Controversial landfill proposal goes before council
Foothills: MD to hear BFI application next week
The MD of Foothills, residents and a waste company are preparing for one of the municipality’s largest and potentially most contentious public hearings in recent history.
The hearing for BFI Canada’s controversial Prairie Sky Resource Centre, a proposed landfill to be located near Blackie, will be held in the Medicine Tree Hall at the Highwood Memorial Centre in High River beginning at 10 a.m. on Feb. 29 and will continue March 1 and 2, if needed.
The proposed facility would include a compost area, public drop-off recycling centre and a landfill for waste that cannot be recycled or reused. The landfill would accept industrial and commercial waste, which includes garbage from BFI dumpsters at places such as businesses and condo buildings.
It would also include an environmental education centre and restored prairie habitat and wetlands. The plan covers more than six-quarter sections of land, located between Highway 23 and the CP rail line southeast of Blackie. It would border Vulcan County, whose council is against the project.
Seating at the hearing will accommodate 250 people, although more chairs can be brought in if needed, said MD municipal manager Harry Riva Cambrin.
Residents will have a five-minute time limit to speak in favour or in opposition of the application, although extensions can be requested. People who want to speak at the hearing are not required to pre-register. A written submission can be submitted to the municipal office in High River.
Riva Cambrin said the municipality has received many letters from residents about the application, although he was not sure how many.
Albertans against the proposal gave Highwood MLA George Groeneveld a petition with more than 3,700 signatures, which he presented to the legislature earlier this month.
“I think people are already astounded by the numbers that are there,” he said.
The petition was the largest Groeneveld ever presented to legislature and he said it suggests Albertans are not ready to have a landfill on prime agricultural land.
Blackie area resident Rick Percifield was one of about 25 people who solicited peoples’ signatures for the petition. Percifield belongs to a group of residents who will speak at the hearing and they have hired a lawyer and hydrologist to also speak at the hearing.
He said about 75 people have contributed to their cause with some sizable donations – an indication of how strongly people are opposed to the facility.
“We just think it’s a terrible place for it,” Percifield said. “Alberta doesn’t need any more dumps. We know that BFI needs a new dump because they don’t have any place else to put stuff… It’s a dump purely for BFI, not for Alberta at all.”
He said he was initially concerned with the truck traffic and aesthetics of garbage blowing, but after researching landfills grew concerned about groundwater becoming polluted.
“They say there’s only two types of liners for dumps,” he explained. “The ones that leak and the ones that haven’t leaked yet.”
Kelly Malmberg lives about five kilometres from the landfill’s proposed location and questioned why archaic landfills of this size are still being pursued when alternatives exist.
He said the landfill would be better suited in an area without an aquifer, adding it was likely BFI’s last chance to obtain an area of that size so close to Calgary and said there are valid reasons why it shouldn’t be approved.
“If the (political) system works correctly, this thing should have a zero per cent chance of going through,” he said.
Prairie Sky Resource Centre project manager Mike Gladstone said the company used third parties to write and verify their reports because they understand people have legitimate questions about the project. The MD of Foothills has also hired a third party and Alberta Environment will review the work, he added.
“We believe that this ultimately is about science, it’s about facts and that’s why we’ve gotten the scientists to do the work,” he said.
Gladstone explained the landfill would accept non-hazardous contaminated soils, which could include soil from construction or demolition sites that can’t be used or would be difficult to make useable, but are not hazardous. For example, soils from oiled roads would exceed the threshold for contamination, he explained.
Gladstone said there are few places in southern Alberta to dispose non-hazardous contaminated soils and another facility to accept them is needed.
“It is a scarce resource,” he said.
An independent study commissioned by BFI suggests direct, in direct and spin-off benefits from the facility’s lifespan would total $176 million. Gladstone said factors considered in this figure were salaries of local people, engaging local contractors, hosting fees, charitable donations and employees spending their money locally.
The facility will create 30 jobs and the vast majority of employees will be local, he said.
“Certainly we felt that this was an area with a good labour supply, of skilled labour, mechanics, all the rest, as well as more general labour,” he said.
He added he was looking forward to the hearing and hoped the people opposed to the project attend and continue to discuss the issues.
“Since the beginning of this project we felt it is important to communicate regularly with the public and to answer the questions that we know some individuals have and at the end of the day it’s about the facts and getting the facts of the situation out in front of the public,” Gladstone said. “That’s what we’ve been about.”
Blackie resident Murray Lund supports the proposal because he said it will bring needed growth to the area and help boost the local economy.
“This place hasn’t changed since I’ve came here 10 years ago,” he said. “I mean it’s about time something happened here.”
Lund said young people are forced to seek employment outside of the community and wants to see jobs in Blackie to keep them there. If they don’t return, only older people will be left, he explained.
“If the kids all move out, what’s going to happen to Blackie?” he questioned.
High River area resident Wes Shaw operates a construction company and has worked on the sewage lagoon and water main replacement in Blackie. He said he is interested in the recycling opportunities the facilities could offer.
“Every time we do a demolition job of an old building or something it goes to the landfill,” he said. “This stuff can all be recycled and I’m in favour of recycling, it’s the way of the future.”
Shaw said he often has to haul large plastic pipe pieces left over from underground water or sewer work to Okotoks at $90 per tonne. His company also takes tires to the dump because there is no local facility to recycle them, he said.
“From what I hear with the general public and the neighbours around here, all they can see in front of them is this horrible, ugly-looking garbage dump and they’re not looking past that I don’t think,” he said.
Shaw said if the facility is approved it would need to be policed properly and if BFI follows procedures as it has suggested, there should be no problems.
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