District looks at landfill options
Chelsea Powrie - May 24, 2019 - Biz Releases

Photo: Contributed

The Regional District of Okanagan Similkameen heard an update on possible composting options for its landfills Thursday, one of which is struggling with reaching its limit and another of which is working to match up to provincial regulations.

Manager of operations Andrew Reeder gave a presentation to council outlining the issues with current landfills, and highlighting the potential importance of composting.

Changes would come with a cost, but, as CAO Bill Newell pointed out, there is little time to waste.

“There is some urgency on this, in that since 2016 we’ve been in contravention of the landfill gas management regulation,” Newell said.

He was referring to the Campbell Mountain landfill, which has been exploring ways to reduce gas emissions through non-conventional methods, namely a bio-cover system.

“We put a bio-cover system on top of the landfill and that cover is effectively like a compost itself,” explained Reeder. “We would actually take some of the biosolids and our compost material and put that on top of the landfill to eat the methane that comes through the landfill.”

But that method hasn’t yet been approved by the provincial government. They mandate a $47 million landfill gas extraction system, and the RDOS has applied to prove their system works just as well, but haven’t yet heard back.

In the meantime, the board decided to deal with the pressing problem of the almost-full Oliver landfill, attempting to address the issue by applying for a $1.2 million grant through the B.C. Organics Infrastructure Program.

“The need for Oliver has increased quite substantively, over the last little while, in terms of agricultural waste,” Reeder said. “What’s happened in Oliver is the feedlot closed next door and we’re seeing quite a bit of materials that we typically haven’t seen in our agricultural group.”

Reeder explained that compost programs have been shown to work in communities as large as Vancouver and as small as Grand Forks, which has recently managed to cut its garbage down to significantly less than its compostable waste materials.

The board passed the motion supporting an application for the grant, with a further $400,000 from the Oliver Landfill Reserves, contingent on the grant being approved.


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