With residents being allowed back into their homes people are now seeing the true devastation of the June flood, but the Foothills Regional Landfill has not been impacted to the extent circulating through the rumour mill.
Three weeks after the Highwood and Sheep rivers gushed over their banks thousands of homes have been gutted and their moldy, saturated contents have been hauled out onto the street. An army of heavy equipment has been buzzing through High River collecting the garbage and taking it to the Foothills Regional Landfill south of Okotoks.
Rumours have been rampant the trash resulting from the flood has taken years off the life span of the landfill, however, manager John Deagle said that is simply not the case.
“Things have been going very smoothly and things are starting to get back to normal,” he said. “We have had a lot of tonnage come through, but we have lots of air space. We are not compromising the environment, or our safety.”
Indeed there has been a substantial amount of waste dumped at the landfill.
According to Emergency Operations Centre Communications officer Jason Maloney as of Friday there was 24,000 tonnes of garbage taken to the regional landfill — the weight of more than 100 Statues of Liberty.
Maloney said crews are removing the garbage piling up in High River as quickly as possible.
“Our teams are working as best they can and as fast as they can,” said Maloney. “If there is any stockpiling of garbage we are responding quickly.”
More than 100 pieces of heavy equipment, including trucks and loaders, are being used to expedite the cleanup. According to the Emergency Operations Centre these numbers will increase to meet the needs of the community and accelerate the response effort. An additional landfill site, Shepard landfill in Calgary, has been secured for commercial haulers.
Although there has been a significant amount of garbage taken to the landfill Deagle said it will not have a detrimental affect on the facility.
In comparison, he said on a typical year the landfill processes about 55,000 tonnes of garbage meaning material from the flood taken to the landfill thus far is less than one year’s worth of garbage — much less than what has been rumoured.
Deagle said the only time the landfill was taxed was when numerous loads were coming to the facility at one time.
For example, he said on a peak day after the flood more than 900 loads were coming to the landfill per day. The busiest day for the landfill during normal times is Saturdays and includes about 600 loads.
To address the heavy work load the landfill brought in extra equipment and personnel and extended their hours of operation to 12 hours a day seven days a week.
Now, Deagle said things have slowed considerably.
“Yesterday (July 10), the tonnage just from High River was 1,700 tonnes and we had 792 loads,” he said. “It has been steady all week, but we have not had any lines.”
The average tonnage disposed at the landfill per day since the flood is between 1,000 and 1,500 tonnes.
Staff at the landfill has also been busy sorting through the mountain of discarded appliances.
Deagle said they have tried to save the majority of the appliance to be recycled, but some were simply in too bad of condition and had to be buried.
“Every fridge and freezer is put in a special area, but many contain food and maggots,” said Deagle. “They are duct taped shut, the freon removed and buried.
“We would like to recycle them all, but some can’t be recycled, they are pretty gross.”
Those which can be recycled have the food removed, sprayed with bleach and then crushed.
Deagle said he is proud of his staff of 23 people at the landfill, many of whom have homes in High River, but remained on the job despite damage to their own homes.
“It has been unbelievable,” said Deagle of his staff. “Everybody had a job to do and they did it.”
