The city is opposing a bid to send about 1,000 tonnes of PCB-contaminated sediment to Newalta's Taro industrial dump in Stoney Creek.

A recent motion unanimously passed by council "strenuously objects" to letting the site accept any PCB waste from a creek cleanup project near a Thorold paper mill "regardless of volumes and concentration."

The cleanup's U.S. contractor is applying to send sediments with PCB concentrations of less than 50 parts per million to Taro. Taro is licensed to receive waste with concentration levels below that threshold.

Waste with higher PCB levels would go to two Quebec hazardous dumps, according the contractor's application for a project licence from the Ministry of the Environment.

But Stoney Creek Councillor Brad Clark said even if Taro can legally accept PCB wastes, he's worried doing so will hurt the value of area homes and those in the future Nash neighbourhood survey, planned on land to the north of the dump.

"The general public, the people who are buying homes, they only see 'PCB,'" he said. "They don't see that it's below a certain parameter or it's not a heavy concentration."

Commonly used as a coolant in electrical transformers, PCB -- polychlorinated biphenyl -- was banned in Canada in 1977 after studies found it was harmful to humans and toxic to some aquatic species. It is also suspected of disrupting endocrine systems.

Mr. Clark said apart from "splitting hairs" on the difference between hazardous and non-hazardous levels, accepting the PCB waste violates assurances to residents that Taro wouldn't do so prior to its approval without public hearings in 1996.

Since then, the site has accepted a variety of controversial wastes, including 75,000 tonnes of PCB contaminated soil from the former Rennie Street dump.

"No one up here ever expected PCBs to be dumped in this landfill, ever," Mr. Clark said.

"This is not a landfill that's way out in the country, away from folks. This is a landfill that's in a residential community. They shouldn't be receiving any PCBs and clearly it has to be a political decision by the government to stop it."

Michael Jovanovic, regional manager for Taro's owner, Newalta Industrial Services Inc., said last month that any sediment accepted at the dump will first be mixed with a drying agent like lyme or calcium to solidify it.

"There are strict protocols when it comes to this material," he said. "Despite having trace contaminants of the PCB material, it is non-hazardous material nonetheless."

The Thorold cleanup project is expected to remove about 3,200 tonnes of PCB-laced sediment from a stretch of Beaverdams Creek by the Welland Canal.

A two-year study initiated by the ministry in 2003 identified a former spill pond at the Georgia Pacific paper mill on Allanport Road as the contamination source.

Rick Day, project coordinator for the ministry, said provincial and federal approvals are still required, but he hopes work will proceed this summer and fall.