The City of Moose Jaw continues to try and update the way our landfill is run after years of less than perfect operation.  Budget committee learned this week that we've been in violation of provincial regulations that need to be addressed matter immediately, our landfill is leaking leachate and we need to raise the maximum piling height of the waste.

Operations Manager Darrin Stephanson made a budget presentation this week to go over all of the financial needs at the facility on the northeast edge of the city.  He explained that the landfill was audited by the provincial regulators last year and found that they weren't covering the waste with soil often enough. So while a new permit to operate was granted, we're on a short leash.

"It is a short approval at this point, a six month approval subject to some conditions that we need to supply to them." said Stephanson. "One of those is an airspace analysis, what the city intends to do for closure activity and what we're looking to get out of our remaining life of that landfill. Once we provide that information then the regulator should have no issue extending that permit."

The province also wants to see the soil cover increased to five days a week, from the current two or three days and it'll cost an estimated $400,000 a year to comply. City Council has given initial approval to hire a contractor to help out with that work and then administration is to explore the idea of having city staff do the work in 2019 with the help of additional equipment that can be purchased.  Stephanson said there just isn't enough time to get that organized in order to meet the demands of the permit.

It was also revealed to council that the landfill is leaking leachate and that'll cost money to fix.

"We have to determine, through some testing, the size and severity of what's happening out there. Leachate is all your liquids that are produced at a decomposing landfill and because the landfill was built roughly 100 years ago, there's no cell creation, there's no liner in the bottom, that modern engineering standards would require you to have, so there's no ability for us to capture these liquids when they escape."

When asked if the leachate was making it into the river, Stephanson says it's a concern and the location of the landfill was certainly not well researched back when it was first established. No cost estimate was provided since staff don't know how bad the situation is right now.

While not finalized, it's likely going to cost more to use the landfill this year as a result of all the work that's need out there.  Council has already given initial approval to an increase to commercial tipping fees that will see local rates increase to $69 a tonne and out of town user rates increase to $89 a tonne. Still up for discussion is a potential need to increase the month fee residents pay for waste collection.  Depending on what happens with curbside collection after the telephone survey this month, there is a proposal to increase the month fee from $6.57 per home to around $7.25.

The extensive report also touched on the future of the landfill and the continued planning for what we do next.  The current facility has been on the cusp of being shutdown for a number of years while administration talks about possible expansion or building a new facility in a new location.  The report to council this week explained that if they simply raised the maximum height of top layer, they could get another five or six years in order to better plan.  With that in mind, council gave initial approval to increase the height to 577 meters but there needs to be more work done to contain the trash that gets tossed around by the wind.

All decisions made this week are pending final approval of the budget project and could change at any time.