City councillors will be asked Monday to give approval in principle to a $56-million biosolids and source-separated organics facility.
Biosolids are organic fertilizer made from food and excrement in wastewater from residential, industrial and commercial sources.
They are treated to reduce the presence of potentially harmful micro-organisms and odours.
If approved, the new facility will be built at the city landfill on Fifth Line.
The $56-million estimated cost is up considerably from the $40.7 million projected in the city's 2024 budget.
"As design progressed and inflationary pressures were included, the estimates were significantly higher," said Catherine Taddo, the city's manager of development and environmental engineering.
"$45 million (80 per cent) will be covered by the sanitary sewer fund, and $11 million (20 per cent) will be drawn from the waste management reserve," Taddo said.
"Final costs will be refined as the design reaches 90 per cent completion and through the tendering process."
In a report prepared for Monday's city council meeting, Taddo says the following steps have been taken to reduce the project costs:
- eliminating the fabric canopy from bunkers
- revising the receiving building design
- using city staff for site clearing, excavation, and servicing
- reducing scope of mobile equipment procurement
Biosolids – mostly sludge from the city's two PUC-operated sewage treatment plants – have been an ongoing source of landfill odour issues.
Sewage sludge is about 77 per cent moisture, like truckloads of pudding when it arrives at the dump.
City council was told in 2021 that three trucks of PUC sludge were arriving daily at the landfill, five days a week.
They're sent directly to dump the stuff at the working face of the landfill.
The local supply of sewage sludge has been fairly consistent from year to year, council was told.
An Ontario government food and organic waste policy requires the city to achieve a 50 per cent waste reduction and resource recovery of food and organic waste generated by single-family dwellings by 2025.
The source-separated organics (SSO) collection and processing program is intended to help meet that target.
But the city isn't going to meet the province's deadline.
"Given the financial challenges associated with the construction of a new biosolids/SSO processing facility and to align the commencement of SSO collection with the current waste collection contract end date, the city is not expected to initiate curbside SSO collection until 2027," says AECOM, the city's engineering consultant.
"To address the 'processing' component the biosolids processing facility is being expanded to meet the requirements for both biosolids and SSO," AECOM's Rick Talvite says in a report to be submitted at Monday's council meeting.
"The recommended business and implementation plan includes a 20 per cent increase in user fees every five years, with a tipping fee of $92/tonne, and gate fee of $13.25 in 2025," Taddo says in her own report to Mayor Shoemaker and councillors.
"This will result in an estimated revenue increase of $195,000. The user fee by-law will be presented to Council in November for approval.
"The plan also includes a waste management system levy increase of approximately $373,000 in 2025. Increases are required each year over the analysis period, with an average annual increase from 2025 to 2035 of $566,000.
"The 2025 net levy increase will be $373,000. By comparison, the recent levy increase for 2023 and 2024 was $319,000," Taddo said.
Monday's city council meeting will be live-streamed on SooToday starting at 5 p.m.