City may consider fee to dump snow

REGINA – Most of us just shovel it into our yards, but the cost of storing snow in Regina is big business.

City council voted Monday night to study how to recoup more than $200,000 in annual losses incurred while operating the snow dump.

One reason it costs so much is that it isn’t just the city using the storage site. According to city staff, private contractors – the ones who plow snow from parking lots of businesses – might be responsible for more than half of the giant snow pile on the edge of Regina every year.

Right now, they get to dump it for free.

The study will consider selling permits or charging a user fee at the snow dump. It will also look at multiple storage sites, which could melt quicker and reduce costs.

It costs taxpayers about $580,000 each year to operate the site, and a lot of the money is actually spent removing garbage that comes from plowing construction sites.

“So we lose that revenue too by them taking garbage to the facility and passing it off as snow,” said Ward 10 councillor Jerry Flegel. “We kind of lose twice. We’re not charging for them to put the snow there and they don’t have to worry about the garbage they put in the snow site.”

Flegel said about 500 tonnes of garbage had to be taken away from the snow dump last year.

Even though those heavy snowfalls will be upon us in the near future, this study won’t be back until at least Spring 2015.

If the city plans to charge businesses for using the snow dump, it likely wouldn’t happen until November 2015.