For the second straight year, regional council has pulled the four rural transfer stations off the chopping block.
![Waterloo Region councillors passed a motion put forward by Woolwich Mayor Sandy Shantz Mar. 4 to keep the four rural transfer stations open through 2015. [Scott Barber / The Observer]](https://www.observerxtra.com/content/images/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/post_shantz.jpg)
With the facilities set to close for good at the end of the month, councillors voted March 4 to keep the facilities open until the end of 2015.
The hope, for the Elmira location at least, is that the reprieve will give regional staff time to negotiate a sale of the property to a private operator.
Woolwich Township Mayor Sandy Shantz put forward the motion to keep the stations open.
“Council has given it until the end of the year,” she said. “There is a (staff) report coming in August which will be a comprehensive review of our waste management operations, as part of getting set up for the contract renewal that is coming in 2017. And so we are looking to see the whole picture of how everything fits together. But there really wasn’t a lot of appetite from (council) to keep them open past the end of the year and so they have kind of said, ‘OK, we’ll give you until the end of the year and you’ve got to get your ducks in a row.’ So the other piece that I asked for was that staff talk to private operators and look for a solution in the private sector.
“It is really in the hands of the private sector now, I would say. They have to get the information they need from the region and see if they can make a business case while also fulfilling whatever requirements the region might have around that because the region controls licenses and so on.”
In order for a transfer station to be sold to a private operator, the land would first need to be deemed as surplus by regional council, waste management director Jon Arsenault explained.
“The typical process here now with any (region-owned property), is that we have a surplus land policy. Usually what happens in if there is a determination that some operation or activity is no longer going to continue, first and foremost it is usually reviewed internally. So, say there is a property that is no longer going to be used for what it was used for before, is there another potential beneficial use within the organization? So, typically what would happen is the site would be looked at and it would be canvassed around the corporation here to see if there are any other benefits; for example, we may need property for some other type of operation, and that’s usually the first step. If not, the property is then circulated to the lower-tier municipalities if it is in their jurisdiction for potential use by them. However, in this case, because of the regional jurisdiction over waste management, the Township of Woolwich can’t take it and use it themselves specifically for waste management purposes.”
If the township doesn’t have a use for the property, the facility would then be put on the market.
The problem, however, is that once the land is sold to a private buyer, there isn’t much the region or the township can do to ensure that they use the property for waste management.
Furthermore, even if a private operator was interested in running a transfer station, they would have to meet both provincial and regional licensing and strict regulations, Arsenault said.
In the meantime, the cost of running the four facilities in Elmira, Linwood, Ayr and Wilmot will be $131,000, on top of the nearly $75,000 already spent from January through March.
Already cut down to an every other Saturday operation schedule, two full-time staff members were pushed out last year. Now, the equivalent of one and a half full-time staff members – made up in part time hours – will need to be added to the payroll.
Regional staff have remained steadfast in their recommendation of shuttering all four stations permanently since the 2014 budget process, arguing that the some $7 million in infrastructure renovations needed in the coming years will be too much of a burden.
Council also voted to increase the minimum fee (three bags or less) from $2 to $5 and to eliminate the $10 half load fee, which will now fall under the $15 flat fee for loads up to 200 kilograms.
Plans are also in the works to alternate operational weekends with garbage pickup weeks.
