City administration is thrilled that it has finally found a location for a new landfill, a venue that is expected to meet the area’s needs for at least 75 years.
“This is a great milestone for administration and is a report I’ve long been anticipating to bring to council,” Bevan Harlton, director of operations, said during the recent city council meeting.
City hall has worked on this project with GHD, a solid waste company, and Associated Engineering since 2022, along with a large team of in-house planners, he continued. Furthermore, the city signed a land management services agreement with Scott Land in September 2022, who facilitated the land purchase.
The 156.09 hectares (390.23 acres) of land is 1.6 kilometres north and west of Highway 1 and Highway 2, respectively, in the Rural Municipality of Moose Jaw. Trees and shrubs will provide a 100-metre buffer around the proposed dump, equalling roughly 43.6 hectares (109 acres).
As part of the selection process, the team searched for suitable property within a two-kilometre, five-kilometre and nine-kilometre radius around Moose Jaw and prioritized four locations — including the preferred site — within two kilometres, said Harlton.
“Our work with Scott Land — in an effort to protect the city’s bottom line — was kept confidential. Scott Land worked with city administration on appraisals and approaching land owners with this opportunity,” he continued. “But that was strictly a confidential process … .”
However, that limited the city’s ability to discuss the project with the RM. Even though city hall spoke to the rural municipality throughout the year, the main work of land selection was kept confidential.
The city met with the RM in late October to discuss the preferred site and had a productive meeting, which allowed the rural council to put forward its concerns and those of area landowners, said Harlton.
After finalizing the agreement with the RM, the city’s planning team reached out to the affected landowner and his family to inform them that Moose Jaw was purchasing this land. The team then sent out letters to neighbours within a 1.6-kilometre radius of the site.
The city and RM will hold an open house in January for rural stakeholders, while it’s unlikely that city hall will hold one for city residents — although that could change, said Harlton.
“We need to be forthright and open about what the facility will look like and honour the rural municipality’s discretionary use process,” he stated.
Stakeholder engagement sessions are required as part of this process, not just to fulfill the discretionary use application but also to meet GHD’s project requirements, the operations director said. This project has been on hold “for some time” because of the need for public sessions.
Harlton added that the city’s website will contain a page dedicated to this project.
Council discussion
Looking for a new landfill site is “complex” and took a while because of those requirements the city must fulfill, said Coun. Crystal Froese. She noted that landfill management had changed dramatically over the past 100 years, which was good news for everyone.
“This is a 100-year landfill. It’s another one of those infrastructural generational renewal programs we’ve been tasked with here,” she stated.
A new dump will allow the municipality to modernize how it handles solid waste while it can look to other cities for other innovative approaches, Froese continued. This is also an opportunity for Moose Jaw to be a leader since Saskatchewan has done poorly in managing refuse.
Coun. Kim Robinson said he received many phone calls about how city hall had selected this location and how it had communicated this to area residents. He then wondered if there were still Ministry of Environment-related requirements that had to be completed.
The city must acquire a construction permit to show that it has fulfilled those requirements, although one document that should address most people’s concerns is the permit to operate since that will dictate how the municipality operates the new dump, said Harlton.
Harlton added that the project is still within the expected budget of $22 million, while it would cost roughly $10 million to decommission the current venue.
When asked what was wrong with the land in the southeast that the city owns, Harlton said that it is a flyover area for 15 Wing and is a buffer — or “no-go” — zone. Meanwhile, the city couldn’t develop the landfill near the municipal airport because of a five- to eight-kilometre buffer near there.
Robinson wondered if city hall had considered privatizing the new landfill since he discovered that 67 per cent of dumps across North America are privately owned. Harlton replied no since the utility generates revenues for the municipality.
The next regular council meeting is Monday, Jan. 15, 2024.
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