Officials involved with the Western Regional Landfill gather at the site of the new $3.75-million facility 10 km west of Kindersley for a sod turning ceremony on Aug. 30. Left to right: Jordan Gifford, an operations manager for Loraas Environmental Services, Kim Frolek, a Loraas sales representative, Ruebecca Fiddler, general manager of Loraas, Terry Dunn of the Town of Kerrobert, Wilma Moen of the RM of Lacadena, Curtis Sackville, president of the Western Regional Landfill Inc., Darwin Whitfield of the RM of Oakdale, Shaun Henry of the Town of Kindersley, and Bill Warrington of the RM of Antelope Park
Kenneth Brown
of The Clarion
Construction of the new regional landfill west of Kindersley has been launched with a sod-turning ceremony.
The sod turning was held on Aug. 30 at the site of the facility south of Highway 7 and 10 km west of Kindersley.
The project is spearheaded by 19 urban and rural municipalities in Western Regional Landfill Inc. (WRLI).
Loraas Environmental Services is developing the landfill with help from local contractors, and the company had representatives at the ceremony. About a third of the municipal partners involved in WRLI were also represented.
WRLI president Curtis Sackville, president of WRLI, said the sod turning begins the best part of a project: the construction phase. This fall marks five years he has worked on the project.
He said the project is crucial for the 19 municipalities.
“This landfill site will provide an important, but sometimes overlooked, essential service to our municipal community members,” Sackville. “Its design will account for the potential growth that we’ll see over the next 100 years.”
He said a tremendous amount of learning and planning has gone into the project to get it to the construction phase, and it will serve as a testament to the commitment, compromise and partnership of the members, he said.
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He thanked the municipal representatives on hand, Loraas Environmental for its patience as the agreement was being worked out, and the Town of Kindersley for administrative and accounting services it provided to WRLI.
Sackville also thanked Kim Vogel, Kindersley’s director of transportation and environment, for helping to keep the 19 members organized. He said the project has been a lengthy journey and instead of talking, he just wanted to “get a shovel in the ground.”
Construction will cost about $3.75 million.
Ruebecca Fiddler, a general manager for Loraas, said the company is excited to be working with WRLI and to start turning the dirt to build a new landfill. After the ceremony, she said the company has experience operating landfills.
She noted that for Loraas Environmental Services, developing a landfill from scratch is expanding the services the business provides. Loraas runs a cart collection service for household waste, recycle and organic waste. It provides services to Kindersley. She said the company values its partnership. This will be the first time the company has developed a landfill.
“We are absolutely 100 per cent excited to be moving forward with this project and be partnering with all of the municipalities that we hope to work with for a very long time,” Fiddler said.
In an interview, Sackville said the hope is to finish construction in 2017, before the ground freezes. The road to access the landfill will be built up to meet heavy-haul standards. WRLI members awarded the road construction tender to Bryden Construction & Transport Co. Inc., he said.
Councillor Shaun Henry of the Town of Kindersley is council’s representative on the WRLI board. The town has been under pressure from the provincial ministry of environment to do something since the existing landfill caught fire in 2013.
He noted that it’s nice to have several regional partners helping with the project. The Town of Kindersley will cover roughly 45 per cent of development costs for the landfill, at nearly $1.68 million. The town represents the largest WRLI member by population. Henry said it’s nice to share the cost with 18 partners, but it took time for all WRLI members to get to this point of the important project.
“You throw all of that red tape in and it definitely slowed the process down, but we knew it was something that we needed to move forward with,” he said, adding that town officials are excited. “Now that you see the dirt work, it’s kind of the fruition of the end of five years of hard work.”
Councillor Rick MacDougall of the Rural Municipality of Kindersley sits on the WRLI board. He said the municipality needed to find a solution to its waste needs, so it is nice to be part of a regional project to develop a new landfill close to Kindersley.
The RM of Kindersley is the largest rural municipality involved and will cover nearly 9.5 per cent of the development costs at $355,644. MacDougall said the landfill in town is on borrowed time due to the fire, so the municipality took a proactive approach with its partners and did what needed to be done.
“We’re lucky to have the board we have,” he added, recognizing that the town had the foresight to purchase land for a new landfill long ago and all the 19 partners have done their due diligence. “We know there’s something that has to be done and we came together.”
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