A Wellington County solid waste services meeting focused mainly on garbage disposal and pickup as well as local methane levels on Tuesday.
At Riverstown Landfill, methane levels may soon need to be tracked. Dos Soligo, county manager of Solid Waste Services, says there is a point where the county may need to spring into action if methane levels are too high.
“We expect that the county is going to have to do some assessments to determine the amount of methane that is coming out of the landfill site,” Soligo explained.
"If it passes a certain volume of methane, then there will be obligations to either capture that methane and either destroy it or utilize it in some fashion,” he concluded.
He says this will take place in 2025. The City of Guelph joined the county in a bid that aimed to do the work sooner but the bid was unsuccessful.
“We were going to look at this before we were obligated to do it, so really there’s no ramifications. It just means that instead of getting an earlier look at our methane emissions, we will likely wait until 2025 until we’re required to do this,” Soligo said.
Soligo also mentioned the possibility of using a drone to track methane emissions at the landfill.
Wellington County had received an exemption from the current Ontario requirement to manage methane generated from the Riverstown Landfill site.
A county report stated that "because the landfill design has two distinct waste mounds, the site has a low filling rate, and much of the Phase I waste has been in place for many years putting it past the peak of methane generation."
The report added that methane is 86 times more potent than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period in the atmosphere, and is therefore the subject of current and proposed legislative controls.
The Township of Centre Wellington could also be making garbage collection a weekly occurrence in downtown Fergus and Elora. Currently, a biweekly model is used.
Mayor Shawn Watters says issues were presented by various parties within the township, which led him to bring it to the attention of the county.
“One of the concerns from both the Fergus and Elora BIAs was amount of garbage and how to deal with it. So, we listened to them in terms of maybe there could be a change in terms of additional collection,” Watters said.
“We approached the county, explained that to them and came up with this potential solution,” he added.
The estimated cost is $17,000 per year, Watters stated.
The project is a pilot of sorts: Watters said he believes this decision could pave the way for changes in other communities. The change will first need Township council approval before getting the green light.
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