Council hears concerns that with lack of progress on landfill expansion, City of Prince Rupert risks driving revenues to Terrace

A timeline for expansion of the city's landfill site made for some
discussion at Monday's council session
(photo from City of PR)

Councillor Barry Cunningham engaged in a little trash talking on Monday evening ... no he wasn't taking shots at the Mayor, council members or city staff; but rather was asking about the fate of the expansion for the city's landfill site, a project that seems to have been deferred for the moment by the City.

The topic came up at at the end of the Monday session, with Mr. Cunningham noting that there are a number of contractors and homeowners in town planning major renovations, tear downs and other work  ... but at the moment they have nowhere to take the volume of material that would come down in the process.

He also observed how a recent clean up of boats in the region had left a number of dilapidated or unsafe vessels ready for disposal as well, with nowhere to go.

"Where are we with the dump? Being able to start accepting larger demolition project waste and things like that. Cause I know of certain companies in town are sort of sitting there waiting to destroy or tear down some housing, and also there are some vessels that have been taken out of the water, vessels of concern that could pollute or sink and their all on hold"

As part of his review of the situation, the councillor observed how there is a possibility that some of that waste could be destined for the Terrace landfill site if no space is available in Prince Rupert, noting how one particular case could be 10,000 dollars of value lost for the city.

Councillor Barry Cunningham was looking for a timeline for development
of additional landfill space at the city's facility on the Ridley Island Access Road

The  response to the concerns came from City Manager Robert Long, who outlined how the expansion of the landfill is an ongoing issue and that the city is working actively as to when they will be blasting the next hole.

The city's top bureaucrat acknowledged that they know there is a problem and are actively working on it. Though in the end he offered up little hope of an immediate solution,  noting for Council that they don't have a timeline towards development at the landfill site.

"This is an ongoing issue about when we're going to be full and how we're going to get the next part done, blast the next hole. We're working actively on that ... this is an on again, off again issue with us, and we are actively working on it, we know what the problem is, but we don't have any time frames yet"

You can review the discussion from the City's Video Archive starting at the fifty minute mark.



A wider overview of the two discussions can be found from our Council Timeline feature here.

More notes on Council themes from Monday can be found here, while a larger overview of past Council topics can be explored on our Council Discussion page.

A look at some of the city's infrastructure notes and challenges can be found from our archive page here.

Cross posted from the North Coast Review