Beiseker's council has rejected a proposal from Irricana to accept waste from the neighbouring community. While Irricana has curbside garbage and recycling pick up, the Town is experiencing new waste problems.
Beiseker's council has rejected a proposal from Irricana to accept waste from the neighbouring community.
While Irricana has curbside garbage and recycling pick up, the Town is experiencing new waste problems. Up until recently, Irricana used a transfer station in Rocky View County (RVC) for waste items that couldn't be picked up. The Town ended its recycling agreement with the County in January 2016.
Unable to take its waste to RVC, the Town made a proposal to Beiseker that involved paying more than $30,000 a year for the Village to accept Irricana's waste at its transfer station.
Beiseker council discussed the proposal at its June 13 meeting and decided they wouldn't be able to take on Irricana's waste.
“We're not allowed to do that for any other municipalities through an agreement we made with the waste association,” said Mayor Ray Courtman.
Beiseker joined the Drumheller amd District Solid Waste Management Association approximately 30 years ago, when Alberta Environment asked smaller municipalities to consolidate their waste facilities.
Since then, the Village has been paying into the association in order to use their landfill.
“We've paid into the program for the last 30 some years,” Courtman said. “We pay into this account to bury and cover over and maintain the landfill.”
According to Courtman, Irricana was part of the original negotiations with the Drumheller and District Solid Waste Management Association but chose not to become a member of the group.
Now, they would have to pay a large fee to join.
According to Councillor and Beiseker representative for the Drumheller and District Solid Waste Management Association Warren Wise, “the villages, counties, towns and cities… that belong to (the association) have been contributing money in order to ensure that when the life expectancy of the existing landfill area (is) up, they would have money to be able to open up another one.”
“Now the issue is if (Irricana) wanted to join…they should have to pay a rather large amount to catch up…with what all the other communities have been contributing,” he added. “I believe that that's probably unrealistic for them to try to do.”
“What we cannot do is take things from Beiseker to the Drumheller landfill site on Irricana's behalf,” Wise said. “Why would we really want to be handling all of this extra material when there's a better solution, which is to go back to what they were doing before?”
Irricana Councillor Frank Friesen said the Town will have to find another solution.
“We have to investigate further what to do with our garbage now,” he said. “I really hope that we can work on something to get back into (RVC).”
