Once burned, twice angry was the sentiment of the people who showed up for a public hearing on a proposed compost facility across from Penticton’s Campbell Mountain Landfill.
More than a dozen people came out to the Regional District of Okanagan Similkameen’s hearing, held just a day after an open house on the facility. It stretched past its original hour schedule on Oct. 5, and in the end, was recessed until Oct. 19, to give more people time to get feedback in.
Whether that feedback would be taken into account was something residents who spoke were less than confident in.
“On your website, there is a letter from the [Agricultural Land Commission] that states you cannot proceed with Phase Two,” said Jacquie Jackson. “The Penticton Indian Band wrote a letter stating you cannot proceed with this rezoning. …You’re not listening to the residents with their environmental reports, you’re not listening to the petitions that were done in 2020 and 2021.”
The RDOS is seeking to rezone 1313 Greyback Road across from the Campbell Mountain Landfill, turning the portion of the property not in the Agricultural Land Reserve into a compost facility, after being rejected by the ALC already on pulling the rest of the property out of the ALR.
The RDOS hopes to then go back to the ALC after the compost facility is operational with a request to remove the rest of the property from the reserve so they can place a biosolid waste facility on the site.
The compost facility would be designed to accommodate up to 35,000 tonnes of organic materials per year to keep that otherwise green waste — food, agricultural clippings and yard waste — out of the landfill.
READ MORE: Public hearing for proposed compost facility next to Penticton’s landfill
Broken promises and contamination over that landfill were a common refrain.
A number of the residents who spoke up lived in the area for decades, one saying that he had lived there since 1975, just two years after the landfill had opened. They brought up how promises had been made when it was opened that it would only be open for 25 years, no longer.
Questions were raised as to the environmental impact, calling the report that had been prepared and was listed as part of the materials for the proposal significantly lacking in detail.
“We have an environmental disaster that is still ongoing to this day on that site, with contamination of all the downside properties on the Naramata Bench, how do we know that this is not going to keep happening going forward?” said Richard De Silva, who’s family have farmed and lived in the area since 1956. “On the face of it, it seems this is a win-win, but we’re not looking for the most convenient or cheapest way of dealing with a problem or further adding to the environmental nightmare we have going on.”
“I had an environmental study done in 2017 for Interior Health with regards to a distillery, which never proceeded because of COVID, but the hydrology, the water has been affected downstream from the dump on at least four or five properties since at least 2005,” said George Niddery. “I just don’t want to see it coming the other way.”
Members of the public spoke did recognize the importance of a facility to better deal with green waste and a new facility to deal with biosolids, but they were emphatic that it not be located where the RDOS is proposing it.
Another sentiment multiple people brought up was how inaccurate the claims that there were no other alternatives. Attendees shared some of those other options, including an Indigenous family who had been at the open house and said they had expressed interest in hosting a biosolid facility on their land, and the recent announcement of the Westbank First Nation’s deal with Kelowna to utilize the defunct Brenda Mine site as a compost facility.
READ MORE: WFN invests in Brenda Mine site compost project
One such example of questions that received contradictory answers was how the compost facility would even be reached, with multiple responses from access through the ALR land on the property to around the sides of the property.
A lack of a firm design, architectural drawings, or even details such as how high the proposed facility would be were also concerns residents shared.
The public hearing was recessed after an hour and a half and will resume at 9 a.m. on Oct. 19 at the RDOS building on Martin Street ahead of the general board meeting.