***Original published in South Mountain Press, August 3, 2018***
Stormy Start to Four Winds Waste and Recycling Public Sessions
Call a municipal meeting to announce the building of a new school or hospital and councilors would be greeted with cheers and praise. But make a general announcement that your regional representatives are planning an oversize garbage landfill and the reception can be less then cordial especially from the people in the immediate neighborhood.
On Friday, July 27, representatives from the Municipalities of Harrison Park and Clanwilliam-Erickson, Rolling River First Nation, and The Centre for Indigenous Environmental Resources (CIER) held Open House sessions in the communities of Newdale and Sandy Lake regarding the proposed Four Winds Regional Solid Waste and Recycling Facility. The information meetings were meant as a forum for the region’s residents to voice their queries and concerns directly to committee members involved with the project.
Discussions over the new waste facility turned out to be a contentious issue and the sessions were well attended. Newdale’s Drop-In Center was full with close to 50 people present and Sandy Lake’s Community Center had about 70 interested residents for the afternoon session.
Lloyd Ewashko, Reeve of Harrison Park Municipality, took the lead to describe where the two year effort to create the new Class 2 Waste facility was at and the proposed direction it was headed in.
It had already been identified long ago that the region’s waste management was going to become an issue. Pending provincial legislation and the fact that all of the region’s smaller landfills were approaching the end of their lifespans dictated that planning needed to start. To that end, starting about four years ago, a partnership was explored and created between Band and Municipal councils. Then when the Federal government announced their 2016 budget, the innovative Native/Municipal partnership was already poised to take advantage of monies available via Indigenous Services Canada (ISC). A ballpark figure of $6 million is earmarked to be used to cover the capital costs and other related expenses of the Four Winds project.
The process started moving forward in earnest mid-2016 after Neegan Burnside Ltd., an Engineering and Environmental consulting company, was hired to provide a Feasibility study to identify suitable locations within the region. Five sites were identified as possible locations. The owners of the parcels of land were approached and two sites became available for water flow testing. Then after contracting a realtor to negotiate the terms of sale, the selection was narrowed down to a parcel of land known as NW ¼ 4-17-20 (the South East corner of property adjacent to PTH 250 and Montcalm Road).
During a June 8, 2018 Harrison Park Special Meeting of Council, an evenly combined deposit from the two involved Municipalities of $50,000 was put down on the agreement to buy the land for $500,000.
The projected timeline for the Waste Facility to be online is still a year or two away as there are several steps to be completed. Some of the major hurdles yet to be cleared include an environmental licensing process through the Province, the development of a business plan to run the facility, and the creation of a final facility design.
As Reeve Ewashko pointed out, this project will create significant benefits to the region. The immediate advantage will be that the region’s population of about 4000 will have a state of the art facility with a 5000 ton/year waste reception capacity. Presently, the region generates between 3300-3500 tons of waste per year. The injection of ISC money will create construction jobs and later a projected 5 to 6 employment positions for Facility staff. All of the existing smaller waste facilities will be converted to Transfer stations thus spinning out their lifespans. Costs to shut down those sites have already been estimated at $1 million each. The modern facility will be more efficient then present sites and will allow for technology innovations such as gasification or incineration once or if those technologies become viable.
Also, as pointed out by Don Huisman, a Councillor for Erickson, the economy of scale of the facility will allow the region to move towards its goal of a 60% diversion rate. Quantities of compostable, recyclable, and reusable waste that have been filling the existing landfills will be able to be diverted due to scalability at the larger facility. As an example, mattresses are recyclable but without a proper storage facility or quantity, it was not feasible to have a truck from Winnipeg to come out for a regional pickup.
At only a 3% rate, the region is woefully behind the 17% recycling provincial average. As Councillor Huisman described, an ongoing Erickson pilot project regarding compostable materials has determined that each household is generating 12 pounds of ‘waste’ per week. For the entire town, that would work out to 60 tons per year that could be kept out of the landfill and put to better use.
As can be imagined, there were significant public concerns over the project and its management to date. Generally, it would be hard to find someone who at first would be enthusiastic to learn that a 30 to 40 acre ‘dump’ was going to be built nearby. So even though it was recognized that something needed to be done reference the region’s future waste management, the main question was why exactly was this site chosen and already negotiated to be purchased?
As Reeve Ewashko explained, the Management Committee relied heavily on the Neegan Burnside report to identify potential sites and as the process continued this parcel of land came out as the leading candidate. Then in order to move forward with the Province’s environmental licensing process, the land needed to be in the possession of the Municipalities.
The Reeve understood the environmental concerns of the residents such as the proximity of the Little Saskatchewan River and reassured the public that the land still had to pass a strict environmental licensing process and the facility would be built to proper environmental standards.
Another main complaint from those present was the scarcity of information regarding this potentially hot button issue considering it has been in the works for a number of years. The Committee took it under advisement that they could have done a better job communicating to the local residents regarding the project and took suggestions on moving forward.
Lastly, a group of concerned citizens delivered to Reeve Ewashko a written demand that the final sale of the parcel of land be conditional on successfully passing the environmental licensing process. They were adamant that the Municipality should not be on the hook for their $250,000 share of a chunk of land that could end up being unsuitable as a landfill site. The Reeve explained that unfortunately due to the licensing process potentially being a lengthy procedure, such a clause would be unworkable.
The next occasion for the public to voice their concerns and queries on the proposed Four Winds Waste and Recycling Facility will be on the 13, 14, and 15th of August when the Management Committee and the Neegan Burnside engineer will be available for questioning. Those times and locations will be publicly announced shortly and will address specific technical concerns that the Committee was not able to answer during the Open House sessions.
Blair is a personification of a ‘Jack of All Trades and Master of None’. He has held several careers and has all the T-shirts. Time to add the title Blogger to the list.