Positions on a controversial
attempt to spread biosolids on a Salmon Valley farm remained largely entrenched following a three-hour meeting Tuesday
afternoon between city
officials and concerned residents - many of whom had blocked a
truckload of the material from
being shipped to the site earlier the same day.
Efforts to convince those who attended the meeting that the
material is safe appeared to fall short while many were also upset with the way the city has handled the matter.
Although not obligated to do so, neighbours living next to the farm were notified and a community meeting was held in July at the Salmon Valley fire hall.
But some felt the city could have gone further in terms of providing details of what is planned.
"I feel the city should have done a lot of preliminary work so it wouldn't have ended up pitting neighbour against neighbour," said Leanne Marcoux.
On Tuesday morning, about a half-dozen people stood in the path of a truck carrying the material just as it pulled onto Wright Creek Road from Highway 97, about 20 kilometres north of the city.
Andy Angele, one of the most outspoken opponents, was at the scene but stayed away from the blockade after the city slapped him with a lawsuit for leading a Dec. 9 blockade that successfully prevented a truck from proceeding. The city is seeking costs from Angele and a court injunction preventing him from holding further blockades.
City officials met with the group and agreed to hold a meeting with them later the same day.
Biosolids are distilled out of the sludge at the Lansdowne sewage treatment plant and the peat-like substance has been used to grow hay and trees in agricultural settings around the city for about 20 years now. However, the use has become an issue in recent years, first in Red Rock and then in Salmon Valley, in part because of the smell from a farm north of the city where the material had been spread, but also because of its
composition.
As he has in the past, Wright Creek Road resident Andy Angele, who lives closest to the farm on Pollard Road continued to emphasize the toxins found in the biosolids - estrogen, cadmium, lead, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), dioxin and furan among them.
However, John Lavery of
Sylvis Environmental, the
consultant overseeing the process, said the chemicals are found in trace amounts.
"There are background PCBs in soil and just about every living thing in Canada, and biosolids reflect that level of background contamination," said Lavery, who also said there are higher levels of estrogen in cow manure.
Once applied to a site, regulations prevent planting of
above-ground vegetables for 18 months and below-ground foods, like potatoes, for 36 months if they're meant for human
consumption.
"That has [nothing] to do with the metal concentrations," Lavery said. "That has to do with the biologicals that are in the biosolids, so making sure the E. coli or if there were any other pathogens that made it through the water treatment plant, the soil would've taken care of them."
However, the farm's owners, Richard Arnett and his son, Richard Jr., plan to grow hay at the site after seeing a positive effect when they treated a site near Shelley with the same material.
And while the intention is to transport about 2,400 bulk tonnes - enough to fill about 100 20-cubic-metre truckloads - to the site, it will be stored temporarily in a bermed area and then disked into 41
hectares of soil once the spring freshet has finished.
It will then be seeded.
The area where it will be applied will encroach no closer than 30 metres from nearby waterways and 10 metres from property lines. Angele maintained that's not good enough given the number of artesian wells and high water table,
although Lavery said the closest well is about 100 metres away.
Lavery maintained the material's peat-like qualities allow it to hold a large volume of water that in time can be absorbed by the vegetation planted into it.
Following the meeting, city operations superintendent Bill Gaal said the city's next moves are still to be determined, both in terms of when another shipment may be attempted and a lawsuit the city has leveled against Angele for the cost of a Dec. 9 blockade.
"We organized this meeting to hear the concerns of the neighbourhood and we're going to think about them," Gaal said.
The city is continuing to provide the material at no cost to the users. Officials have argued it's a better alternative to other methods of disposing of the sludge from the
sewage plant.
