The Cowichan Valley Regional District is looking to add a seventh curbside truck, at a cost of $397,000, to support the new district-wide three-stream curbside collection program that will begin 2025.
The CVRD’s electoral area services committee made the decision to recommend the purchase of the truck to the board at its meeting on May 15 after staff indicated that a consultant had miscalculated the length of the trips the trucks will be required to make, and that more households are expected to be part of the program than originally estimated.
In a report, the CVRD’s environmental technologist Leah Berscheid said Morrison Hershfield, the consultant group that was hired to conduct a review of the planned program, did not factor in that, during collection days, drivers must return to the transfer building to empty the trucks and then drive back out, sometimes having to cover long distances in the large district.
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She said that when factoring this in, data shows that the CVRD requires six trucks with one spare instead of the initial five with one spare to meet current service demands.
“As well, as staff is reviewing areas where the CVRD does not currently provide curbside collection service, there is a strong indication that a large number of additional households could be included in the service,” Berscheid said.
“Staff have identified approximately 1,000 additional households across two electoral areas, and fieldwork in other electoral areas is currently underway. Staff anticipate that these 1,000 households can be managed with the help of the seventh truck.”
The CVRD decided last June to extend three-stream waste collection into its nine electoral areas, as a fully public service run by the district, by 2025.
The new approximately $6.56-million service will see garbage, recycling and organics collection in all corners of the regional district for the first time.
RELATED STORY: CVRD LOOKS TO EXTEND 3-STREAM WASTE COLLECTION DISTRICT WIDE
The program received a $1.5-million boost from the province’s Growing Community Funds program last year, and the board decided that the grant would be used to save taxpayers $30 per year from the anticipated costs of the new initiative.
Berscheid said, if approved, the plan would be to lessen the $30 reduction in utility fees per household from the grant to $23.50 to help cover the cost of the new truck.
Cobble Hill director Mike Wilson said he’s concerned that the consultants didn’t factor in the trucks’ return trips in their calculations.
“That’s a huge omission,” he said. “To me, that’s a bit off.”
Shawnigan Lake director Sierra Acton said staff may say that the purchase of the seventh truck will not impact this year’s budget, but she fears it will become an ongoing cost over many years.
“The community can’t handle this kind of growth in our budgets year after year,” she said.
“It’s not sustainable. I think we should be able to get a little creative.”
Cowichan Lake South/Skutz Falls director Ian Morrison said it’s annoying that staff are recommending a seventh truck should be purchased, but it won’t be adding an additional financial burden on taxpayers as funding will come from the province’s Growing Community Funds grant.
He said it’s his understanding that the extra truck will save wear and tear on the other trucks, and that will help to ensure a greater likelihood of a successful rollout of the new program next year.
“The overall impact of the grant that we applied to this is reducing the curbside utility fees,” Morrison said.
“We’ve already authorized borrowing [for the curbside program] and this shouldn’t be that challenging a leap to make when our staff come to us and say there was a miscalculation in the trip times, and the likes, and this is the most efficient and effective way to move forward.”
