OSOYOOS TIMES-February 24, 2010

By Paul Everest - Osoyoos Times

The Regional District Okanagan-Similkameen (RDOS) board of directors has approved a Septage Facility Action Plan for rural areas A and C that will focus on the development of an “Integrated Septage/Compost facility” at the Oliver landfill.
The action plan comes in response to a letter issued to the RDOS in September, 2008, from the Town of Osoyoos stating that the Osoyoos Landfill would no longer accept waste to its liquid waste handling facility from residents or businesses outside of the town’s boundaries past Sept. 1, 2009.
After this deadline, people outside the town, including Area A residents, would have had to ship septic waste to Penticton and some residents complained to the RDOS that the cost of doing so would be too high.
The reason for this policy was to help reduce “offensive odours” affecting the area near the Osoyoos Landfill, specifically the Osoyoos Desert Centre, generated by the waste coming to the landfill’s liquid waste handling facility, an RDOS staff report states.
The RDOS asked the Town to extend the September, 2009, deadline to March 31 of this year and the Town obliged.
The RDOS used this time to conduct a feasibility study funded by areas A and C to look at other options for where people living outside the Town’s boundaries could bring their waste.
Three options were investigated including using the Penticton Septage Waste Receiving Facility, constructing a waste receiving facility at the Oliver Landfill and developing a septage waste receiving facility similar to the City of Penticton’s that could be designed and attached to the Osoyoos wastewater treatment facility.
The study was carried out by Conestoga-Rovers and Associates, an engineering consulting firm, and the firm recommended that the RDOS proceed with developing the facility at the Oliver Landfill.
According to the RDOS staff report, the estimated cost for a household to dispose of its septage at the proposed Oliver facility would be $378 per pump-out, compared with $568 for the Penticton facility and $405 at the Osoyoos facility.
An “action plan” for the development of the facility includes the stages and timelines for developing the Oliver facility.
An “alternative approval process” and the development of bylaws would take place from March to November, 2010, and a newsletter to the public for review of development options would go out in March.
A request for proposals and pre-design of a new facility, including cost estimates and land purchases, would take place between April and July, 2010.
Land acquisition, zoning, subdivision and obtaining environmental permits would be carried out from June to December and the complete design, construction and commissioning of the Oliver facility would take place between December, 2010, and July, 2011.
Osoyoos Mayor Stu Wells said he has some concerns about these timelines as they extend past the March 31 deadline approved by the Town and he plans to discuss this matter with Osoyoos town council in the coming weeks.
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