Transfer station proposed for landfill site

Jason Luciw - Kelowna Capital News Published: January 08, 2010 11:00 PM

After much debate and calls for alternative sites to be found, it now looks as though a transfer station will go on the Westside landfill site after all—and at added cost to all Westside residents to boot. West Kelowna council is being asked to support a Central Okanagan Regional District plan to establish a transfer facility at the Asquith Road landfill in Shannon Lake, after the dump itself ceases operations later this year. The dump is being closed three years earlier than expected because rapid growth on the Westside has caused the landfill to reach full capacity well ahead of the originally projected date of 2013. A transfer station is required because the City of Kelowna has said it would not accept residential self-haul traffic from outside its boundaries coming into the Glenmore landfill.

However, Mayor Doug Findlater and Coun. Duane Ophus had asked for alternative sites to be investigated, after some residents in Shannon Lake, including those living on nearby Alexandria Way, asked for the facility to be moved due to concerns, including dust, noise and views. However, municipal staff has been unable to find any suitable alternative site to date, according to an engineering department report going to council on Tuesday afternoon. The District of West Kelowna is recommending an open-air transfer station be created at a capital cost of $550,000 and an annual operating price tag of $934,000. Residents in West Kelowna, Peachland, Westbank First Nation and the Central Okanagan West electoral area would be on the hook for the bill. West Kelowna staff has proposed that costs for the operation be recovered through a combination of tipping fees and parcel taxes. It is recommended that residents in all four Westside jurisdictions be charged a parcel tax of $27 per year for the transfer station operations, in order to maintain the current tipping fee of $55 per metric tonne or $6 per load of 250 kilograms or less. An alternative would be to increase the tipping fee to $75 per tonne and reduce the parcel tax to $22 per resident in all four Westside jurisdictions. In the meantime, staff is also asking that council support a recommendation to negotiate the move of Westside transfer station operations to the District of West Kelowna from the regional district.