City of Kamloops could spend $10 million to buy Owl Road landfill | iNFOnews | Thompson-Okanagan's News Source
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Kamloops News

City of Kamloops could spend $10 million to buy Owl Road landfill

KAMLOOPS – The City of Kamloops is looking to spend $10 million to acquire the Owl Road landfill and convert it into a resource recovery centre to dispose of construction and demolition waste.

The landfill is currently valued at $6.3 million. Creating the centre and an additional Public Works and Utilities satellite yard has an estimated cost of $3.7 million, so city staff has asked council to approve a loan authorization bylaw of $10 million.

The $10 million could be funded though debt and the debt served by landfill tipping fees. A tipping or gate fee is applied to waste dropped at a landfill, usually tabulated by quantity, according to a report going to council tomorrow, June 23.

A resource recovery centre would divert a significant amount of waste from the Mission Flats landfill which would prolong its life until 2052, the report says. The City will be closer to achieving its Sustainable Kamloops Plan goal of reducing solid waste landfilled to 0.3 tonnes per capita. The new recovery centre would increase landfill diversion to approximately 50 per cent by 2018.

Building a satellite yard for the public works department could help the City provide more effective snow removal, street sweeping and park maintenance.

The City has long talked about purchasing the facility. First approaching owner Valleyview Enterprises in 2008, the two parties couldn’t agree on a value. In 2012, staff presented council a report about acquiring the landfill to which council gave directive to keep negotiating with Valleyview.

The Ministry of the Environment has been working with the landfill to address certain issues, including burying waste gypsum and improvements to the dust control program. The ministry has said, however, the landfill poses little environmental risk.

If approved, the Owl Road landfill procurement will be completed by December 15, 2015.

City council will have a look at the staff report at their meeting tomorrow, June 23.

To contact a reporter for this story, email Dana Reynolds at dreynolds@infonews.ca or call 250-819-6089. To contact an editor, email mjones@infonews.ca or call 250-718-2724.

News from © iNFOnews, 2015
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