Hello Pender Island Recycling Society Membership, Further to the questionnaire to Island Trustees and CRD Candidates regarding a Pender-driven Solid Waste Management Plan to be completed before the local election. We would like to take this opportunity to give the you, our business history and our perspective as a stakeholder in the Pender Islands Waste Management issues. We feel this is necessary for both the North and South Pender Island communities to better understand who we are, and why we made the move to our present location. We are property owners on both North and South Pender Islands and have: a) been residents and active community members of the islands for 35 and 45 years respectively; b) two teenage children who were raised on Pender Island; and, c) grandparents, also 35 year residents, who recently sold their home (on North Pender) and now reside on our property. We saw a need over the years, as we are sure many islanders did, to provide: a) contractors and builders with proper removal of construction waste; b) commercial business with accessible waste removal and recycling options; c) visitors with better access to waste disposal, rather than trucking home, abandoning or using ‘park’ and ‘ferries’ garbage cans; and d) locals with a better alternative than burning, burying, or storing it until there was enough to go themselves to Hartland Landfill. It is unfortunate many of these activities continue to this day. In 2006 we started a waste management business on Port Washington Road. At that time, there were no permits for a SWTF on Pender Island. In 2006 we applied to the Islands Trust for a TUP at our Port Washington Road site and were the first successful applicant on Pender Island for such a facility. Subsequently, during an APC meeting(2009), Andy Nowak, the manager of Pender Island Recycle Facility stated “it was time for one on Pender Island” and he felt we would be good operators. We operated under the TUP on Port Washington Road for Construction job site pickup, bag garbage drop off, all fenced, screened with trees within a building with sump and safeguards in place. We also added a boat storage component to the business. The Port Washington site, which operated for 4 years, had similar neighbourhood concerns to those present today: the building was within 75 feet to the main road with a grocery store, lumberyard and residential properties as neighbours. In 2007 we applied for and obtained a TUP at the Driftwood Centre for a Sunday drop off. In January 2009, we purchased the weekly residential pickup route from Ron Henshaw, originally operating as Spalding Sanitary Service, which had been a locally run business in operation for more than 25 years. When we purchased the weekly residential pickup service (Spalding Sanitary routes), included a bagged garbage drop off at Medicine Beach Centre, bagged garbage drop off on Mr. Henshaw’s ALR farm land on South Pender Island, and transfer station on Otter Bay Road, there were no permits or operating safeguards for leachate, odour or vector issues in place at any of the locations. When we applied for a TUP at Medicine Beach Market to legalize the 3 yard bin operated by the previous operator, the same concerns we had addressed at the Port Washington site were brought forward by the neighbours. We mitigated the community concerns of leachate, vector and odour, as with the Port Washington site, with the construction of a building with concrete floor and tank with sump. Notably, during this application there was no correspondence from the Recycle Society with any concerns about the application at this site. Further, the Hamilton Road neighbours, who are in opposition to our proposal on Hamilton Road, welcomed and signed a petition in favour of the transfer station at Medicine Beach Market which is located beside the sensitive Medicine Beach habitat. Future of waste disposal is in question because to management of the Medicine Beach Market requesting a lease agreement at the Medicine Beach location have been ignored, and since moving, from the Otter Bay Road site to our Hamilton Road site, working relations have become strained. In 2009 we rented space at the Otter Bay Industrial site (behind the PI Recycling Depot) and moved the construction bin and commercial recycle components from Port Washington Road and the boat storage to the Hamilton Road Industrial site. As the Otter Bay Road landlord was not in favour of a public drop off site we ceased this part of our service. Further in discussions with our new landlord it became apparent he was not in favour of a composting operation, despite announcements from CRD regarding the changes Hartland and Kitchen waste scheduled for 2015. As we were working our way through the process of an application for the rezoning of the Otter Bay Road site, we obtained Hydrology and Geotechnical Reports. (The Geotechnical and Hydrology reports can be read on the Islands Trust website.) The geotechnical report indicated a rockfall hazard in the area where the bins had originally been established for the transferring of waste. The geotechnical report recommended the relocation of the bin outside the rockfall hazard area, and we intended to move to the lower location where we rented and operated the commercial recycle. Initially the landlord was in agreement with this recommendation and we negotiated an acceptable lease requiring only paperwork to finalize, but within a few weeks his position changed. We are unsure of what caused our landlord to change his mind. However, he did inform us that Mr. Henshaw believed the bins could remain on the original site contrary to the Geotechnical Report. We contracted Mr. Henshaw to truck our 40 yard bins to Hartland landfill which he then used to haul aggregates back from Victoria and sell to his excavating customers. Our understanding was, Mr. Henshaw felt he might lose the trucking to Hartland Landfill and aggregate backhauls, should the 40 yard bins be relocated to our rental space. At no time did we ever convey we would use another trucking service, but Mr. Henshaw did state to us, that he was aware we could contract less expensive hauling services. Our landlord had also made it clear to us, we were to work with Mr. Henshaw, even though at times it was necessary to wait up to five days during busy summer months for the large bin to go to town making it difficult for us to operate. It became apparent that, without a solid lease to move forward with, and still working hard to get rezoning, there was the possibility of finding ourselves being asked to vacate our rental spot. We decided our only option was to find an alternate property for our business. We knew of only one other industrial zoned spot available which had a possibility for the disposal business to be relocated to. It was where we had moved the boats from Port Washington Road. As we owned the land ourselves, it would give us more certainty for the future of our business and the most logical if we were to incur the costs and effort of rezoning. We decided to move forward with the rezoning application on our own property with the knowledge that up to this point, we had received positive Community feedback while operating the business during our previously obtained TUP’s. Our Agricultural Land Commission application was successful in allowing a Waste Transfer and Compositing Facility and yet some community members continue to hound the ALC with correspondence. (The ALC decision can be read on the Islands Trust website.) We are unsure why, but there seems to be an underlying fear leading the Recycling Society to question our intentions regarding the recycling component of our business and somehow we have become a threat to the recycling society. We have handled the recycling from Commercial and Industrial customers of Pender Islands who have historically not been served by the Recycling Society. Further with the growing list of things no longer being accepted by the Recycling Depot, through no fault of their own, we are receiving inquiries to accept recycling which up until the recent changes in funding the depot accepted. We find it disconcerting that the Recycling Society chose to write a letter to the LTC in opposition to our application and seems to be focusing on it as an election issue rather than an island issue. It has been suggested our application has not been dealt with in an open and transparent manner and there has been no community consultation. However, there have been several LTC meetings in the past two years where our application has been on the agenda, and any community member can attend to ask questions during the Town Hall portion of the meeting. Very few members of our community have attended these LTC meetings or taken the time to understand the process in regards to our application and are now asking for ‘transparency and community consultation’ yet the opportunity has been there all along. We have recently completed a Professional Drainage Assessment of the Industrial site, which we believe is the last requirement needed to be obtained before our application is to be sent to the Advisory Planning Committee for comments. A Community Information meeting will follow the APC recommendations. The following is what we feel is important for the Pender Island Recycling Society Membership to consider - 1. The ALC has given us permission to operate for five years, similar to a TUP, which is a safeguard not only for the ALR land, but for our community as a whole. 2. We are the property owners and have a vested interest in seeing the transfer facility run properly as our family lives onsite. 3. We wish for a healthy, clean neighbourhood with as little environmental impact as possible. 4. There are very few Industrial zoned lands on Pender for the waste transfer facility to be located. Out of those few Industrial zoned lands, the landowner must be agreeable to permit activities to take place on their property with terms amenable to the business owner operating the facility. 5. We have been pursuing our application, and run our operation, within the scope of legislation, regulations and bylaws. North and South Pender communities should ask how many transfer stations are currently being operated on the Penders with or without public knowledge and are they operating within Island Trust bylaws and CRD regulations? How do we want to handle our island waste? 6. How will we, as an island, handle the changes to the new organics regulations that are coming into effect January 1, 2015? We at Pender Island Waste Management are currently putting together a system for weekly pickup of Commercial Organics which will go directly off island to Hartland Landfills organics area, with a possible residential component. 7. Our application on Hamilton Rd will meet or exceed ALC and CRD guidelines in regards to controls of leachate, vector, traffic and odour issues, guidelines similar to the Salt Spring Island CRD bylaws and as we have done previously. Will other operators of Solid Waste Transfer and Recycle Facilities be willing to meet these same requirements? 8. The site beside Pender Island Recycling that some members of the community may be suggesting is sited, unscreened, within similar distances as our application (to the Driftwood Centre and Browning Harbour Marina) and is beside popular Pender Island amenities these being, our Community Hall, the childrens daycare centre, Firehall, RCMP station, the Nu to You, the Pender Library, Community Church and borders three pieces of rural property. This other site is on the main road which most residents and visitors to Pender Island must pass. We believe the fresh air, traffic, and neighbours groundwater may also be a concern in this location. 9. We can assure you we will not be operating a “ garbage dump”, nor an “80 ton boat travel lift”, “ industrial stump grinder”, or “barging garbage in from other islands”, nor have any “promises been made” by any trustee, as suggested in correspondence to the Agricultural Land Commission. 10. All of our TUP applications were done at different times, with different Trustees and each with different property owners. The length of our letter reflects the comprehensive 8 year process. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact us directly. Michael & Anne Burdett 250-629-9922
Posted on: Fri, 14 Nov 2014 19:04:53 +0000
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