The Rural Municipality of Corman Park Council rejected a discretionary use application in an 8-1 vote Monday from Green Prairie Environmental (GPE), which would have allowed the company to operate an organics composting facility.
This included processing organic waste from the City of Saskatoon’s new green cart program set to launch next week.
According to a statement issued by the city, in September 2020, the City of Saskatoon formed a contract with GPE to provide organics processing services to support the City’s green cart program.
Director of Water and Waste Operations Brendan Lemke said it was the city’s understanding that GPE believed it had the necessary approvals from the RM.
In the event issues arise, GPE is required to have a contingency plan.
“All under the terms of our contract with GPE, the contingency plan is for them to determine and that’s what we’re working through right now,” Lemke said.
“A lot of those contingencies are based on plans and we haven’t necessarily made concrete plans because they weren’t needed yet and now its moving forward with those plans to make them more concrete and an actual plan for where the trucks go,” he added.
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The costs of the contingency will be carried by GPE, the city said.
Green Prairie Environmental operates a landfill just south of Saskatoon and was planning to expand that site for its compost facility.
The facility was planned to process up to 20,000 tonnes of organic waste per year from Saskatoon’s green cart program.
That amount of waste didn’t sit well with RM of Corman Park Reeve Judy Harwood.
“With 20,000 tonnes, now we’re talking more of a commercial entity. So it’s lots more than what we were doing at that location previously,” she explained.
The proposal was sent to 75 properties within a 1.6-kilometre radius of the site. Concerns involving odour, traffic, property values, and limiting the future residential potential of the area were raised.
“You know it’s something we don’t take lightly. But we realized the location for the amount that was coming out from the city was 20,000 tonnes a year of organic waste coming from the city. The location was just not appropriate,” she said.
Lemke said they are continuing the launch of the program and collection will not be affected by the RM council decision.
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