, arrears in its loan from the city and back rent, and the $2-million city staff estimate it will cost to clean up the site after January’s fire, it’s costing taxpayers a bundle.
Outgoing Toronto Economic Development Corporation (TEDCO) chairman Fred Eisen told TFP the total bill, when tallied up, will cost taxpayers a staggering $18-million.
The ravaged recycling plant, still being monitored round the clock by the environment ministry, is currently seeking bankruptcy protection. The astronomical costs it racked up during its operation in Toronto’s harbour lands, have been eclipsed in a blaze of newspaper headlines indicating that the city had signed a 20-year lease with sports and grocery magnate Steve Stavro for six acres of land where one of his Knob Hill grocery stores is located, coincidentally right across the street from the exact spot earmarked for a proposed 100,000 seat Olympic stadium.
Stavro, has been paying taxes on his port land site as long has his grocery store has been located there.
As far as is known, former City of Toronto councillors set a precedent when they gave Harkow a $2.6-million construction loan through TEDCO to build its recycling plant. With only Councillors Mike Walker, Tom Jakobek and former Coun. Steve Ellis casting their votes against, the Harkow loan constituted the first time in history that Toronto council handed over a significant construction loan to private industry.
In 1994, environmentalist Linda Lynch successfully lobbied Mayor June Rowlands and Coun. Betty Disero for the $2.6-million construction loan for Harkow. Lynch had worked on Disero’s failed mayoral campaign before switching over to Rowlands in the 1991 municipal election campaign.
Ostensibly, the loan was given to Harkow as part of a program to develop Toronto’s port lands. The city-owned, arm’s length corporation owns much of Toronto’s port lands and leases lands and the now fire-ravaged warehouse to Harkow.
The loan was surrounded by controversy from the outset, with both councillors Walker and Ellis calling it ‘outrageous’. Former Coun. Kay Gardner argued passionately against awarding the loan, but voted for it.
Complaints from neighbours about the eyesore posed by the stockpile of garbage at the Harkow site, have been on file with the provincial environment ministry.for years. Harkow, which handled solid non-hazardous construction and demolition debris, was touted as a ‘multi-material recycling facility’. With no specfic technology to boast, bricks, concrete, metals and wood were sorted by hand.
During construction, Lynch was listed as Project Manager. She later went on to handle the plant’s public relations.
A catylist behind the closing of the former Darling Rendering Plant, Lynch still runs a company called Environment Watch Inc., from a film studio at Showline Habourside Studios, only minutes away from the environmentally-ripe, east-end Riverdale area.
Disero made an emotional speech at Harkow’s official opening on Nov.13, 1995. Harkow was reportedly bought by the Hamilton-based Harbourfront Recycling Inc. last spring. A plastics storage area went up in flames at Harbourfront’s Hamilton plant in July, 1997.
There is no association between the Hamilton plant and Harkow’s next door neighbour, Harbour Remediation, an award-winning company which excells in soil remediation and clean up.
Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com
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