Often unnoticed, overlooked and presumed innocuous soils are actually surprisingly important. Soils may have a substantial impact on your project; be it construction, remediation or improvement of existing property. As such it is important to understand the laws, regulations and nuances of managing excess soils or bringing soils to a site for use.

The Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change (MOECC) has a series of best practices for the management of excess soils generated by construction projects which can be found here. The MOECC suggests wherever possible to reuse soils excavated at the site – for instance as landscaping, berms, or for re-grading – to minimize the amount of waste. If not reused at the site of excavation or another commercial fill site, excess soils are considered waste products and are subject to Environmental Compliance Approval (ECA) terms and conditions for disposal. This of course may be costly and logistically difficult if there are large volumes of soil to be disposed of. Re-use or sale of excess soil is far more beneficial to your project, however, the quality of the soil must be assessed prior to removal.

If your project is on the other side – in that it requires soils for re-grading, a commercial fill etc. – it is most likely worth seeking to use excess soils from a construction project’s excavation. This avoids the higher costs of purchasing soils from natural or virgin sources and transporting them potentially much longer distances and mitigating the associated environmental impacts.

Regardless of whether you intend to re-use, export or import soils for your project, the MOECC requires that the soils are analyzed and characterized by a Qualified Person – a professional geoscientist or professional engineer.  Cambium is an excess soils leader with many MOECC certified Qualified Persons that would be happy to assist you. See here for more information and please give us a call at 866-217-7900 if you have any questions.