The city of Hamilton’s December 31st deadline to clean up billions of litres of toxic sediment remains in jeopardy again today.

The city says its contractor is halting dredging operations after members of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy interrupted the work site last week saying they were exercising treaty rights. The city says this has happened 36 times since August.

The city of Hamilton says its contractor notified them late yesterday that they will not continue with the project unless uninterrupted and unimpeded access at the work site is available.

Hamilton’s water division tells CHCH News its contractor stated, “this is due to safety concerns resulting from the continued attendance at the site by Haudenosaunee Development Institute (HDI) representatives that are interrupting the work, as well as dangerous and intimidating behaviour from the representatives.”

City hall adds the cleanup process involves Indigenous environmental monitoring on the job with four First Nations groups, one of which is the Haudenosaunee.

Aaron Detlor represents the Haudenosaunee Development Institute and claims the city told him it was not obligated to engage. City hall says the dispute with the Haudenosaunee Confederacy is over money for consultation.

“I completely dispute the city’s position that they’ve taken meaningful engagement and or consultation, all they’ve done is sent us a bunch of documents which in anyone’s estimation not meaningful engagement,” Detlor said.

Detlor says the cost of the engagement process and report reviews are too low.

CHCH News obtained a letter Detlor sent to city staff, “you have offered $7,000 which does not even cover the photocopying costs associated with sharing the subject materials with our nations.”

The city has said Detlor asked for $350,000 but Detlor says he simply budgeted what it costs to engage.

“That $350,000 represents the review of the documents, consultation with thousands of Haudenosaunee members, communications with the city, and our monitoring process,” Detlor said.

City staff says the work stoppage is costing the city $15,000 a day. Next week they will meet with the contractor to discuss the next steps and they say work could potentially resume as early as mid-next week.

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