MOOSE JAW — City manager Maryse Carmichael says the City of Moose Jaw’s landfill replacement project will “absolutely” be moving forward this year, even though an alternative location has not yet been announced.
“As we brief (city) council and residents, we are at a critical state with the landfill (because) we are at capacity,” Carmichael said after the Feb. 24 regular council meeting concluded. “We are actually going over capacity now. So we’re planning ahead to go forward (with the initiative).
“There’s a report that will be coming to council in the next few weeks on the overall status,” she continued, “because of course, we have new members on council and we’ll brief them thoroughly on the project and then we’ll keep forward.”
Asked whether the city would buy land or start the construction project this year, Carmichael replied, “We will continue absolutely this year (with) moving forward,” and noted that construction would likely begin in 2026.
Three pieces of information about the landfill popped up during the recent council meeting, with two items in the fourth-quarter departmental reports and one item in the investment committee minutes.
In the city manager departmental update, it was noted that Carmichael had held engagement sessions with stakeholders about the proposed solid waste management venue.
In the engineering services update, that branch conducted a fall survey of the current landfill and planned to finalize an updated report during Q1 2025. The branch also finalized a comprehensive landfill assessment report during the final months of 2024.
Asked about the stakeholder meetings, Carmichael explained she met with the four rural municipalities around the City of Moose Jaw to update them about the initiative.
“They welcomed the opportunity to come talk to the city. That’s not something that happens very often, so they were grateful we were sharing information on the future of the landfill … ,” she said. “We wanted to tell them that information (about capacity) and (that) we will potentially have to put restrictions on the landfill in the next few years.”
The city manager pointed out that council approved changes to the landfill’s operations during the 2025 budget discussion, so administration “thought it was prudent” to inform the area RMs. With a laugh, she added that “strangely enough,” the rural municipalities did not offer the city any poor agricultural land on which to build the new venue.
Asked about the investment money, Carmichael said city hall is planning to pull out that money but had not yet finalized that action. She also indicated that money that had been set aside for the landfill replacement project and had been previously approved was still available in a carry-forward capital account.
According to the 2025 budget document, there was $5,440,000 in carry-forward money and $40,000 in committed money from last year that will be used for the project.
“The monies previously accumulated in reserves and the revenues generated from utility charges over the next five years (that will total $31,951,440 are) expected to be sufficient to fund the utility’s planned financial commitment for a new landfill,” the document said.
The 2024 budget document indicated that the estimated project cost is $26 million, which includes “retirement” of the current landfill site.
The next regular council meeting is Monday, March 10.
