Update – Potential Area B. Landfill Sites

Mar 22 2024 Update

Remko Rosenboom is the General Manager of Infrastructure Services for the SCRD and informed an HBES member/former board member that, based on information provided to staff and Board members by their consultant at the January 24th, 2024 Meeting, “…..the SCRD is currently not exploring the development of a new landfill in the Halfmoon Bay area any further.”

We still need to be wary of potential development in the future but for now, something to celebrate.

Feb 10 2024 Update

An SCRD Meeting of the Whole was held on January 25th, 2024, Dr. Tony Sperling of Sperling Hansen Associates presented a second opinion and further recommendations based on the initial desktop study conducted by Tetra Tech on potential landfill sites for Area B. 

The best option that was presented to the SCRD Board was to conduct a feasibility study for a westward and/or vertical expansion to the current Sechelt landfill location. This would seem to be the best solution to the future landfill problems faced by the SCRD. An SCRD Staff report however indicates that the shishalh Nation do not appear to be currently onside with the westward expansion proposal. It could also be in potential conflict with a possible SCRD potable water reservoir proposal within another exhausted part of the mine site. The SCRD meeting concluded that a feasibility study was warranted that should include the shishalh Nation and the sand and gravel mine operator, Heidelberg Materials Ltd. If the SCRD are unable to site a new landfill, the solid waste could still be exported off the Coast to either Washington State or a facility at Cache Creek, BC.

Unfortunately, that seems to still leave the Tetra Tech TT2 and TT4 sites as possible contenders for a potential new landfill site. It was even suggested by Sperling Hansen that these two sites in Area B were still worth “further investigation”. The conclusions that Sperling Hansen have outlined in their report do not include some key geographical and geological parameters and clearly shows that desktop studies are no substitute for HBES Members having actually visited those two sites – boots on the ground as it were.  

At site TT2, Sperling Hansen do not mention that without detailed geological mapping (perhaps even shallow coring or trenching to bedrock), the site is a potential karst area with limestone and marble caves, as have been identified on published and unpublished maps around the Wormy Lake (Phare Lake) area and nearby Mineral Hill. The site is also on-trend with a mapped geological fault, the Snake Creek Fault, that passes beside and beneath Crowston Lake and beneath the Seawatch Development in Sechelt. While this fault is not currently active, there well may be an associated rubble zone that could be problematic for sinkhole development and landfill leachate seepage.

At Site TT4, Sperling Hansen make reference to Halfmoon Creek being 120 m distant but they do not identify a year round tributary to Halfmoon Creek that runs through the middle of the proposed landfill site. This site should be disqualified as a potential landfill site and should not even be ranked, as was the case in the January 25, 2024 presentation. 

You can see the full presentation by Dr. Tony Sperling of Sperling Hansen Associates to the SCRD Committee of the Whole on January 25th, 2024 here.

Keep watching this website as more developments unfold. 

The HBES thanks member and former board member Peter Hews for his efforts in keeping an eye on proposed landfill developments including putting together this update.