The City of Castlegar will be closing its yard waste facility early in 2025.
When curbside organics were introduced in Castlegar last year, city council decided to leave the facility behind the Castlegar Community Complex open for a while longer, but signalled it would likely close the facility once residents adjusted to the new system.
"Unfortunately there are a lot of businesses that are not paying for it, people outside of the city, all strata developments do not pay into the service, so there are a lot of residents in Castlegar that are not paying for this service and are using it," said Mayor Maria McFadin as part of her explanation as to why she was voting to close the facility. "We need to make sure we are making good decisions around this table for all of the taxpayers."
Most of the other city councillors also stated concerns over Castlegar taxpayers paying for services used extensively by non-residents, increasing costs, use of staff time and the amount of non-organic materials left at the site.
Operators also report regularly observing out-of-town commercial enterprises using the site and unauthorized materials being dumped at the site.
The cost of this abuse is being paid for by Castlegar taxpayers.
Closing the facility will save Castlegar taxpayers about $120,000 each year.
According to a staff report, maintaining the facility is labour and equipment intensive as it requires an operator and a loader to clear the bins and stockpile material. The stockpiled material is then chipped and loaded into trucks and hauled offsite. About 700 hours of operator and equipment time are required to operate the site each year.
City property owners have been paying about $38 per year to maintain the facility, whether they use it or not, while also paying for curbside collection of organics.
Closing the facility will now allow for the 700 hours of staff and equipment time to be reallocated to other projects.
The only councillor who voted to keep the facility open was Shirley Fahlstead.
For residents that produce excess yard waste that cannot be managed in their curbside collection carts, the city recommends going to the Ootischenia Landfill where yard waste is accepted for free during the months of May and October and an average-sized pickup truck load of yard waste costs $6 to dump.
Closing the yard waste disposal site also ensures that the space is available for future upgrades or expansions at the Castlegar Community Complex site.
