The Regional District of Mount Waddington will be renewing its contract with Tervita for five years.
According to Manager of Operations Patrick Donaghy, Seven Mile Landfill has a deficit of soil for covering garbage over its lifetime and accepting material from Tervita keeps a source of soil coming in. “If we don’t have soils coming in, eventually we’ll have to truck it in” a process that is very expensive, Donaghy said.
Tervita pays the RDMW $7 per tonne or $14 per tonne if the soil needs to be held and set aside before being placed with the stockpiles.
“Usually this is because the soil has excess hydrocarbons which usually takes about a year to be released,” said Donaghy.
“We can only take contaminated soils, not hazardous ones.”
Contaminated soils are soils with heightened levels of metals or hydrocarbons, but not so high as to be considered hazardous waste.
Limiting the contaminated soils brought to the landfill to one company ensures that “if ever we have a problem it’s up to Tervita to manage it,” he said.
Since the Regional District has had its contract in place with Tervita “we have only once source of responsibility. If we ever did have a problem we know who to go to,” said Donaghy.
“If we had multiple origins for the soils, everyone can say ‘it’s not me’. It’s a high degree of protection for us,” he said.
Tervita provides the Regional District with information on where the soil comes from and laboratory reports.
RDMW policy is that Seven Mile will always accept contaminated soil coming from within the regional district boundaries. Seven Mile will consider taking soil from outside of the RDMW on a case-by-case basis if it is considered beneficial to operations, said Donaghy.
Donaghy also reported that about 1,000 tonnes of bricks from the demolished St. Michael’s Residential School were delivered to the landfill.
The landfill collected $7 per tonne and the material will be a benefit for future operations.