Elected officials and senior staff members of local governments were given a tour of the cleanup of the former waste transfer/incinerator site, which will become the region’s resource-recovery centre.
On June 9, qathet Regional District chair Patrick Brabazon, Tla’amin Nation hegus Clint Williams and City of Powell River councillor CaroleAnn Leishman, the Let’s Talk Trash team and city and regional district staff members walked the site to see work done on the first phase of the project, which will become the venue for dealing with the region’s solid waste.
Mike Wall, regional district manager of asset management and strategic initiatives, led the tour and explained various initiatives that had taken place in the site cleanup during the walkaround. In an interview, Wall said it was good to have city representation on the tour so they could see what has been cleaned up and some of the possibilities at the site for community use, over and above the solid waste function.
“As well, at the solid waste side, we were able to have a good look and start to understand where the solid waste facilities will go, from the EPR [extended producer responsibility] building, which will be free recycling, and then a scale shack into the pay side for further recycling,” said Wall. “It was good for all of our leadership and those involved just to have a good look at the split of the two sides.”
The first phase of the project, which has recently been completed and came in under budget, cleaned up the site, and also identified and processed materials onsite that can be reused in the second and third phases.
Wall said phase two is going to be the actual landfill closure. He said there will be one landfill cell covered with a special geomembrane, and then a ballast layer and a soil layer. He said those will involve all materials that were not reusable onsite.
“We did not want to go into exporting them to a landfill somewhere,” said Wall. “We’ve taken care of our own garbage, so to speak, onsite. We have approval from the ministry of environment for that. That will be the primary component of the next phase as well as some other controls in construction that are in anticipation of the third phase, which will be the buildout.”
Wall said the regional district is hoping to go to contract for phase two at the end of June and it’s hoped that work will start in August of 2020. It’s anticipated that the second phase will be wrapped up by November of this year, the landfill closure piece.
Wall said for phase three, the building out of facilities, the regional district wants that to be happening in 2021.
“In February 2021 we should be close to selecting a successful proponent and be actively building the facility in 2021,” said Wall. “If all goes well, we’ll be commissioning the facility in the spring of 2022.”
He said architecture for the resource-recovery facilities is being worked on now, and hopefully in July, that tender will be out.
“We have a lot of draft design features already collected that we’ll include in that tendering process,” said Wall. “People bidding will have an idea of what the community wants. These draft design ideas come from our extensive community consultation and engagement over the years. We’ve included all of those ideas from the community and then the design architects will take a look and understand what vision we have and get to a detailed design for us.”
Wall said he was extremely happy with the results of the first phase.
“We are approximately $80,000 to $100,000 under budget in the first phase, as well as finishing up a week early, so hopefully phase two and three go nearly as well,” said Wall. “The other part that is really exciting and positive for the project is we have three local governments engaged and they all seem to be happy with the project and what we see as the project’s outcome. They are important partners.”
Brabazon said he thinks it is going to be a marvellous project and he is pleased with the available size of the site and possibilities of what can be done with it.
“The public is going to love it,” he added.
Williams said the work looks great.
“The amount of work that has been done here looks fabulous,” added Williams. “This project is one that is really needed here and I’m glad to see the work happening. Everyone will appreciate this once it’s here.
“The cleanup is a major challenge. I’m glad to see it and I’m looking forward to seeing the facility when it’s fully up and running.”
Leishman, chair of the city’s climate change mitigation and adaptation committee, said transformation of the site in the first phase is incredible.
“Phase one is basically done and we can start building on that,” she said. “It is helping us head toward our zero-waste goal. Waste disposal is a huge carbon emitter, is a huge cost to taxpayers and a huge cost to the planet.
“Powell River doesn’t have landfill so we take all of our solid waste and our garbage to Washington State, which is more than 700 kilometres one way. We want to start cutting down on how much we ship.”
Leishman said the new resource-recovery centre, when fully operational, should cut down on the waste stream considerably.
According to the regional district website, closure of the Marine Avenue old incinerator site and buildout of a state-of-the-art resource-recovery centre and transfer station are key components in the region’s solid waste management plan. The centre and station will facilitate a one-stop drop that will bring the region closer to zero waste, according to the website.
Phase one of the construction process was carried out by Tervita Corporation, a company that specializes in energy and environmental waste services. It was engaged to perform site preparation work, which includes the initial site cleanup and the sorting and processing of materials stockpiled at the site, such as tires, glass, asphalt and wood waste.
The following video from qathet Regional District includes commentary from Wall and regional district Let's Talk Trash Team member Tai Uhlmann.
