City closes deal on $95-million landfill near Carlsbad Springs
The City of Ottawa has closed the deal on the $95-million acquisition of a provincially approved
landfill site on Boundary Road
in the city’s rural southeast near Carlsbad Springs.
The city had entered into a non-disclosure agreement with Taggart Miller Environmental Services. That was lifted once the deal was finalized and the details were made public in a staff report shared with council on Jan. 28.
had already been completed following a staff recommendation to purchase the Capital Region Resource Recovery Centre (CRRRC), which was approved by council in a 20-to-5 vote during a special council session on Jan. 14.
Coun. Isabelle Skalski, whose Osgoode ward is home to the future landfill site, voted against the recommendation, along with four other rural councillors.
Skalski said the process had been “unfair” to ward residents and complained that the supporting documents were made public one day earlier, allowing little time for opponents to review or prepare before Wednesday’s council session.
“Residents in Carlsbad Springs have expressed significant concerns about the transparency of this process and about the permitting of the site in the first place. Making these reports available the day before today doesn’t help alleviate those concerns,” Skalski said.
Residents have raised particular concerns about the suitability of the site given the abundance of
.
Public works general manager Alain Gonthier said the initial approval for the site was granted by the provincial Ministry of the Environment, which did its own assessment of the suitability of the site before granting those approvals. Gonthier said Taggart Miller worked for about 15 years to finalize the site approvals.
“There’s a reason why it takes 10 to 15 years for a site to go from initial conception to the actual final approvals,” Gonthier said. “It is because there are a lot of investigations that need to be undertaken to be able to satisfy the ministry of those requirements.”
The 192-hectare site is the first and
by the province in over two decades and has an expected lifespan of 30 years, with a capacity to receive 450,000 tonnes of solid waste each year and an approved landfill airspace of 10.17 million cubic metres. The prior approvals are included in the overall cost of the site.
Gonthier said a “good part” of Ottawa’s eastern region is sitting on Leda clay.
“So we are very familiar with how Leda clay performs and behaves, and how we mitigate the issue,” he said. “It’s not something that’s just unique to the site. … When we do the design, those are definitely elements that we will be taking into consideration.”
Gonthier said the site is not close to a ravine or a slope where the presence of Leda clay could pose more of a stability risk, and suggested the clay soil base “was actually a good thing” because the clay is more impermeable and doesn’t allow as much groundwater flow.
“I appreciate the concerns, but it’s something that we are well versed with and it’s something that we’ll be able to consider as part of the design,” Gonthier said.
A staff report placed the value of the property to the city in the range of $110 to $140 million after considering a number of factors, including the challenge of securing another suitable site once the
reaches capacity.
“We will always need some landfill capacity,” said Gonthier, with city’s current Trail Road facility projected to reach its capacity within the next decade.
That projection has been extended following the city’s three-bag limit for household garbage, and Gonthier said the new acquisition would provide some “breathing room” considering the Trail Road facility’s “finite” lifespan.
“This decision to acquire the (CRRRC) does not impede the work that we’re currently doing at
looking at different technologies
,” Gonthier said. “The reality is, any option that we are considering will always require some form of landfill capacity. So this, in fact, puts the city in an enviable position compared to a lot of our peer municipalities, that it does provide us with additional breathing room when it comes to landfill capacity.”
Gonthier said there will be no imminent activity at the site as the city still has work to complete over the coming “weeks and months,” and said staff will work with the community liaison on any developments.
The $95-million purchase price does not include the $470,000 land transfer tax or the $422,000 in HST. The costs will be funded through debt and paid off over a 40-year span, according to chief financial officer Cyril Rogers, with debt servicing covered by the solid waste fee.
Taxpayers will see an “initial impact on solid waste fees in the short term, but it would balance out over time,” according to the city. “There would be no impact to the 2026 solid waste fees; the increase would start in 2027 when the debt servicing costs begin.”
