Still no decision from RDOS

The Regional District OkanaganSimilkameen is not going to re-visit Summerland or Marron Valley as sites for a regional compost facility, though directors came no closer to selecting a location.

A multi-million dollar facility is needed to extend the life of local landfills by taking on organic waste from the entire region.

Penticton Mayor Andrew Jakubeit said a proposal for a new property is forthcoming to the board, possibly at the next meeting, and talks have been renewed with the Penticton Indian Band’s recently-elected council.

“(The PIB) is certainly aware of this. My impression was we opened up a conversation about this,” Jakubeit said, adding it may be helpful to wait for that conversation to develop.

At the Jan. 4 RDOS meeting a decision was made to re-engage talks with the top two preferred options, Marron Valley and Summerland. That decision was deferred and the board’s environment and infrastructure committee decided not to proceed that way at their Jan. 18 meeting — once again deferring any decision until the next meeting.

Director for Area C (rural Oliver) Terry Schafer pointed out the contention on the issue he received after the board merely mentioned Oliver as a possible location.

“Even just implying there’s a possibility it could come to Oliver, I got inundated with calls about the odour issues and a lot of NIMBYism we’ve seen in other areas,” Schafer said.

Michael Brydon, director for Area F (West Bench) reiterated his frustration with the “not in my back yard” attitude. He said claims that “no one’s waste should be someone else’s problem,” or “you need social license” to put up a facility make ““great slogans.”

“But they’re bogus. You give social license for someone else to treat your waste every time you put the cans on the curb or flush the toilet,” Brydon said. “We can sit here and grant the vetoes to all these people because they complained the loudest, but we;re not solving the social problem that we all create waste. It’s extremely frustrating.”

Director and mayor of Summerland, Peter Waterman, doubled down on the position that a bio-solid processing plant would not be accepted in the area unless it was a top-of-the-line facility which could prevent odours from being an issue.

:I think Summerland has made it clear they are not interested in processing any compost or bio-solids from the rest of the regional district,” he said.

The issue was deferred to the next Regional District of Okanagan Similakeemn meeting on Feb. 1.