City dumps incinerator

DENISE RIDEOUT

The idea to install an incinerator at the Iqaluit dump has gone up in smoke.

After years of wrangling over how best to deal with the city’s mounds of garbage, and months of begging the territorial and federal governments for money to buy an incinerator, city council is halting its plans for an incinerator.

At a Feb. 26 council meeting, councillor Stu Kennedy announced the decision. “We’ve decided to postpone the option of incineration,” said Kennedy, who heads the council’s committee on solid waste.

The council’s decision is a complete turn-around from its original stance.

In September 2000, following recommendations made in a major solid waste report, the council voted to buy an incinerator to deal with the overflowing garbage in Iqaluit’s dump.

But, Kennedy said, there are just too many hurdles to get past.

Money has been one of the biggest challenges. An incinerator would run the municipality about $9 million — money the city doesn’t have. The mayor and city officials have had meetings, written letters and pleaded with the Nunavut and federal governments to chip in on the cost, but neither has delivered.

Then, there’s the possible risks to people’s health and the environment. “An issue of deep concern to the committee members was the effects of the emissions from an incinerator,” Kennedy told fellow councillors.

Initially, the engineering department planned to study incinerator plume and its possible effects. But Kennedy said many committee members, as well as Iqaluit residents, felt the study would prove what they already suspected: that the emissions are hazardous.

Kennedy said the high cost and possible health risks no longer makes incineration the best option.

But Councillor Chris Wilson grilled Kennedy to come clean and clarify what he means by “postponing” the incinerator option.

“I don’t want us to be wishy-washy on this issue. We were all big on an incinerator last year. Now we’re looking at a different option,” Wison said.

“Once we start on a landfill, I don’t think we’ll ever look back at an incinerator.”

Kennedy said the solid waste committee hasn’t totally scratched the incinerator off its wish list. “We’re putting it on the back burner right now. We don’t want to say we’re excluding it,” he told Wilson.

Mayor John Matthews jumped into the discussion to praise the committee’s decision. “I think the committee has taken a good position,” he said. “I just kept hearing people say ‘I don’t want an incinerator in my backyard.’”

Among city officials, an incinerator was seen as an alternative to the current practice of openly burning garbage.

The Nunavut Water Board, in issuing Iqaluit its water licence on Jan. 1, 2001, condemned the dump as a public health and environmental hazard. The municipality also faced sharp criticism from the public for the open burning. At the time, the mayor and council informed residents the practice would stop once an incinerator was installed.

Now, city officials will look to other methods to reduce the amount of garbage going to the landfill. Kennedy said baling, compacting and recycling waste could go a long way. “Current estimates suggest that the current landfill site could be used for at least 10 years if large-scale compaction and diversion is adopted,” he said.

At least one environmental group in the city likes the idea the council wants to get away from openly burning garbage.

Paul Crowley, a member of the group Citizens for a Clean Iqaluit, said “If they’re planning on going with a sanitary landfill with compaction and reduction, I think that’s a smart way to go.”

The group, formed last year to lobby the city to stop burning garbage, never really supported or opposed the city’s choice to incinerate garbage. They just wanted the open burning banned.

The council’s next step will be to consult residents, as well as environmental regulators, on the best methods to deal with garbage. Kennedy also urged council to hire a solid waste co-ordinator who will put together a new waste management system for Iqaluit.