The location of the city’s new Solid Waste Management Facility was presented to city council for the first time on Monday night. 

The property is located about one mile north of the Highway 1 and Highway 2 junction and half a mile west of Highway 2. 

The new landfill will take up 390 acres and will include a 108-acre buffer around neighbouring properties. 

The city has come to an agreement on the land and the purchase is being finalized. 

The current city landfill has been in operation for almost 100 years and is expected to be closed within the next four to five years. 

GHD and Associated Engineering have been contracted for the conceptual design and to find a site for the new facility. 

Director of Operations Bevan Harlton said this location was one of four that were initially identified within a five-kilometre radius. 

Part of the issue was that the landfill could not be located within 500 metres of residential developments, farmsteads, schools or community facilities, within 300 metres of surface water, within 100 metres of roadways, cemeteries, railways or water pipelines, within 450 metres of waterwells, within 30 metres of transmission lines or pipelines or within eight kilometres for 15 Wings Moose Jaw or the Municipal Airport as it would be a bird hazard. 

For any neighbours worried about winds blowing garbage out of the facility and onto neighbouring property, Harlton said there will be no litter as it is heavily regulated. 

“The permit to operate will require us to cover any open face every night, for example. So, we won’t, in terms of the potential litter, have any exposed face. We’re not allowed to operate in that way for litter control that we will be regulated to maintain litter control throughout the operation,” Harlton explained. 

Coun. Crystal Froese said the new facility will hold a lot of potential. 

“This is like a blank slate, so to speak, with this property and it’s really an opportunity for us to be leaders within this province because we haven’t been very good in this province with the way that we have been looking at solid waste,” Froese said. 

Coun. Kim Robinson asked Harlton why the city did not choose a section of land that the city owns in the southeast. Harlton replied that it would be too close to 15 Wing. 

“The area of land to the southeast, the limiter there is 15 Wing and the buffer zone for that federal base,” Harlton said. 

The new location has been met with controversy as residents in the RM of Moose Jaw have voiced their concerns. 

The next step for the city is to get discretionary use approval from the RM before moving forward. 

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