A new leachate pond and/or treatment system will need to be in place by the start of December, 2018. This comes after the City applied to the Saskatchewan Ministry of Environment to expand the landfill, and these conditions were imposed to allow for the construction of Cell 1.3. Leachate is the liquid that comes off of the garbage in the landfill.
“Please be advised that the Ministry of Environment does not approve of the ongoing operation of the original leachate manhole overflow cell for long term utilization of regular leachate collection and storage. This leachate cell was originally designed for emergency overflow only,” said Michael Rathwell, A.Sc.T., Environmental Protection Officer in a letter to the City.
He goes on to say, “further, it is unknown if this overflow pond in question is of sufficient capacity to accept leachate flow from the proposed Cell 1.3 in addition to current hydraulic loading. It was never authorized by the Ministry of Environment for regular ongoing leachate storage.”
Mayor Gerald Aalbers says this pond wasn’t already in the works because, “at the time, we didn’t see a need but with the new license that was required for the new landfill construction, Saskatchewan Environment advised us we had to deal with it.”
Aalbers also says, “there hasn’t been any work done in the leachate collection system for some time, the landfill has increased in size over that period of time. It’s a cost that was unplanned but we’ll work within the budget to make it happen.”
City Administration is recommending $70,000 be reallocated from the $3 million new cell budget to pay for a consultant to prepare the design and specifications package for the leachate management system.
The total cost of a new pond is not known yet, but Aalbers suspects it could be around the $575,000 mark from the Master Plans.
“We’re going to hope we come in under budget on that. That will be worked through with the contractor as an addendum to the landfill that is being proposed, the new cell. Certainly with that contractor being here there’s an opportunity to get some synergies.”
Construction on Cell 1.3 is underway and is expected to be completed by June 30 of next year.