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Landfill must be closed if athletes village goes in Cheakamus

Whistler eyes Squamish and beyond to dump garbage; AWARE says that’s not a sustainable practice

Whistler’s garbage could soon be piling up in someone else’s backyard.

If the Lower Cheakamus area is chosen as the site for the athletes village for the 2010 Olympics – and it has been identified by municipal staff and the IOC as the preferred site – the landfill’s days are numbered and the municipality must decide what to do with Whistler’s garbage.

Most likely the garbage would be trucked to a landfill either in the B.C. Interior, the southeast corner of Washington State, or in Squamish.

That is not a sustainable choice, according to Eckhard Zeidler, a director with the Association of Whistler Area Residents for the Environment.

He explained that trucking garbage violates one of the basic principles of The Natural Step, the sustainability blueprint adopted by Whistler in 2001.

"Our feeling on it at AWARE is that we would like to see our waste, wherever possible, handled in our community," said Zeidler.

"We don’t support using fossil fuels… to transport our waste elsewhere in the region, elsewhere in the province or out of the country. We absolutely do not support that."

But the prospect of opening another landfill in Whistler is slim, according to Brian Barnett, general manager of engineering and public works with the municipality.

He explained that the province wants to deal with garbage on a regional basis, a strategy common throughout North America.

This way garbage can be moved into areas with dry, arid climates, which can meet the stringent new environmental standards associated with landfills.

"The climate is simply not ideal for landfilling here," said Barnett.

"The movement is to get away from all these small landfills where the communities don’t have resources to ensure environmental standards are met."

Eight years ago Whistler council looked into options for moving the garbage out of town.

They got as far as putting the preliminary contracts in place when they decided to keep burying solid waste in town.

And so, council extended the life of the existing landfill until 2008, with the provision that a review to be done in 2004.

That review will be completed next month. It will outline two specific options to deal with Whistler’s garbage.

Whistler could either extend the life of the current landfill until 2030, in which case the athletes village and any subsequent permanent resident housing could not go on the Lower Cheakamus site.

"I’m expecting that if the selection for permanent employee housing is down in the Cheak South area then the landfill would be closed," said Barnett.

"Long term employee housing next to a landfill in Whistler does not appear to be consistent with what’s being described in the CSP."

The other option is to begin diverting waste as soon as 2006.

The landfill review details costs and policy considerations for both options.

Extending the landfill for another 25 years would result in estimated disposal costs of $96/tonne.

Alternatively, shipping the waste to the B.C. Interior would cost $116/tonne. That figure jumps to $129/tonne if the waste goes to southeast Washington.

The review also studies the environmental impacts of both options, highlighting key indicators like emissions (from the landfill itself and from trucks moving the garbage).

It also weighs the environmental risks associated with each option, measuring things like the risk of groundwater contamination from the landfill and the risk of accidents while transporting the garbage.

Though the report discusses diversion as soon as 2006, Barnett said Whistler could continue to use the landfill leading up to 2010 throughout the village construction because the landfill and the village are on neighbouring sites.

"But it may be desirable to have it closed before that just because of all the activities taking place and the athletes that may be coming to Whistler to live and train," he said.

This acceleration concerns Zeidler.

"If (Lower Cheakamus is) chosen as a site this could accelerate the retirement of the landfill," he said.

"If that is the case the municipality is going to have to come up fairly quickly with some solutions and AWARE doesn’t see the transporting it out of Whistler as a viable option."

Mayor Hugh O’Reilly said the solution must be considered in the larger context of the region’s Solid Waste Management Plan.

That plan includes transporting recyclable materials to Squamish – which has been the case for more than a decade – and then on to final markets. As well, organic waste is now being processed in Squamish at a composting facility that opened earlier this year.

"What we really want is to get down to the very small amounts of actual waste and continue to work to strive to get rid of that to virtually nothing," said O’Reilly.

" … a lot of it’s going to require trucking if you go to that program."

The key is to continue to pull materials out of the garbage stream to stop it going into the ground, as well as to move towards cleaner fuels for garbage transportation, he said.

O’Reilly admits that the Olympic agenda is putting the municipality on a faster timeline to reduce waste.

"I know what the concern is but I think we’re covering it off through other strategies," he said.

The mayor said Whistler’s garbage would likely go to Squamish one day, along with the recyclable and composting materials which are going there now.

Pemberton closed its landfill several years ago. Since then, solid waste from Pemberton and D’Arcy has been buried in the Whistler landfill.

Squamish council passed a resolution a few years ago that supports the expansion of their landfill for another 20 years.

They will be getting another report within the next three weeks that will address issues around a regional landfill and the impact of that on the Squamish community.

"We do see our landfill as an asset," said Sonja Lebans, acting mayor of Squamish.

"We’re keen to make sure it’s well used and stays healthy."

Currently the Squamish landfill does not meet the updated environmental standards for landfills in B.C.

Barnett said Squamish would need to upgrade its landfill to comply with those standards before they could get a permit to accept waste from other communities.

"The provincial government would ultimately have to authorize Whistler’s garbage to go to Squamish," he said.

"(In the meantime) if we close the landfill we’d enter into a relatively short-term contact for waste disposal. So we might get into let’s say a five-year contract with Cache Creek to dispose our garbage there. When that term expires, if the Squamish landfill has been rebuilt and it meets new environmental standards, then it might be appropriate to send our garbage there."

Still, that’s a violation of The Natural Step, said Zeidler.

He said: "It’s not a sustainable practice so it’s not an option that we would support."