The Yorkton Landfill may soon have a couple of major new customers.
Michael Buchholzer, the City's director of environmental services, confirmed last week reports that the towns of Churchbridge and Langenburg are looking at shipping their garbage to Yorkton.
He said the City is working out a contract with the two towns, which have concluded new environmental regulations being drafted by the province make maintaining their own nuisance grounds untenable.
"It's getting more costly to run the landfill," said Jim Gallant, Mayor of Churchbridge, according to a CJME Radio. "There's no money for assisting towns to run landfills so every time the [ministry of] Environment comes up with a new set of rules it costs more. So we crunched the numbers and it's basically [we] break even by having our dump shut down and getting our garbage hauled to a different landfill."
Of course, the new regulations also have an impact on Yorkton's operation, which prompted the City to announce this past spring rate hikes for the next three years to accommodate the expansion of the dump to a new pit in 2015.
New pits must include a liner, a leachate collection system, lift station, and a leachate holding or treatment cell. At a council meeting in May, Buchholzer cited a Stantec Engineering report that calculated the break-even point for the new pit at $65 per tonne over the landfill's expected 40-year lifespan.
Buchholzer quickly allayed fears about the impact deals with Churchbridge and Langenburg might have.
"The department's commitment is towards the citizens and businesses of Yorkton," he said.
The department has crunched the numbers and Buchholzer said, based on the tonnages supplied by the two towns, they represent only about a four per cent increase in volume.
"Four per cent doesn't mean a lot," he said. "The key thing is making sure you're charging enough to pay for the next expansion."
Customers outside the city pay approximately double the tipping fee. The contracts also will come with conditions. For example, other towns must prove they have a recycling program in place and if they do send recyclables to the Yorkton landfill, the city be able to double or even triple the fee.
In addition, Buchholzer said, Yorkton is looking at other strategies to extend the lifespan of the dump including waste reduction, reuse of materials deposited at the landfill, incorporating recycled material into the construction of the new pit and evaluating waste-to-energy technologies.
"With these added costs and stricter environmental regulations for establishing new landfills, communities need to change their attitude towards the handling of solid waste," he said.
The department is also looking at acquiring a new compactor within the next year, but Buchholzer doesn't know at this time what the impact of better compaction will be.
Yorkton-based Ottenbreit Sanitation Services is currently negotiating with Churchbridge and Langenburg to provide the hauling service.
