City of Toronto lawyers in court Wednesday to sue a Michigan company for breach of contract said the city faces an environmental mess if the landfill site doesn’t take its treated sewage sludge for another 60 days.
 
The city is suing Republic Services, owners of a Detroit-area landfill site, for abruptly cancelling a contract to accept about 160,000 tonnes of sludge a year. The company stopped taking Toronto’s sludge Tuesday.

The court heard from Toronto's lawyers that the city’s Ashbridges Bay Treatment Plant, located downtown on Toronto's waterfront, has the capacity to hold five day's worth of sludge, and could soon be filled to capacity.

Sam Rickett, a lawyer representing the Michigan company, said Toronto is out of luck.

He called the treated human waste the "stinkiest stuff you can imagine,” and said it was so smelly it violated Michigan's air pollution regulations.

Rickett argued the judge would be violating the state's laws if she ordered the landfill site to continue taking the sludge.

The company’s lawyer quoted Toronto Mayor David Miller as saying the city will be fine for the next six months thanks to the signing of several contracts with other landfills.

In the days leading up to the deadline, the city negotiated agreements with two Quebec landfill sites, but together they can take only half of the city’s treated sewage sludge. That leaves about 80,000 tonnes a year.

City lawyers argued a contract is a contract.

Superior Court Justice Katherine Swinton called the matter urgent, and said she would try to make a decision by Friday.