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Governments rally as compost program put on hold

Smell issues, operating costs too much for Carney’s to handle
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Owen Carney looks to politicians to find an organic recycling solution for the corridor after closing the company's Squamish composting facility this month. Photo by Maureen Provencal

By Andrew Mitchell

After just two and a half years in operation, the Carney’s Waste Systems composting facility in Squamish halted regular operations on Sept. 1 and will remain off-line until local governments can decide on the future of the facility.

The odour from the curing site, where composted materials are stored until they can be ready for sale, is no longer the major issue Owen Carney told attendees of the Sept. 6 AWARE meeting, now that the curing site has been relocated to the landfill. However, in light of the fact that the Squamish Industrial Park, where the composting system is based, has become a business park — a stone’s throw from the new Wal-Mart and Home Depot — Carney acknowledges that the organic recycling centre was no longer a good fit for the area.

According to Carney there are several options for moving the compost equipment, including the new waste transfer station slated for the Callaghan Valley area now that the Whistler landfill is closed, but his company is no longer willing to take on the financial burden of operating the system.

The added expense of dealing with odour issues, as well as the lack of material coming in and the time spent building a market to sell the final product, has put the compost system well into the red. Carney would like to see local governments take the system off his hands at this point, and for governments and businesses to support the compost project.

“We really need government to intervene here and help us out with this project, it’s bigger than we can do on our own,” he said. “We spent eight years, a lot of millions of dollars, a lot of no-sleep nights, and at the end of the day we see we need local government. I would sell it at a lower price if it came down to it… and Carney’s would be willing to continue to manage it for them if that’s what they decide they want.”

Carney says the company did its research and knows the system could break even or even generate a small profit, given the higher tipping fees in the Sea to Sky corridor and the ability to sell the recycled organic product to landscapers, gardeners, and others who need high grade soil. However, he says the compost system does not currently have enough customers, or enough material going through to make it viable as a private operator.

For one thing, Carney says it’s clear now that the system needs Whistler’s biosolids, which are currently treated and cured at the sewage treatment plant and used for municipal projects. And while there has been a lot of support from local grocery stores, restaurants and hotels in Whistler — the Fairmont Chateau Whistler alone sends 25 tonnes of organic material every month — some strata management companies still don’t provide the service to their commercial tenants, including several large restaurants. Local governments could change that, says Carney, the same way they made recycling other waste materials the norm.

Carney would not say how much was invested in the project or how much it has gone into the red, but said the cost to local governments to take it off his hands would be under $5 million.

“The numbers do work with enough biosolids, waste, and so on,” said Carney. “Our mistake was building the system in an industrial park, which is now a business park, and we had that odour issue in the beginning. (The process) is odour-free, not much comes out of the tunnels, but our problem is not there it’s with the curing and we’ve taken care of a lot of that.

“We can’t blame anybody. We have it 150 per cent, and we can’t throw any more money at it. We can’t go further or it would take the company down.”

For the time being Carney’s is still collecting organic waste from customers, and trucking it to facilities in the city at the company’s expense for the next three weeks. But while there are other organic waste facilities in the Lower Mainland, Carney maintains that his Squamish system is the only one that conforms to the highest government standards in terms of the quality of the compost that is produced.

Last year the system sold 45,000 bags of compost through Save On Foods, with the majority of customers in the Squamish area. There are fewer customers in Whistler and Pemberton, but Carney can see that changing as the product becomes more accepted.

“Save On Foods is just devastated (the facility is closing), they want us to be there again next year,” said Carney.

On the bright side Carney has met with local governments in Squamish, Whistler and Pemberton, as well as the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District, and all have voiced their support for keeping the facility in operation at another location. The company has also been in contact with the provincial government.

“We didn’t ask for any help until four months ago, and since then every community has voiced support, the groundswell is huge,” said Carney.

Carney’s next step is to get representatives from local governments together in the same room to discuss possible solutions, as well as a formula that would allow Carney to transfer ownership to the public.

Whistler Councillor Eckhard Zeidler says it would be a huge mistake to let the composting service go by the wayside — not the least because of the efforts Carney’s has made over the years to reduce solid waste in the corridor through recycling and reduce and reuse strategies.

“I know I speak confidently for all of Whistler Council when I say that we’re very interested in exploring every avenue, anything we need to do to keep this very important piece of the waste management puzzle… in the corridor,” he said.

“We know there are challenges, but we all see it as a turning point where we can make a great leap forward, where we encourage everyone — industrial, restaurants, stratas — to use the system, or this could be an incredible fall backwards. The status quo is not necessarily available to us any longer (with Carney’s closing).”

Ziedler says there is still a lot of work ahead for the municipality, but that government will be able to devote more time to a solution with athletes’ village construction and the Rainbow development now underway.

“Nobody is going to make an announcement on this next week, we’re not there yet,” he said. “This will be a priority for us…but if we do get involved it will be a positive experience for this community as a whole.”

Facts and Figures

• Organic waste represents about 30 per cent of the waste steam, over two-thirds of which is considered to be recoverable

• The organic waste compost facility, which includes two Wright In-Vessel Composters in use in over 50 locations around the world, can handle up to 50 tonnes of organic waste every day. It takes 14 days to move waste through the in-line system, followed by 30 days of curing. Most of the odour is from the curing process.

• Whistler waste was reduced from 18,000 tonnes in 2004 to 16,000 tonnes in 2005, while material going into the Squamish landfill decreased from 15,000 tonnes in 2004 to 12,000 tonnes in 2005. At the same time organic waste processed increased from 12,000 tonnes in 2004 to 15,000 tonnes in 2005.

• Currently grocery stores provide 39 per cent of organic waste, restaurants provide 13 per cent, biosolids from Pemberton and Squamish provide 12 per cent, and wood waste represents 36 per cent. Carney estimates that restaurant waste could easily double from the current 20 tonnes a week. Biosolids would also double if Whistler starts using the facility to dispose of material collected at the sewage treatment plant.

• Tipping fees for waste in the Sea to Sky corridor are $110 a tonne, or close to double the Lower Mainland. Tipping fees for organic waste are lower to encourage composting, with $30 a tonne for wood chips, $45 a tonne for garden debris, and $55 for construction and demolition wood waste.

• The population of the corridor is 45,000 and growing, while Whistler can have a population of over 50,000 people during busy periods of tourism.

• Whistler generates 80 to 90 per cent of restaurant and hotel waste, but Squamish generally has more yard and wood waste. The majority of composted material is also sold in Squamish.

• Due to the odour issue, in April the Squamish compost facility was given three-months to find another site, and given one year to relocate.