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Haudenosaunee Confederacy Chiefs Council still not agreeing to cleaning up raw sewage spill from Hamilton waterway Province speeds up deadline to clean up the mess, Hamilton looks to appeal new deadline NAHNDA GARLOW
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HAMILTON — The city of Hamilton was given an accelerated deadline to clean up the sewage sediment sitting at the bottom of Chedoke Creek — and is now appealing to the province for more time, in part due to delays by the Haudenosaunee Confederacy Chiefs Council. Ontario initially granted Hamilton until December 2023 to finish dredging the creek but has now rolled that date up and says Hamilton now has until the end of August 2023 to clean up the waterway. A total of 24 billion litres of raw sewage spilled into the creek, over a period of four years. The spill was kept quiet by Hamilton City Council and was revealed by a 2019 Hamilton Spectator investigation. That spill led to Ontario ordering the city to clean up the mess. Now, Hamilton City Council says they won’t meet the new August deadline and in a closed Special Council meeting March 9, voted 6-5 to submit an appeal to the Ontario Land Tribunal. In a statement, Hamilton said while they are
HCCC member Roger Silversmith spoke to reporters at a press conference in 2022, saying the hereditary leaders had "no idea" why Six Nations elected Chief Mark Hill sent a letter to local muncipalities informing them the elected council is the only entity legally able to represent Six Nations band members. Two months prior, Silversmith and nine others directed the Haudenosaunee Development Institute to launch a legal fight declaring the HCCC at Grand River the governement of all Haudenosaunee people, remove the elected council from the Six Nations land claim case -- and have the HCCC named the sole beneficiary of all financial compensation. TRT
ready to do the work they “cannot guarantee that the in-water portion of the dredging work is achievable by the revised deadline”. In part, the city’s Water Director Nick Winters, says that deadline extension request is needed due to an inability to reach an environmental monitoring agreement between Hamilton and the Haudenosaunee Confederacy Chiefs Council. Winters says additional factors such as weather, staffing and other things outside of the city’s control make
the new August deadline unachievable. Work was tentatively set to begin again in July 2023 to be complete by the end of October. Six Nations, Mississaugas of the Credit, the HCCC and the Huron-Wendat Nation are all required to provide environmental monitors to the project in order for the city of Hamilton to acquire the needed permits to begin work. Six Nations Elected Chief Mark Hill said he was disappointed to hear that Hamilton was unable
to meet the new deadline to get the contamination removed from Chedoke Creek. “Six Nations wants to see this important environmental cleanup project begin without any further delays. That is why Six Nations is in talks with both Hamilton and Ontario officials, hoping to bring them together with a good mind to agree on a speedy timeline to cleanup our common environment,” said Hill in an emailed statement to TRT. “Six Nations consultations officials investigated Ham-
ilton’s proposed sewage spill cleanup plan months ago and strongly approved the project, so we should no longer allow the tactics of a few unaccountable individuals to derail our responsibility to the environment.” Mississaugas of the Credit Chief Gimaa Laforme said “Our greatest concern is the impact to Mother Earth, and we appreciate the City understanding the obligation First Nations have as the original owners and stewards of the lands
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