qathet Regional District has hired Tervita Corporation to begin remediation of Powell River’s old waste transfer site, which is destined to become the region’s resource-recovery centre.
Regional district manager of asset management and strategic initiatives Mike Wall said the company has a corporate office in Victoria and its head office in Calgary.
“They actually specialize in this type of work,” said Wall. “They specialize in landfill construction, landfill closure.”
Wall said Tervita isa well-qualified company for this type of task. Extensive interest was expressed regarding cleanup of the waste transfer site and at least 10 companies attended the site viewing and five submitted bids, he added.
“We’re happy to see this contractor, although not from Powell River, has included some sub-trades, bringing on some local contractors to help them complete the work,” said Wall. “They’ve actually engaged some local companies.”
Wall said the resource-recovery centre project has three primary phases. This is the first, which is the cleanup, organization and processing of stockpiled materials. The first phase is in preparation of doing the landfill closure, which will be the second phase, and the third phase, building the resource-recovery centre.
In terms of the first phase, all residual materials on site are going to be sorted out, organized and processed to be in a more usable state on site, and also exported to other users, preferably locally, said Wall.
Let’s Talk Trash team member Tai Uhlmann said some materials, such as old tires, might be left on site to be used as a retaining wall. She said there are materials such as glass, tires, asphalt, concrete and other materials that need to be consolidated. If there is a reuse of any materials, that will happen.
“Everything we can get and reuse in this whole project, that’s what this phase is about,” said Wall.
Efforts will be made to avoid shipping materials long distance for disposal. The highest priority is to reuse the materials on the site.
Wall said the contract with Tervita Corporation has been let and the rough schedule is to begin work in early to mid-April. The hope is to complete the first phase of the project by the end of May.
“Once we do that we want to be ready to move into the second phase,” said Wall. “We would like to complete the second phase this year as well. Then, we would be preparing to do the project build in 2021.”
The second phase will be a separate contract. The regional district is creating a request for proposals with its consulting engineering company. Wall said work is also being done on the detailed design of the third phase, which is how the facility will come together.
Uhlmann said work has been done to engage the community, and the local solid-waste businesses that are experts in the field, as well as city staff.
“We want to make sure the site works for everybody and is designed for everybody’s use,” said Uhlmann.
She said in terms of the design of the facility, they have been gleaning the best of other facilities and also engaging managers of other facilities to ask them if they could design their facilities again, what would they do differently. She said there is also a focus on diversion, especially locally.
Wall said they want to take the best of what has been seen and try to take it a step or two further.
Grant funding of $6 million has been procured from the federal government for the resource-recovery centre projectto help cover all three phases.
Wall said expenditures spread from phase one, the cleanup phase, and phase two, the closure, and then what was described as the third phase, or build-out of the facility. The grant does not cover a residual waste transfer building. Staff will be trying to obtain grant funding for that as well.
Wall said the grant application indicated the spring of 2022 for commissioning of the new resource-recovery centre.
“It’s exciting to feel the momentum,” said Wall. “We are flipping challenges into opportunities as best we can.”
Work on phase one will be carried out up to seven days a week, from 7 am to 6 pm, and is all within what’s permissive under City of Powell River bylaws. Access to the site will be completely restricted.
