County residents have their chance to help design the future of the Roseridge Landfill this month.
The Roseridge Waste Management Services Commission launched a campaign Oct. 19 to ask Sturgeon-County-area residents to help plan the expansion to the Roseridge Landfill. Roseridge is the county’s landfill and is governed by members of the Bon Accord, Gibbons, Legal, Morinville, Redwater, and county councils.
The commission opened Roseridge 40 years ago and its front gate has been at the same spot ever since, said landfill manager Susan Berry.
The county has grown considerably over that time, and so has traffic at the dump, said Roseridge board chair Stephen Dafoe. The dump saw a record 566 vehicles in a day last May, and some 8,000 visitors that month. The commission bought about 65 hectares of land south of the current dump back in 2015 and now wants to develop some of it to meet growing demand.
In June, Sturgeon County council agreed to rezone about 32 hectares of that land so the commission could expand its operations.
The plan was to move the front gate and the buildings around it south to these new lands to make room for a new storage cell, Dafoe said. The commission doesn’t have firm plans for what the new entrance area would look like – it could have an expanded take-it-or-leave-it area or a waste transfer station so cars won't have to contend with dump-trucks, for example – and wants to know what improvements residents would like them to make.
“We’re really looking at this as a blank-slate approach,” Dafoe said.
Berry said the commission hoped to hear ideas on how it should organize its recycling zone (what materials should it accept? Should it be indoors, outdoors, or manned?). Residents can post comments on an online map and take part in virtual workshops on Nov. 4, 9 and 19. The commission has also planned five drive-through information events next month, the first of which is an electronics recycling roundup in Morinville this Nov. 6.
Berry said the commission hopes to have plans finalized by the middle of next year with construction commencing next fall. The new landfill should be ready by Spring 2023.
The consultation runs until Nov. 22. Visit roseridge.mysocialpinpoint.ca/upgrades for details.
