Brian Lee
Note: This is an updated version of an editorial that appeared in the print version of the April issue. It corrects an omission of an SCRD board member (Darren Inkster) who also took part in the landfill closure debate in 2010. The editor regrets this error and a correction will appear in the May 2018 issue.
Last month the SCRD announced that the Coast’s only landfill in Sechelt has a shorter life span than previously thought — less than 10 years. CAO Janette Loveys’ Feb. 22 report should serve as a starting point for her staff and the SCRD board to set out on a search for a solution. That will include locating a site to build a new landfill — not an easy task.
It’s ironic then, that in 2010, the SCRD board forced the closure of a perfectly good landfill in Kleindale, one their consultant’s report predicted had at least 60 years of further viability. Of the current SCRD board, only Area B’s Garry Nohr and Area E’s Lorne Lewis took part in the debate that makes their current Chapman Lake water scrap seem cordial.
In 2008, the SCRD was forced to deal with the end of its current phase of landfilling at the Pender Harbour site. The resulting Sperling Hansen report provided options for the landfill’s expansion of 16 and 29 years. Naturally, the consultants also weighed options for closing the landfill and maintaining a transfer station (to truck our garbage 50 kilometres to Sechelt), resulting in an eight- to 13-per cent cost savings by doing so. Despite an SCRD staff report estimate that the Sechelt landfill had only 20 years capacity left, from the first meeting I attended, it was clear six directors from the south favoured snuffing our landfill.
At the time, Nohr and Lewis were joined on the board by Area A’s Eric Graham, Sechelt Mayor Darren Inkster, Area F’s Lee Turnbull, Gibsons’ Mayor Barry Janyk and Roberts Creek’s Donna Shugar.
Oh, the cost. And what about the danger to the environment?
I wrote in an editorial that "leachate" had become the battle cry of the hysterical after opponents made false claims that the landfill could be "leaching into our watershed" of Garden Bay Lake. That assertion was refuted by the granite presence of Mt. Daniel, a Nov. 2009 SCRD staff report and the 2008 Sperling Hansen report itself:
"Overall the system should be able to cope with the western expansion and continue treating leachate at the present standard."
And, by all accounts, the "present standard" was excellent.
But claims of environmental liability fit the narrative of the landfill’s opponents and it was trotted out whenever convenient by the board. But the central argument for closing the landfill and trucking our waste to Sechelt was the fact that the Pender dump was costing money. Tipping fees at the larger Sechelt landfill created a surplus that offset the cost of maintaining our dump — similar to how Area A’s waterfront property assessments ensure we often carry a disproportionate burden in shared functions at the SCRD (like solid waste).
Regardless of cost, I made the point in an editorial at the time that a licensed landfill is something that should be preserved as a long term resource. Polling of Area A residents indicated we were even willing to pay it alone. In reply, directors and staff insisted Sechelt needed Area A’s garbage to qualify for a fancy methane gas recapture system that would turn it back into energy to be sold to the BC Hydro grid.
As if we yokels weren’t already blinded by the sheer greenness of that idea, a late deal sweetener promised a resource recovery centre. The regional district painted a happy picture of transfer station recycling elves separating our waste into reusable resources (for artists and the like), thereby eliminating garbage — and transport trucks — altogether. Unfortunately, the gas recapture idea was investigated further after our dump was closed and a 2015 SCRD staff report concluded that the "landfill gas to electricity project scope is not found to be economically viable." And we’re still waiting for the resource recovery centre.
At the March 2010 SCRD board meeting, while considering whether to proceed with a referendum (to be paid for by Area A), Janyk suspiciously returned from a short recess and moved to convert the landfill to a transfer station. I quoted Janyk at an earlier meeting (Nov. 5, 2009), explaining how he felt the board should ignore the wishes of Area A and vote to close the landfill:
"I would prefer the method of explaining to your child why he needs a flu shot."
Though this item wasn’t even on the agenda, it quickly passed five to one, with Graham voting against it and Turnbull abstaining because she felt that, "we didn’t complete the process on this." The landfill was lost but as Howard White wrote in a letter to the Harbour Spiel (Nov. 2009), the issue had already shifted to something much more serious:
"Local autonomy has been abused over the years but never on an issue of such high profile as closing the landfill and never when local opinion had been stated so strongly."
Now, here we are — the addition of Area A’s garbage has pushed us to less than 10 years to site, permit and open a new landfill large enough to accommodate the entire Sunshine Coast. And thanks to some shamefully misguided politicking, we have no choice but to go along for the ride.