By Brian Lee
It’s clear people look to our local government for guidance on issues like the P. H. landfill.But from the first presentation in June, there was a whiff of an agenda in the air. The SCRD board and staff made subtle efforts to convince residents that maintaining a transfer station was the best option. It might have worked too, if it wasn’t so glaringly obvious that they were leaving stuff out.
One of the top local buzzwords of 2009, "leachate" was allowed to become the battle cry of the hysterical. From the start, the presentations could have emphatically declared that there is no evidence of environmental hazard associated with leachate at the Pender Harbour landfill. The 2008 Sperling Hansen report clearly states: "A review of the existing leachate treatment system, comprised of surface water diversion ditching, leachate collection piping and a leachate treatment wetland concluded that the system was functioning well."
If our local government wanted to, they might have pointed to another detail: "Overall the system should be able to cope with the western expansion and continue treating leachate at the present standard." They also could have directed staff to investigate funding models that would ensure a landfill expansion could be adequately paid for through grants or reallocations to the budget. Instead, if Area A wants to maintain local control of waste, it’s been threatened we’re on our own.
Time was spent extolling the virtues of a gas recovery system in Sechelt with claimed benefits that would offset any GHG emissions caused by more garbage trucks on the highway. But information might also have been presented regarding the significant health and environmental hazards caused by diesel particulates. But none came.
When asked, the manager for infrastructure services just said, "That’s an air-quality issue and we haven’t addressed that through our analysis." If the board were so inclined, they might have also welcomed an opportunity to push for an innovative plan to reduce landfilling by recovering material before it gets buried.
Instead, it’s been recommended that garbage be compacted to make trucking it to Sechelt more efficient. Once compacted, there is no other option but to landfill it.
There has been no public mention of the SCRD’s recent spanking by the province for a number of issues (including leachate management) at the Sechelt dump. It’s but one of many on a long list of problems at the site but none of these details ever made it into the public presentations because, one would assume, it might deter folks from supporting the plan to consolidate waste in Sechelt.
Not only does a regional government’s attempt to encourage the outcome of a public process raise ethical concerns but, in this case, it calls into question the collective wisdom behind their motives. Even if, through trucking or resource recovery, our landfill never sees another piece of garbage, the SCRD board should see it as a vital long-term back up for the mess they’re trying to clean up in Sechelt.
And if that’s not enough, they should respect that it’s what the majority of Area A ― and many others on the Sunshine Coast ― want.
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