The Township heard a presentation from Steve Hodson of Environmental Services about the Townships Landfill overview, regarding “capacity questions”
He thanked Lane Cleroux for putting together the powerpoint for the Township.
He said that the Cobden landfill was closed in 2004 permanently and has ceased to receive waste, and that the township has purchased landwater rights as the landwater flows to the adjacent lands.
He said that the Westmeath landfill was “filled to capacity, no doubt about that.” and that they monitor surface water indefinitely and was closed in 2006.
“Part of the idea as part of amalgamation was to close the Ross site, and focus all the waste to the Westmeath site, as we knew that it was getting close.” he said. “Once it was filled to capacity we would redirect to the Ross site.”
The Ross Landfill site at 990 Kohlsmith Road is still open, and they dug a trench and looked for approval to move into ‘phase 2’ in 2012 to build a ‘waste mound’ up to a ‘couple hundred cubic metres capacity’ after they resumed operation in 2006.
He said that the township bought 36 acres to and 49 acres to the northeast, and that the second phase began in 2013.
“We started looking into that 336k cubic foot mound.” he said, saying they had likely 23 years left of operation time left for the land.
“Is it highly accurate? I would say no. But it tells us what we need to know.” he said. “We do have an operation to look at potential capacity”
He said they were seeing “evidence of leechate” and that future capacity would be heavily determined by groundwater monitoring.
“We might want to, in good faith, drill a few new wells in our CAZ.” he said.
He ended with the charges, with included a tipping fee of $95 per tonne with a minimum charge of $20.
Councillor McLaughlin asked if there was a plan to allow people to bring ashes to the landfill without a fee, fearing an increase in fire instances. “I don’t see the little bit of revenue that’s coming in, if there’s a fire that all goes away.”
“Because before we had scales, it was very difficult to measure per cubic metres a pail of ashes. Now with scales, it’s very easy. It takes up landfill space, I can weight it now, so I charge for it.”
Councillor Mackay said he had received no complained since the scales were put in.
Steven Hodson did give a warning to farmers: “Don’t come to the site with your manure spreaders anymore, they won’t fit on the scale.”
“Maybe the tipping fee revenue is lower because.”
Mayor Moore asked if there was a notice of motion for pickup of ashes, and CAO Trembley said it was ‘not in the list of no charge item’ and would require a public meeting to change the ashes fees.
Councillor Olmstead said he has also heard “very little complaints” on the scales.
“Where I used to hear five a day, I hear two from contractors about shingles and weight, and my advice to them is to upchange.” he said.
Olmstead asked if the curbside pickup contractor, Miller, were subject to the public charges.
Hodson said that they weight the curbside loads, but don’t charge.
He did say that he would encouraged the public to separate their garbage to prevent metal and plastic from being deposited.
“We have the ability to charge double, if they don’t sort.” he said. “We are starting to use that, and we’ve used that a couple of times.
Reeve Regier said “I have to tell you they are very professional. I saw one of the guy stopping to pick up some garbage that had blown off. They’re not always pleasant conditions that they are working off of.”
Councillor Nicholson asked about any other sites out of the area, but Hodson he was not aware of any other sites on municipal property.
