BKEJWANONG TERRITORY —…

BKEJWANONG TERRITORY — WALPOLE ISLAND FIRST NATION
Individual Community Member — ERO 026-0437
Environmental Compliance Approval (Waste Disposal Site)
 175 Bloomfield Road — Greenfield Global Inc. — Chatham-Kent
Comment Period Closes: June 4, 2026

Minister of the Environment, Conservation and Parks
Government of Ontario
Re: Formal Opposition — ERO 026-0437 — Environmental Compliance Approval (Waste
Disposal Site)
 Greenfield Global Inc., 175 Bloomfield Road, Municipality of Chatham-Kent

I am a Citizen and member of Walpole Island First Nation — Bkejwanong Anishinaabeg Unceded Territory — and a rights-holder on unceded Anishinaabe land within the Three Fires Confederacy. I write not as an Ontario resident but as a member of a sovereign nation whose lands, waters, and governance authority have never been surrendered, ceded, or extinguished.

The question before the Ministry is not whether this project has economic merit. The question is whether the Environmental Protection Act permits an Environmental Compliance Approval to be issued on an evidentiary record that lacks the information necessary to assess, monitor, and prevent foreseeable impacts to interconnected water systems and constitutionally protected Aboriginal and Treaty Rights.

The reopening of the comment period demonstrates that the Ministry recognizes the application has materially changed. Those revisions, however, address operational details rather than the fundamental evidentiary deficiencies identified in this submission.

I formally oppose ERO 026-0437 — the proposed Environmental Compliance Approval (Waste Disposal Site) for Greenfield Global Inc. at 175 Bloomfield Road, Municipality of Chatham-Kent. I submit this comment in solidarity with the Sovereign Grandmothers of the Hereditary Line of Bkejwanong Territory, whose formal objection has been filed concurrently.

Cumulative watershed effects from a 900,000-tonne facility.
A facility designed to receive up to 900,000 metric tonnes of organic waste annually represents one of the largest waste-processing operations in the region.

The proposed waste disposal approval is for a facility designed to receive and process an average of 802,464 metric tonnes of organic waste per year — up to a maximum of 900,000 metric tonnes annually — operating seven days a week, year round. This is not incremental industrial activity. It is a large-scale waste processing operation generating continuous leachate, digestate, process water, and stormwater runoff within the Thames River watershed, upstream of Bkejwanong Territory.

The scale of the proposal warrants a cumulative assessment of potential impacts to groundwater, surface water, stormwater systems, ecological integrity, Indigenous rights, and downstream communities before approval is considered.

Water Rights — The Thames River Flows to Bkejwanong
The proposed sewage approval authorizes stormwater runoff from the anaerobic digester facility
to discharge through a drainage ditch along Bloomfield Road into the Thames River. The Thames River flows directly toward Bkejwanong Territory. Our community holds Aboriginal water rights, Treaty rights, and responsibilities under chi-naakenigewin — the natural law of Anishinaabeg — to protect those waters. Authorizing industrial discharge into our river system within Waaweyaatenoong, without our consent is not an administrative matter. It is a water rights violation.

These waters support harvesting, fishing, gathering, ceremony, food sovereignty, and cultural practices protected through Aboriginal and Treaty Rights. Any authorization that may affect water quality therefore has implications extending beyond environmental regulation and into the exercise of constitutionally protected rights.

The stormwater enters the Thames River system — the same river that flows past Oneida Nation of the Thames, the same river the Green Lane Landfill sits beside. The Kettle Point Aquifer, which underlies this watershed and supplies Bkejwanong Territory's drinking water, is a federally designated vulnerable water system. No hydrogeological study has been placed on the public record. The Thames River connects to Lake St. Clair — a boundary water governed by the Boundary Waters Treaty and the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement. Further, Canada's international obligations under those agreements have not been assessed.

Baseline environmental data is not simply desirable; it is the evidentiary benchmark against which future compliance, enforcement, and remediation depend. Without pre-development baseline conditions, the Ministry cannot reliably determine whether future changes are attributable to this facility, cumulative industrial activity, or pre-existing conditions.

The proposed discharge cannot be assessed in isolation. The facility forms part of the broader Southwest Ontario Energy Hub, which includes existing and proposed industrial infrastructure throughout the watershed. No cumulative effects assessment has been provided that evaluates the combined impacts of approved and proposed projects on the Thames River system, Lake St. Clair, the Kettle Point Aquifer, or the exercise of Aboriginal and Treaty Rights within Bkejwanong Territory and our larger unceded territory of Waaweyaatenoong. Without such an assessment, the Ministry does not have an adequate evidentiary basis to determine whether additional industrial loading can occur without adverse effects. Each project has been advanced as though it exists in isolation.

The Ministry is now considering multiple industrial approvals affecting the same connected watershed, aquifer system, and downstream First Nation community. The cumulative environmental burden—not merely the impacts of this individual facility—must therefore inform the public interest analysis.
The absence of a health study is itself part of the concern as no independent health risk assessment has been completed for Oneida Nation of the Thames despite nearly two decades of community expressed exposure concerns associated with the Green Lane Landfill. The Indigenous-led health assessment sought by the community remains deferred. The absence of a completed study should not be interpreted as evidence of safety. Rather, it highlights a continuing information gap that remains unresolved while additional facilities utilizing similar technology continue to be proposed.
International Waters and Transboundary Obligations
The Thames River ultimately discharges into Lake St. Clair, an international boundary of water shared between Canada and the United States. Lake St. Clair forms part of the Great Lakes system governed by the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909 and associated binational water quality commitments. The International Joint Commission was established specifically to prevent and resolve disputes concerning waters that cross the Canada–United States border.

The proposed facility would operate within a watershed directly connected to these international waters. Any approval authorizing large-scale waste processing, associated stormwater management, leachate generation, digestate handling, or other potential pathways of contamination should be assessed in light of Canada's obligations to protect the integrity of transboundary waters.
The Thames River ultimately flows into Lake St. Clair, an international boundary of water shared by Canada and the United States. No assessment appears on the public record regarding whether cumulative impacts from this facility and associated projects within the watershed have implications for downstream Great Lakes and boundary waters.

No assessment appears on the public record evaluating whether the cumulative impacts of this facility, together with other approved and proposed projects within the Southwest Ontario Energy Hub, are consistent with Canada's obligations respecting the protection of boundary waters and the Great Lakes ecosystem.

Bill 5 — Contested Legislation Cannot Ground a Valid Approval
This approval is being processed under a regulatory framework shaped by Bill 5: Protect Ontario by Unleashing our Economy Act, 2025. Bill 5 received Royal Assent on June 5, 2025 — but it is currently being actively contested by First Nations across Ontario and Canada on constitutional grounds. Multiple First Nations are challenging Bill 5 because it removes environmental assessment requirements that would otherwise trigger mandatory consultation under section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982.

Approvals issued under contested legislation that is being challenged for violating Aboriginal and Treaty Rights are legally vulnerable. If those constitutional challenges succeed, approvals built on Bill 5's reduced framework may be unwound. The Ministry is being asked to issue an approval on a foundation that First Nations are actively challenging in court. That risk belongs on this record.

Lines of Authority — The Obligation Cannot Be Delegated Away
Municipalities have no independent constitutional status. They are creatures of provincial statute, existing only through authority delegated under section 92(8) of the Constitution Act, 1867. They carry no independent treaty obligations. When the Municipality of Chatham-Kent voted 11 to 4 against consulting Walpole Island First Nation on April 27, 2026, it was exercising delegated provincial power — and a co-proponent of this facility voted to remove the consultation requirement that stood between itself and its own approval. The Province cannot use municipal delegation to escape a federal constitutional obligation. The duty to consult flows from section 35 and the honour of the Crown. It runs from the federal Crown to Bkejwanong Territory directly. No municipal vote, no provincial approval process, and no omnibus economic legislation — including Bill 5 — can transfer, diminish, or extinguish it. The obligation has not been met.

Oneida Nation of the Thames — A Cautionary Example on the Same River
Oneida Nation of the Thames has lived adjacent to the Green Lane Landfill — an anaerobic waste processing facility using the same Renewable Natural Gas technology proposed at 175 Bloomfield Road — for nearly two decades. On a windy day, community members have described the odour as unbearable — impossible to be outside, impossible to keep windows open. Community members have publicly expressed concerns regarding elevated cancer rates and have sought an Indigenous-led environmental health assessment. Those concerns demonstrate why precaution and comprehensive baseline assessment are essential before authorizing additional waste infrastructure within the same watershed. No independent health risk assessment has been completed.

The Indigenous Value Based Environmental Health Risk Assessment the community sought to conduct was formally deferred in November 2023 and
remains deferred. This is the same river. The same technology. The same consultation failure. The same sequence:
-approval without consent
-cumulative exposure
-community health impacts and
-no remedy.

The Ministry cannot claim this outcome was unforeseeable, as it is documented, on public record, on the Thames River system. Proceeding with this approval repeats a harm that has already been named.
The Municipality of Chatham-Kent is also listed as a co-proponent of this application. The same municipality voted 11-4 against consulting Walpole Island First Nation. A co-proponent voted to remove the consultation requirement that stood between itself and its own approval. That conflict of interest is at the centre of this record. Nine hundred thousand tonnes of annual waste processing cannot be approved on a record built by a party that voted to silence the downstream Indigenous community bearing its consequences.

UNDRIP — Canada's Obligations Apply
Canada affirmed the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as binding
law through Bill C-15 in 2021. Article 19 requires consultation through our own representative
institutions before administrative measures affecting us are adopted. Article 32(2) requires
consent before projects affecting our lands and territories are approved. The 11-4 vote documents
the opposite — an affirmative refusal to consult. No UNDRIP consistency analysis has been
placed on the public record for this approval. That analysis must precede any decision.

What I Am Asking For
I am asking the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks to:
• Refuse to issue the Environmental Compliance Approval (Waste Disposal Site) for
Greenfield Global Inc. at 175 Bloomfield Road until free, prior, and informed consent has been obtained through legitimate hereditary governance of Bkejwanong Territory;

• Require an independent hydrogeological assessment evaluating potential impacts to groundwater, the Kettle Point Aquifer, and downstream water systems before any approval is granted.
• Lake St. Clair is an international boundary and Canada's transboundary obligations have not been assessed. Assess whether the proposed facility and its cumulative watershed impacts engage Canada's obligations under the Boundary Waters Treaty, the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, and other commitments relating to the protection of Lake St. Clair and downstream international waters before any approval is granted.

• Recognize that this approval is being processed under Bill 5 — legislation currently
being contested by First Nations on constitutional grounds — and that approvals issued
on this basis are legally vulnerable to being unwound;

Recognize that the Municipality of Chatham-Kent's 11-4 vote against consultation, cast
by a co-proponent of this facility, constitutes documented affirmative refusal to consult
that cannot be cured by proceeding through the provincial approval process;
Require a comprehensive cumulative effects assessment for the Southwest Ontario
Energy Hub — integrating all approved and proposed facilities in the watershed —
before any approval is granted;
• Place on the public record a UNDRIP consistency analysis demonstrating alignment with
Canada's obligations under Bill C-15;

• Consider the documented experience of Oneida Nation of the Thames as evidence of
foreseeable harm from this technology on this river system;
Suspend all three companion applications — ERO 026-0434 (air), ERO 026-0436
(sewage), and ERO 026-0437 (waste) — as a single integrated facility until these issues
are resolved.

Additional Request
Before determining this application, I ask that the Ministry require the proponent to identify and disclose all baseline environmental studies relied upon in support of the Environmental Compliance Approval, including:
-baseline groundwater quality studies;
-baseline surface water quality studies;
-hydrogeological investigations;
-cumulative effects assessments;
-groundwater flow modelling;
-watershed impact assessments; and
-environmental monitoring plans proposed to detect and respond to future impacts.

If no such studies exist, I ask that the Ministry expressly acknowledge that absence on the public record before making its decision.

The absence of baseline environmental information is itself a material consideration. Without documented pre-development conditions, neither the Ministry nor affected communities can reliably detect, attribute, or remediate future environmental impacts. A decision to approve this application without establishing those baseline conditions would significantly impair future regulatory oversight, compliance monitoring, and accountability.

If the Ministry concludes that existing studies are sufficient, those studies should be identified and made available as part of the public record so that Indigenous rights-holders, downstream communities, and other participants can meaningfully assess whether the evidentiary foundation supports the proposed approval.

A Reopened Application Does Not Cure the Deficiencies
The Ministry has reopened this proposal following amendments to the application concerning operational details. Those amendments do not address the principal concerns raised by Indigenous rights-holders:
- the absence of baseline hydrological data;
- the absence of cumulative watershed assessment;
- unresolved constitutional consultation obligations; and
- the absence of meaningful engagement with downstream Indigenous communities.

Clarifying operational details cannot cure material deficiencies in the evidentiary record upon which this approval depends.

Bkejwanong — the place where the waters divide — has never been surrendered.

The Ministry is not being asked to predict whether contamination will occur. It is being asked whether it can lawfully authorize a project without first establishing the baseline conditions necessary to detect, measure, and respond if contamination does occur.

Sincerely,
A Concerned Rights Holder of Bkejwanong and Waaweyaatenoong Unceded Anishinaabeg Territory

Supporting documents: (Schedule 1 — SCHEDULE 1: Legal Precedent and Statutory Reference)

This submission is without prejudice to any ongoing or future legal proceedings or rights assertions by Bkejwanong Territory or any rights-holder(s) of Walpole Island First Nation.