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Marron Valley, Summerland sites put to the curb

Regional directors vote against Marron Valley, Summerland for regional compost facility
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The idea of building a regional compost facility has been trashed - at least for now.

After several presentations and more than an hour of discussion, Regional District Okanagan-Similkameen directors voted not to reengage the idea of locating a regional facility in Marron Valley or Summerland.

Bill Newell, CAO for the RDOS, said “status quo” would continue throughout the RDOS in regards to food waste and biosolids unless staff was directed by the board.

“We don’t plan to bring this (regional compost siting) back to the board again this year,” he said following the Environmental and Infrastructure Committee meeting.

The idea of reconsidering Marron Valley and Summerland landfill as options for a regional facility was brought up about a month ago by Michael Brydon, director for Area F (Okanagan Lake/West Bench).

“What we’re coming up against is a very central thing in our politics is NIMBYism. And NIMBYism is rational I do it myself. The other side of of that, the other side of not in my back yard is please in someone else’s backyard,” Brydon said during the lengthy discussion on the issue.

Brydon was referring to the public campaign including hundreds of letters, emails and phone calls to regional directors from area residents in Marron Valley and Summerland against doing further testing to see if the sites were feasible.

Staff at the RDOS have worked since 2006 to site a location for a regional compost facility. The facility would compost yard waste, food waste - residential and commercial, and biosolids all in one location. Over the course of its lifetime the facility it’s estimated by removing organics from the landfill the facility could save $50 million and green house gas emissions.

More to come

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