An artist's rendition of the new Costco warehouse store under construction in Kelowna.
Image Credit: SUBMITTED/City of Kelowna
June 23, 2021 - 10:09 AM
A mobile rock crusher will be moving onto the construction site for the new Costco store in Kelowna.
City council voted 7-2 to approve a temporary use permit for the crushing operation at its meeting last night, June 22.
“From an environmental perspective, from wear and tear on our roads – this isn’t the same kind of traffic as cars going in and out to Costco, these are tandem dump trucks – I just don’t understand the logic of why we would haul material on our roads to another site and bring it all back,” Coun. Gail Given said in support of the permit.
Costco is building on land bounded by Leckie, Springfield and Baron Roads and wants to crush larger rocks that are already on site to be used as fill material. The alternative would be to haul the material to West Kelowna or Lake Country to be crushed and hauled back, something that would require an estimated 320 tandem dump truck trips.
Neighbours had raised concerns about dust and damage to their homes by vibrations from the rock crusher.
Brian Menzies, the project manager on the site, told council that water will be added during the crushing operation to minimize dust.
The crusher is relatively small, about the size of a dump truck, he said, and is not expected to cause vibrations. It will be set up near the centre of the site in order to be as far away from neighbouring homes as possible.
He will also look into ways of decreasing the amount of dust already being generated on the site.
While the permit is for three months, plans are to crush rock for only 21 days, between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m., Mondays to Fridays. Menzies said he’s confident he can do the work in 21 days or less because there are fewer large rocks on site than anticipated.
A number of councillors called on him to consider shortening the operation window to 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Councillors Loyal Wooldridge and Charlie Hodge voted against the rock crushing operation.
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