At a special committee meeting Tuesday, the City of North Bay's Public Works and Services department will make its case as to why the municipality should take over on-site operations of the Merrick Landfill beginning in 2022.
The City staff presentation to North Bay City Council's Infrastructure and Operations committee will outline several reasons to take over as the sole site operator, including its cited main objective to "improve the maintenance of the landfill which will, in turn, allow for a longer life for the existing approved landfill footprint."
The staff report written by Senior Environment and Facilities Engineer Karin Pratte reads, "Directly managing our most important assets and investing in our own people will improve the maintenance and long-term sustainability of the site. The new structure of dedicated City fleet and employees will enable more emphasis to be placed on the landfill."
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There is a financial component to the proposal. The City's forecasted 2022 in-house annual operating cost estimate is $1.1 million and taking on the landfill operations in-house is estimated to provide net annual savings of $180,000.
"It is recommended that these annual savings be transferred to the landfill reserves in order to reimburse the reserves for the initial capital cost requirements as well as provide funding that will be required for future expansion of the current site or an entirely new site."
Bruman Construction Inc. is currently contracted as the site operator of the landfill. That contract expires December 31.
"The third-party contractor at the landfill often manages a number of capital projects in the City of North Bay and at times their heavy equipment and staff will have responsibilities that span various projects," Pratte writes. "With the City directly managing the landfill operations, it ensures that the fleet and personnel are dedicated to City infrastructure and projects at all times."
The City’s in-house proposal would cover all of the current functions involved with running the site on a straight operational cost basis. This would be a switch from the current model as the contractor works now on a unit rate-based agreement and is paid by each tonne of waste, contaminated soil and sludge that arrive at the Merrick Landfill site.
Pratte notes the purchase of the heavy equipment required for such an operation would include investment from the City. "The operations agreement also includes unit rates for landfill equipment that can be requested by the City for extra work (work at the landfill that is outside the scope of the contract)."
The in-house proposal also intends to streamline the operation of the landfill.
"With both a Contractor and the City involved in the landfill operations, as is now the case, there can be disputes over scope of work, extra costs and liquidated damages," reads the report. "There have also been concerns in the past from both the City and Ministry of Environment with the contractor meeting compliance with all requirements of the ECA (Environmental Compliance Approval). The in-house proposal eliminates these issues."
The staff report acknowledges the Merrick Landfill "will require expansion at some point in the future and therefore the annual cost savings realized by taking on the operations in-house can be used to increase landfill reserves which will aid to fund this required future expansion."
See also: City Councillor tours Merrick Landfill's new Cell 8
The site receives an annual waste volume of approximately 45,000 tonnes per year. The estimated remaining life of the landfill is 16.9 years, per the report. The landfill, opened in July 1994 and located over 20 kilometres north of the city, has thus far been operated by a combination of municipal employees and the contracted site operator's personnel.
According to the report, the City staff manages the site operator contract, controls access to the site and operates the weigh scale, leachate treatment, landfill gas collection, ground water and surface water sampling. The contracted site operator is responsible for compaction of waste, management and maintenance of daily and final covers, maintenance and repair of access roads and litter control.
Pratte offers several operational benefits of taking over what is considered one of the municipality's most important assets, which accepts all the residential, commercial and industrial waste for the City of North Bay as well as surrounding municipalities:
"The City has invested tens of millions of dollars in capital infrastructure at Merrick and a future expansion will be millions of dollars in environmental investigations and capital construction. Landfill space is very difficult to quantify however, any extension to the Merrick landfill site life will be extremely beneficial to the City of North Bay."
A detailed financial presentation of the business case will be presented at Tuesday's special committee meeting, scheduled for 5:30 p.m. and available via live stream.
