Annapolis County pleads guilty to waste facility charges

The Municipality of Annapolis County in southwest Nova Scotia has pleaded guilty to two charges laid by the province's Department of Environment in March 2020.

The charges stem from the construction of a waste transfer station in West Paradise. The municipality opened the facility after a dispute with Valley Waste, the regional waste management authority.

The department said Annapolis was operating the West Paradise site without the proper approvals and had ignored a stop-work order. A new municipal council was elected in October 2020.

"Once the new council came in we began taking steps to resolve our differences with the other municipal units and Valley Waste and we closed down the West Paradise transfer station," said Warden Alan Parish.

Annapolis County officials then contacted the prosecutor's office to negotiate a guilty plea, which was approved by the court on Wednesday.

The municipality is being fined $100 and has also agreed to donate $10,000 to a local environment group. It also has to remediate or find an alternative use for the West Paradise site that is approved by the Environment Department.

"There is a possibility it could be used as a construction and demolition waste site," said Parish. "Or maybe somebody else has some other idea, at this point we just don't know."

The former county council paid $500,000 for the West Paradise property.