Adams Mine
Encyclopedia
Adams Mine is an abandoned open pit iron ore mine located in the Boston Township of the District of Timiskaming, 11 km (6.8 mi) south of Kirkland Lake in the Canadian
province
of Ontario
. It is situated on the Canadian Shield
.
The mine was developed in 1963 and closed in 1990, with the resultant job losses leaving the region in economic hardship from which it has never fully recovered. Perched at one of the highest elevation points in the region, the mine stretched over 4000 acres (16.2 km²) and had six pits, the largest measuring over 1.6 km (0.994196378639691 mi) in length and the deepest being 183 m (600 ft), placing it below the water table; it is currently half filled with water.
Over 27 years of mining, the pits sustained numerous blasts daily, which some geologists claim have added to natural faults in the rocks. Other geologists and hydrogeologists have claimed that the site is well-situated for hydraulic containment (ie. water flows in, but doesn't leach into surrounding groundwater or surface water systems).
There are significant tailings
left from the manufacture of ore concentrate at the site. The Ontario Northland Railway
operated a line into the Adams Mine facility during its years of operation.
The mine is currently owned by an American investor named Vito Gallo, through a number company incorporated in Ontario, and is the subject of a NAFTA Chapter 11 arbitration between Gallo, on behalf of the numbered company, and the Government of Canada. The claim is that the Government of Ontario failed to pay proper compensation when it passed legislation that revoked the permits that it had previously granted for the site to be operated as a landfill.
"TRASHED" the literary non-fiction account of the Adam's Mine. Written by Gordon McGuinty.
An excerpt from the foreword by Paul Godfrey:
“Mr. McGuinty tells his story with humour and humility, and without rancour. Importantly, he listened to the people he was writing about and tried to incorporate their side of the story. We all have much to learn from reading the story of the Adams Mine and its struggle to survive in this complex world we live in. A great read.“
planners from the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto
were examining its potential for a massive landfill
, with waste
to be shipped north in sealed intermodal shipping containers by CN
and Ontario Northland on a 700 km (435 mi) route. It would be a municipal solid waste (MSW) facility on fractured bedrock using hydraulic containment and no landfill liner
.
Proponents of the landfill plan pointed to its potential for spurring economic development in Kirkland Lake's struggling economy, while opponents pointed to environmental concerns such as the pit's unstable rock walls, which could potentially leach contaminants into the local groundwater
supply.
The original landfill proposal considering the Adams Mine for Toronto's garbage can be traced to 1989. The following year, the government of Metro Toronto selected the Adams Mine as the preferred site for replacing the Keele Valley Landfill
in Vaughan
which was rapidly reaching capacity. On 2 April 1991, Ruth Grier
, then provincial Minister of the Environment
, stated that the provincial government would not allow Toronto to send its garbage to the Adams Mine. In 1995, Metro Toronto began a formal assessment, and the project passed all environmental tests and assessments. The project was rejected at the final vote, in December 1996, to extend the Toronto option on the ownership of the mine because of erroneous information presented by Jack Layton in which he cited the cumulative cost of the project rather than the year by year costs. At the same vote, the Chair, Alan Tonks also changed his position from support of the project to voting against. The final vote was 19-13 against the proposal to extend Toronto's option to use the site. Ironically, it was this vote that eventually led to Toronto shipping garbage to the US.
In 1996, the mine's owner, Notre Development, announced plans to revive the Adams Mine proposal through the private sector. Later the same year, the Progressive Conservative
government of Mike Harris
made significant changes to the province's Environmental Assessment Act - this resulted in dropping the requirements for a needs assessment and investigation of alternatives to developing a landfill. Technically, this was irrelevant to the Adams Mine proposal as it had already passed all assessments requested of the project. This gave the provincial government the sole authority to impose time and service limits on environmental assessments.
Investors involved in Notre Development included North Bay
businessman Gord McGuinty. Peter Minogue, Harris' best friend whose wife was Harris' local campaign manager, is often mentioned as being involved with Notre but there is no evidence that he ever was.
Notre Development's 1996 proposal involved a consortium that was known as "Rail Cycle North"; this included the mine's owner, Notre Development, along with waste management companies Canadian Waste Services and Miller Waste Services, and Ontario Northland Railway
and CN
.
On December 16, 1997, the provincial Ministry of the Environment permitted only a limited Environmental Assessment Board hearing on the site's hydraulic containment system. Heavy opposition was expressed in the hearings, but on June 19, 1998, the EAB approved the project. The opponents filed an appeal with the provincial cabinet
, which was subsequently rejected that August. An appeal was then filed for a judicial review. In July 1999, that appeal was rejected by the Divisional Court of Ontario and was similarly rejected by the Court of Appeal for Ontario in October of that year.
At the same time, opponents focused on lobbying the recently amalgamated city of Toronto
to not accept the Rail Cycle North proposal. On August 3, 2000, Toronto City Council
voted to approve the plan to transport the city's waste to Adams Mine. However, due to the volume of community opposition, council reviewed the issue and voted the proposal down that October. Toronto subsequently pursued a proposal to have its garbage shipped to the Carleton Farms Landfill
site in Michigan
, since the Keele Valley Landfill
, as expected, had reached full capacity.
was elected mayor of Kirkland Lake.
In 2001, the Harris government attempted to engineer a campaign of opposition among the Western Ontario communities affected by the Michigan deal, which was seeing hundreds of truckloads of garbage passing on Highway 401
daily; the intent was to force the city of Toronto back into Rail Cycle North's proposal for a landfill using the Adams Mine. The provincial government's campaign included a letter from Michigan Governor John Engler
which expressed his state's opposition to accepting Toronto's garbage and explicitly supported the Rail Cycle North proposal, despite the fact that this was perceived as being at odds with Engler's usual positions on waste management. Staffers in Engler's office eventually revealed that the letter had been written at Premier Harris' request.
From 2001 to 2003, Notre Development and the Rail Cycle North consortium continued to pursue avenues to revive the landfill proposal.
In 2003, the Ontario Liberal Party
, led by Dalton McGuinty
, won the provincial election
and on April 5, 2004, provincial Minister of Natural Resources
David Ramsay and Minister of the Environment
Leona Dombrowsky
introduced legislation which revoked all certificates and permits related to the Adams Mine proposal. This had the effect of permanently killing the 1996 plan.
Charlie Angus
, a local musician and author, was one of the community leaders who organized the campaign against the Adams Mine proposal. He subsequently ran for political office, and was elected to Parliament
in the 2004 federal election
.
Toronto continues to export its trash to Michigan, causing a great deal of controversy for southern Ontario and Michigan communities which endure the transport of waste through their communities. Critics continue to point out that Toronto's exporting plan avoids forcing the city and region to come to terms with the waste its citizens generate, however there appears to be little political will to reduce consumption and bring about a regional waste management strategy which will avoid the necessity to export to distant landfills.
The shipping of garbage to Michigan briefly became an issue in the United States presidential election, 2004
when John Kerry
, on a campaign stop in Michigan, promised to ban the import of Canadian garbage if he was elected. In September, 2005, the Michigan state legislature voted almost unanimously against accepting Toronto's garbage.
deliberations over the waste site proposal, then-councillors Jack Layton
and Olivia Chow
surprised their council colleagues by playing The Simpsons
200th episode, Trash of the Titans
, in which the comically inept Homer Simpson
becomes sanitation commissioner of Springfield
and ends up shoving trash from his own and many other communities into a mine, to deleterious effect. "It was absolutely stunning," Layton later told The Globe and Mail
. "It was so accurate to what was going on."
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
province
Provinces and territories of Canada
The provinces and territories of Canada combine to make up the world's second-largest country by area. There are ten provinces and three territories...
of Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
. It is situated on the Canadian Shield
Canadian Shield
The Canadian Shield, also called the Laurentian Plateau, or Bouclier Canadien , is a vast geological shield covered by a thin layer of soil that forms the nucleus of the North American or Laurentia craton. It is an area mostly composed of igneous rock which relates to its long volcanic history...
.
The mine was developed in 1963 and closed in 1990, with the resultant job losses leaving the region in economic hardship from which it has never fully recovered. Perched at one of the highest elevation points in the region, the mine stretched over 4000 acres (16.2 km²) and had six pits, the largest measuring over 1.6 km (0.994196378639691 mi) in length and the deepest being 183 m (600 ft), placing it below the water table; it is currently half filled with water.
Over 27 years of mining, the pits sustained numerous blasts daily, which some geologists claim have added to natural faults in the rocks. Other geologists and hydrogeologists have claimed that the site is well-situated for hydraulic containment (ie. water flows in, but doesn't leach into surrounding groundwater or surface water systems).
There are significant tailings
Tailings
Tailings, also called mine dumps, slimes, tails, leach residue, or slickens, are the materials left over after the process of separating the valuable fraction from the uneconomic fraction of an ore...
left from the manufacture of ore concentrate at the site. The Ontario Northland Railway
Ontario Northland Railway
The Ontario Northland Railway is a Canadian railway operated by the Ontario Northland Transportation Commission, a provincial Crown agency of the government of Ontario....
operated a line into the Adams Mine facility during its years of operation.
The mine is currently owned by an American investor named Vito Gallo, through a number company incorporated in Ontario, and is the subject of a NAFTA Chapter 11 arbitration between Gallo, on behalf of the numbered company, and the Government of Canada. The claim is that the Government of Ontario failed to pay proper compensation when it passed legislation that revoked the permits that it had previously granted for the site to be operated as a landfill.
"TRASHED" the literary non-fiction account of the Adam's Mine. Written by Gordon McGuinty.
An excerpt from the foreword by Paul Godfrey:
“Mr. McGuinty tells his story with humour and humility, and without rancour. Importantly, he listened to the people he was writing about and tried to incorporate their side of the story. We all have much to learn from reading the story of the Adams Mine and its struggle to survive in this complex world we live in. A great read.“
Landfill proposal
Before the mine had shut production in the early 1990s, waste managementWaste management
Waste management is the collection, transport, processing or disposal,managing and monitoring of waste materials. The term usually relates to materials produced by human activity, and the process is generally undertaken to reduce their effect on health, the environment or aesthetics...
planners from the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto
Metropolitan Toronto
The Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto was a senior level of municipal government in the Toronto, Ontario, Canada area from 1954 to 1998. It was created out of York County and was a precursor to the later concept of a regional municipality, being formed of smaller municipalities but having more...
were examining its potential for a massive landfill
Landfill
A landfill site , is a site for the disposal of waste materials by burial and is the oldest form of waste treatment...
, with waste
Waste
Waste is unwanted or useless materials. In biology, waste is any of the many unwanted substances or toxins that are expelled from living organisms, metabolic waste; such as urea, sweat or feces. Litter is waste which has been disposed of improperly...
to be shipped north in sealed intermodal shipping containers by CN
Canadian National Railway
The Canadian National Railway Company is a Canadian Class I railway headquartered in Montreal, Quebec. CN's slogan is "North America's Railroad"....
and Ontario Northland on a 700 km (435 mi) route. It would be a municipal solid waste (MSW) facility on fractured bedrock using hydraulic containment and no landfill liner
Landfill liner
A landfill liner, or composite landfill liner, is intended to be a low permeable barrier, which is laid down under engineered landfill sites...
.
Proponents of the landfill plan pointed to its potential for spurring economic development in Kirkland Lake's struggling economy, while opponents pointed to environmental concerns such as the pit's unstable rock walls, which could potentially leach contaminants into the local groundwater
Groundwater
Groundwater is water located beneath the ground surface in soil pore spaces and in the fractures of rock formations. A unit of rock or an unconsolidated deposit is called an aquifer when it can yield a usable quantity of water. The depth at which soil pore spaces or fractures and voids in rock...
supply.
The original landfill proposal considering the Adams Mine for Toronto's garbage can be traced to 1989. The following year, the government of Metro Toronto selected the Adams Mine as the preferred site for replacing the Keele Valley Landfill
Keele Valley Landfill
The Keele Valley Landfill was the largest landfill in Canada and the third largest in North America during its operation. It was the primary landfill site for the City of Toronto and the regional municipalities of York and Durham from 1983 until 2002, and was owned and operated by the City of Toronto...
in Vaughan
Vaughan, Ontario
Vaughan is a city in York Region north of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Vaughan is the fastest growing municipality in Canada achieving a population growth rate of 80.2% between 1996–2006, according to Statistics Canada having nearly doubled in population since 1991. Vaughan is located in Southern...
which was rapidly reaching capacity. On 2 April 1991, Ruth Grier
Ruth Grier
Ruth Anna Grier is a former politician in Ontario, Canada. She was a New Democratic Party member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1985 to 1995, and served as a high-profile cabinet minister in the government of Bob Rae....
, then provincial Minister of the Environment
Ministry of the Environment (Ontario)
The Ministry of the Environment, established in 1972, is the portfolio in the Executive Council of Ontario responsible for addressing the environmental issues affecting the environmental protection of the Canadian province of Ontario and the World...
, stated that the provincial government would not allow Toronto to send its garbage to the Adams Mine. In 1995, Metro Toronto began a formal assessment, and the project passed all environmental tests and assessments. The project was rejected at the final vote, in December 1996, to extend the Toronto option on the ownership of the mine because of erroneous information presented by Jack Layton in which he cited the cumulative cost of the project rather than the year by year costs. At the same vote, the Chair, Alan Tonks also changed his position from support of the project to voting against. The final vote was 19-13 against the proposal to extend Toronto's option to use the site. Ironically, it was this vote that eventually led to Toronto shipping garbage to the US.
In 1996, the mine's owner, Notre Development, announced plans to revive the Adams Mine proposal through the private sector. Later the same year, the Progressive Conservative
Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario
The Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario , is a right-of-centre political party in Ontario, Canada. The party was known for many years as "Ontario's natural governing party." It has ruled the province for 80 of the years since Confederation, including an uninterrupted run from 1943 to 1985...
government of Mike Harris
Mike Harris
Michael Deane "Mike" Harris was the 22nd Premier of Ontario from June 26, 1995 to April 15, 2002. He is most noted for the "Common Sense Revolution", his Progressive Conservative government's program of deficit reduction in combination with lower taxes and cuts to government...
made significant changes to the province's Environmental Assessment Act - this resulted in dropping the requirements for a needs assessment and investigation of alternatives to developing a landfill. Technically, this was irrelevant to the Adams Mine proposal as it had already passed all assessments requested of the project. This gave the provincial government the sole authority to impose time and service limits on environmental assessments.
Investors involved in Notre Development included North Bay
North Bay, Ontario
North Bay is a city in Northeastern Ontario, Canada. It is the seat of Nipissing District, and takes its name from its position on the shore of Lake Nipissing.-History:...
businessman Gord McGuinty. Peter Minogue, Harris' best friend whose wife was Harris' local campaign manager, is often mentioned as being involved with Notre but there is no evidence that he ever was.
Notre Development's 1996 proposal involved a consortium that was known as "Rail Cycle North"; this included the mine's owner, Notre Development, along with waste management companies Canadian Waste Services and Miller Waste Services, and Ontario Northland Railway
Ontario Northland Railway
The Ontario Northland Railway is a Canadian railway operated by the Ontario Northland Transportation Commission, a provincial Crown agency of the government of Ontario....
and CN
Canadian National Railway
The Canadian National Railway Company is a Canadian Class I railway headquartered in Montreal, Quebec. CN's slogan is "North America's Railroad"....
.
On December 16, 1997, the provincial Ministry of the Environment permitted only a limited Environmental Assessment Board hearing on the site's hydraulic containment system. Heavy opposition was expressed in the hearings, but on June 19, 1998, the EAB approved the project. The opponents filed an appeal with the provincial cabinet
Executive Council of Ontario
The Executive Council of Ontario plays an important role in theGovernment of Ontario, in accordance with the Westminster system....
, which was subsequently rejected that August. An appeal was then filed for a judicial review. In July 1999, that appeal was rejected by the Divisional Court of Ontario and was similarly rejected by the Court of Appeal for Ontario in October of that year.
At the same time, opponents focused on lobbying the recently amalgamated city of Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
to not accept the Rail Cycle North proposal. On August 3, 2000, Toronto City Council
Toronto City Council
The Toronto City Council is the governing body of the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.Members represent wards throughout the city, and are known as councillors....
voted to approve the plan to transport the city's waste to Adams Mine. However, due to the volume of community opposition, council reviewed the issue and voted the proposal down that October. Toronto subsequently pursued a proposal to have its garbage shipped to the Carleton Farms Landfill
Carleton Farms Landfill
The Carleton Farms Landfill is located in Sumpter Township of Wayne County in the U.S. state of Michigan.The landfill sits on of property and has a solid waste boundary of . It is owned by Republic Services Inc., and is about west of Detroit...
site in Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
, since the Keele Valley Landfill
Keele Valley Landfill
The Keele Valley Landfill was the largest landfill in Canada and the third largest in North America during its operation. It was the primary landfill site for the City of Toronto and the regional municipalities of York and Durham from 1983 until 2002, and was owned and operated by the City of Toronto...
, as expected, had reached full capacity.
Aftermath
In that fall's municipal elections, Adams Mine supporter Bill EnouyBill Enouy
Bill Enouy is a Canadian politician, currently serving as mayor of Kirkland Lake, Ontario.First elected mayor in the 2000 municipal election, Enouy previously served as a town councillor in Kirkland Lake. He was an outspoken advocate of the failed Adams Mine proposal to repurpose a defunct open pit...
was elected mayor of Kirkland Lake.
In 2001, the Harris government attempted to engineer a campaign of opposition among the Western Ontario communities affected by the Michigan deal, which was seeing hundreds of truckloads of garbage passing on Highway 401
Highway 401 (Ontario)
King's Highway 401, also known by its official name as the Macdonald–Cartier Freeway and colloquially as the four-oh-one, is a 400-Series Highway in the Canadian province of Ontario stretching from Windsor to the Quebec border...
daily; the intent was to force the city of Toronto back into Rail Cycle North's proposal for a landfill using the Adams Mine. The provincial government's campaign included a letter from Michigan Governor John Engler
John Engler
John Mathias Engler is an American politician and a member of the Republican Party. He served as the 46th Governor of Michigan from 1991 to 2003....
which expressed his state's opposition to accepting Toronto's garbage and explicitly supported the Rail Cycle North proposal, despite the fact that this was perceived as being at odds with Engler's usual positions on waste management. Staffers in Engler's office eventually revealed that the letter had been written at Premier Harris' request.
From 2001 to 2003, Notre Development and the Rail Cycle North consortium continued to pursue avenues to revive the landfill proposal.
In 2003, the Ontario Liberal Party
Ontario Liberal Party
The Ontario Liberal Party is a provincial political party in the province of Ontario, Canada. It has formed the Government of Ontario since the provincial election of 2003. The party is ideologically aligned with the Liberal Party of Canada but the two parties are organizationally independent and...
, led by Dalton McGuinty
Dalton McGuinty
Dalton James Patrick McGuinty, Jr., MPP is a Canadian lawyer, politician and, since October 23, 2003, the 24th and current Premier of the Canadian province of Ontario....
, won the provincial election
Ontario general election, 2003
The Ontario general election of 2003 was held on October 2, 2003, to elect the 103 members of the 38th Legislative Assembly of the Province of Ontario, Canada....
and on April 5, 2004, provincial Minister of Natural Resources
Ministry of Natural Resources (Ontario)
The Ministry of Natural Resources is a government ministry of the Canadian province of Ontario that responsible for Ontario’s provincial parks, forests, fisheries, wildlife, mineral aggregates and the Crown lands and waters that make up 87 per cent of the province...
David Ramsay and Minister of the Environment
Ministry of the Environment (Ontario)
The Ministry of the Environment, established in 1972, is the portfolio in the Executive Council of Ontario responsible for addressing the environmental issues affecting the environmental protection of the Canadian province of Ontario and the World...
Leona Dombrowsky
Leona Dombrowsky
Leona Dombrowsky is a politician in Ontario, Canada. She was a member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario representing the riding of Prince Edward—Hastings, and was a cabinet minister in the government of Premier Dalton McGuinty....
introduced legislation which revoked all certificates and permits related to the Adams Mine proposal. This had the effect of permanently killing the 1996 plan.
Charlie Angus
Charlie Angus
Charles Joseph Angus MP is a Canadian writer, broadcaster, musician, and politician. Angus entered electoral politics in 2004 as the successful New Democratic Party candidate in the Ontario riding of Timmins—James Bay. He was the NDP parliamentary critic for Canadian Heritage from 2004 to 2007,...
, a local musician and author, was one of the community leaders who organized the campaign against the Adams Mine proposal. He subsequently ran for political office, and was elected to Parliament
Parliament of Canada
The Parliament of Canada is the federal legislative branch of Canada, seated at Parliament Hill in the national capital, Ottawa. Formally, the body consists of the Canadian monarch—represented by her governor general—the Senate, and the House of Commons, each element having its own officers and...
in the 2004 federal election
Canadian federal election, 2004
The Canadian federal election, 2004 , was held on June 28, 2004 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 38th Parliament of Canada. The Liberal government of Prime Minister Paul Martin lost its majority, but was able to form a minority government after the elections...
.
Toronto continues to export its trash to Michigan, causing a great deal of controversy for southern Ontario and Michigan communities which endure the transport of waste through their communities. Critics continue to point out that Toronto's exporting plan avoids forcing the city and region to come to terms with the waste its citizens generate, however there appears to be little political will to reduce consumption and bring about a regional waste management strategy which will avoid the necessity to export to distant landfills.
The shipping of garbage to Michigan briefly became an issue in the United States presidential election, 2004
United States presidential election, 2004
The United States presidential election of 2004 was the United States' 55th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 2, 2004. Republican Party candidate and incumbent President George W. Bush defeated Democratic Party candidate John Kerry, the then-junior U.S. Senator...
when John Kerry
John Kerry
John Forbes Kerry is the senior United States Senator from Massachusetts, the 10th most senior U.S. Senator and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in the 2004 presidential election, but lost to former President George W...
, on a campaign stop in Michigan, promised to ban the import of Canadian garbage if he was elected. In September, 2005, the Michigan state legislature voted almost unanimously against accepting Toronto's garbage.
"Trash of the Titans"
During Toronto City CouncilToronto City Council
The Toronto City Council is the governing body of the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.Members represent wards throughout the city, and are known as councillors....
deliberations over the waste site proposal, then-councillors Jack Layton
Jack Layton
John Gilbert "Jack" Layton, PC was a Canadian social democratic politician and the Leader of the Official Opposition. He was the leader of the New Democratic Party from 2003 to 2011, and previously sat on Toronto City Council, serving at times during that period as acting mayor and deputy mayor of...
and Olivia Chow
Olivia Chow
Olivia Chow is a Canadian New Democratic Party Member of Parliament and former city councillor in Toronto. She won the Trinity—Spadina riding for the New Democratic Party on January 23, 2006, becoming a member of the Canadian House of Commons. Most recently, she was re-elected in her riding for...
surprised their council colleagues by playing The Simpsons
The Simpsons
The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...
200th episode, Trash of the Titans
Trash of the Titans
"Trash of the Titans" is the 22nd episode of The Simpsons ninth season and the 200th overall. It originally aired on the Fox network on April 26, 1998...
, in which the comically inept Homer Simpson
Homer Simpson
Homer Jay Simpson is a fictional character in the animated television series The Simpsons and the patriarch of the eponymous family. He is voiced by Dan Castellaneta and first appeared on television, along with the rest of his family, in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987...
becomes sanitation commissioner of Springfield
Springfield (The Simpsons)
Springfield is the fictional town in which the American animated sitcom The Simpsons is set. A mid-sized town in an undetermined state of the United States, Springfield acts as a complete universe in which characters can explore the issues faced by modern society. The geography of the town and its...
and ends up shoving trash from his own and many other communities into a mine, to deleterious effect. "It was absolutely stunning," Layton later told The Globe and Mail
The Globe and Mail
The Globe and Mail is a nationally distributed Canadian newspaper, based in Toronto and printed in six cities across the country. With a weekly readership of approximately 1 million, it is Canada's largest-circulation national newspaper and second-largest daily newspaper after the Toronto Star...
. "It was so accurate to what was going on."