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City hopes to extend lifespan of landfill

By Greg Nikkel The City of Weyburn is hoping to implement a new five-year plan for the city’s landfill that will extend the life of the landfill by 20 to 40 years, with a public presentation on the proposal to be made in December to city council.
City of Weyburn

By Greg Nikkel
The City of Weyburn is hoping to implement a new five-year plan for the city’s landfill that will extend the life of the landfill by 20 to 40 years, with a public presentation on the proposal to be made in December to city council.
The draft landfill design, operations and closure was provided to the city, along with the detailed five-year plan, which includes an increase to the tipping fees for the landfill to bring the fees to a break-even point by the year 2022.
The plan and proposed fee increase were prepared by consulting firm, Sperling Hansen Associates, which determined that the break-even point for tipping fees is around $80 a tonne to cover the long-term costs of the facility.
Currently, the tipping fee is $46 a tonne, and this is proposed to increase to $60 on Jan. 1, 2018, followed by an increase to $75 in 2020, and $85 a tonne by 2022.
The consultants will give a presentation to city council at their Dec. 11 meeting, which will be open to the public if they wish to sit in on it and hear the details of the plans for the landfill.
Coun. Jeff Richards asked staff to bring forward rates from other communities in Saskatchewan that council can compare with the proposed increased set of rates over the next five years.
City manager Roy Hardy said the increase in tipping fees will ensure the sustainability of the landfill, and will also ensure it will not be a burden to the taxpayers of Weyburn in the future.
Coun. Winston Bailey noted when the landfill’s operations were looked at a few years ago, one of the concerns that were raised was in regard to the volume of cardboard being dumped by commercial businesses, and hopes this aspect of landfill use will be looked at in the new plan.
Assistant city engineer Laura Delanoy said the aspect of recycling was not clearly addressed in this new plan, but it could certainly be brought into it.
Coun. Bailey said if the plan could address this, it would ensure that large blocks of cardboard will be diverted into recycling, and thus extend the life of the landfill even more.
Coun. Mel Van Betuw admitted he was initially against spending the money on this consulting firm’s study of the landfill, but in seeing the five-year plan that was developed, he feels that the city can benefit from this.
“This is going to pay a dividend for us and for the generations to come,” he said, noting the plan could extend the life of the landfill by 20 to 40 years.
The proposal for the fee increase will only see a very slight increase for residential household waste over a four-year period. In 2016, the total amount of household waste from the curbside waste collection and the landfill coupon program was 2,650 tonnes, which is only 11 per cent of the total waste disposed of in the landfill, which was 29,017 tonnes in 2016.
Mayor Marcel Roy suggested that with the large amount of waste now going into the curbside recycling program, the percentage of household waste will be even less than 11 per cent. He also pointed out that with recycling efforts, the smaller volume of waste will in turn mean a lower cost to those disposing of the waste, whether residential or commercial.
This is a similar situation with the water usage, as if people can regulate how much water they use, or how much waste they dispose of, their costs will be lower.
Representatives of Crocus 80 Theatre made an appeal to city council for a $2,000 grant, to go towards expenses for the provincial TheatreFest to be hosted in Weyburn on April 1-8, 2018.
Crocus 80 chair Connie Nightingale, along with board member Sean Riley, explained that Theatre Saskatchewan asked the Weyburn community theatre group to host the provincial festival, which will see seven theatre groups perform adjudicated plays, along with providing theatre workshops for the festival participants and the public.
Nightingale explained that as Crocus 80 is hosting and no travel expenses will be incurred, the group will be focussing their theatre entry on the youth they have been working with in the summer youth theatre program.
The funds they are requesting would go towards providing the youth with the materials necessary for their performance, including the scripts and copyrights, makeup, costumes and sets, and would help with the promotion of the event.
She said their estimation is this will inject some $50,000 into the local economy, not counting the local shopping and eating in local restaurants that those who attend the week-long festival will do.
Riley added that Weyburn has hosted many provincial sporting events, but this is an opportunity for the city to host an important provincial cultural event.
Coun. Dick Michel noted that Crocus 80 gets an annual grant of $1,200 and wondered if that might be used as part of this request for $2,000. Nightingale noted this grant was used to secure the rights to a series of short plays by children’s author Robert Munsch, and they presented some of them in the summer performance during the Weyburn Wheat Festival.
Coun. Michel suggested as council is about to start budgeting for 2018, that this request be included in that discussion.
Monday’s council meeting was attended by Comp student Landon Field, who Mayor Roy noted will be sitting in with council as a non-voting youth member starting in January.
The Grade 11 student said the plans are to form a shadow council at the Comp comprised of students, separate from the SRC which he is an active member of, and he will be able to bring issues or concerns from the youth of the city to city council.
“What we hope is by the end of the school year there will be more engagement by students in the council,” he said, suggesting they might be able to have a vote by the Comp students next school year for who can be on the shadow council.
“This will be a good experience for the future,” added Field, saying he may consider involvement in politics after high school. “We’ll see what happens.”