On Feb. 10, I received the call I have been dreading for some time. The Central Alberta Waste Management Commission and Plasco will not proceed with a waste-to-energy diversion project.
This would have meant a near end to landfilling. I have opposed landfills since the 1970s and my wife and I have visited garbage treatment facilities around the world. These visits have convinced me that landfills are “caveman” technology and will soon be outlawed as a means of storing waste for future generations to deal with.
So, with this huge disappointment, let’s take minute to examine a vision for what might have been.
If we had built the facility three or four years ago, here is what I believe might have been:
• Red Deer and Central Alberta could have had a plant built using all private money with no risk. We would have been visited by municipalities from around the world to see the first operating commercial plant. Now, plants will be built in Ottawa, Poland, Bahamas, California, U.K., China and interest grows every day. We would have gone on the map as an innovative, environmentally friendly municipality with a vision. It has been my pleasure to help Plasco get established in China.
• We could have frozen tipping fees at $66 per ton with half the cost of inflation for 20 years. By the way, all new contracts are much higher already. Taxpayers will pay the higher cost of land filling in the future.
• The landfill site in Red Deer, now already surrounded by development, could have been used as industrial land at a profit to the city, instead of becoming a huge piece of useless property that is inside city limits paying no taxes.
• Electricity prices will continue to rise and we could have had a source of much cheaper electricity.
• We could have shown huge leadership and vision, which would have drawn industrial development to our city.
• We could have eliminated the air pollution and ground water pollution that now only increase and become a liability.
• Red Deer College could have provided training for people to operate this plant. Funding was already being arranged for.
I could go on, but I think you get my point. Instead of what could have been, we will now have a landfill that will continue to produce paper pollution, huge seagull populations, smell, and leachate will ultimately seep into our aquifer, which a recent Alberta government report shows flows down the Red Deer River.
We will see the liability of adjacent landowners suing the city.
Finally, Red Deer County and all surrounding municipalities supported this project 100 per cent and wanted this to happen. However, the City of Red Deer committed only 10 per cent of their garbage and chose to landfill the rest. And so, the project died due to lack of garbage.
Change is hard to embrace, but it will happen. We need to remember in 10 to 15 years when Red Deer looks for a new landfill, what could have been . . . with a little vision and environmental conscience.
Bob Mills
Red Deer