Af? - Sanday News, February 7, 1982

LANDFILL CRISIS

ECONOMICS vs. ENVIRONMENT

LANDFILL dumping of garbage can never be an
acceptable solution to waste disposal on the North

Shore.

This is the conclusion of
the federal Environment
Protection Service. For, the
fact is, say local EPS of-
ficers, there is just nowhere
on the North Shore suf-
ficiently removed from
flowing water to prevent
leachate from landfills
contaminating major water
gourses and harming salmon
stocks.

However, attractive as the
idea might seem to many on
the North Shore, the
problem cannot just be
dumped on the doorstep of
another community.

Most other Greater
Vancouygpr municipalities
are in a simiJar dilemma to
one degrée or another and,
though currently focussed
on the North Shore, the
problem of garbage disposal
is general throughout the

Lower Mainland.
Government en-
vironmental agencies are

generally agreed that land-
fills should probably never
have been allowed to
become set up on their
present lines in the first
place.

Landfilling, they say, has
had its day. And the question
of how to deal with
municipal garbage is now at
crisis point.

But any other form of
garbage disposal would cost
considerably more. And
since it is the public who
would have to bear the cost,
it is the public who must
decide its priorities and
clearly state what it wants.

The choice is to hold down
taxes at the expense of in-
creasing pollution or to hand
over the money for a clean
environment.

It is strictly a matter of -

economics that landfills ha ve

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been tolerated for a period
of about the past 20 years as
an accepted method of waste
disposal.

Current costs of operating
the North Van's Premier
Street landfill are $5 per ton
of garbage. When North Van
District looked at the
question of incineration
back in 1978, estimated costs
were $18 million for in-
stalling an incinerator and
operating expenses of $14-
$18 per ton of garbage.

On the basis of these
figures, North Van District
Engineer John Bremner has
categorically stated in recent
months: “There are no
alternatives (to landfilling) .”

EPS waste management
group program officer
Gordon Thompson regularly
inspects landfills and sees
the toll they take on the
environment.

“Cost has to be con-
sidered,” he agrees, “but the
idea that landfilling is
cheapest is not acceptable as
the only criteria, which has
been the case so far.”

Though it has been
economically viable and
convenient to dump garbage
for so long, landfilling has
merely postponed decisions
that were inevitable. And
now most municipalities are
having to take a good look at
all alternatives to landfilling,
as they are running out of
space — and time.

Without further expanding
the dump site to an area
which has not even been
granted a pollution control
permit, the Premier Street
landfill will be full in five
years or so.

Ernie Lawson, head of the
municipal section of the
provincial Waste Man-
agement Branch which

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oversees. landfills and
controls the permit system
which licences them, says:

“The Braid Street
Coquitlam landfill will be
full within the next year. The
Surrey landfill has perhaps in
the neighborhood of six to
eight years remaining.
Richmond has perhaps three
to five years. Maple Ridge
will be full in a couple of
years.”

Only landfill within the
GVRD which has any long-
term life expectancy is Burns
Bog, at Delta, estimated to
last another 30-40 years.

The current objectives of
Waste Management in
determining landfill stan-
dards came into effect after
the landfills were started and
had been awarded pollution
control permits.

Lawson considers the
siting of North Van District's
dump and the other Greater
Vancouver landfills to be far
from ideal and says that if
licencing applications were
submitted for them today “I
think they would receive a
greater degree of scrutiny at
the present time than some
of them have received in the
past.”

EPS officer Thompson
goes further. Like the oc-
cupants of homes fronted by
the towering mount of
garbage at the Premier
Street site, he wants to see
the North Van dump phased
out as soon as possible.

“It was a poor place to
build a landfill in the first
place and that is true for
most of the Lower Mainland.
Surrey, Coquitlam, Rich-
mond and Burns Bog are all
right beside major water
courses. In North Van-
couver there are no other
sites which are any better

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than the one they have now.”

Lawson agrees the
locations are unsuitable for
landfills but since they are
already there, Waste
Management is doing its best
to control pollution from
them, he says.

ALTERNATIVES

“The time has now arrived
when we have to. start
looking at alternative means
of waste disposal,” he insists.

“Locations for the
operation of future landfills
are extremely limited, or
impossible, in the whole of
the Lower Mainland.

“Something that will be a
problem to the people of the
North Shore and the whole
of the Greater Vancouver
area is that landfills are
nearing completion and
there will need to be a
solution to the problem of
solid waste landfills in the
next few years.”

Thompson agrees. “We
should be looking at a Lower
Mainland policy and ap-
proach to the thing rather
than single isolated ap-
proaches,” he says.

“There are alternatives,
which are bound to cost
more, and the taxpayers
should be made aware of it.
But if you want a clean
environment you have to
spend more money and that
is the choice that should be
put forward.

“Once the taxpayers have
decided they are going to

spend more money, the

Lawson see incineration as
question is how do you bring

the nucleus of an alternative

in the alternatives — and system. Though
that is where the complexity acknowledging that in-
ensues.” cineration would be ex-

Both Thompson = and CONTINUED ON PAGE Al3

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