Northern communities could soon feel the financial pinch of new regulations regarding landfills.
Wayne Clifton is the chairman of the province’s Environmental Code development committee.
Clifton notes new standards are being implemented to protect the environment and they will likely bring some changes with them:
“There’s no doubt the remote communities will need time to adapt . . . and the requirements, for instance, on landfills are much more clear now that a certain level of, a certain type of construction is needed to protect the environment.”
He believes some smaller communities may begin hauling their trash to regional landfills instead of maintaining their own:
“I think you’ll find a number of the smaller communities will go to transfer stations and haul refuse to a regional landfill — as opposed to try(ing) to contruct a landfill for a small community.”
He adds the changes are province-wide and the hope is they will result in less trash being dumped in coulees or ditches.
Clifton says he understands it is a time of change but he adds the code is citizen-driven and it is being implemented through consultation.
Meantime, an assistant deputy minister with the province says the new environmental code won’t mean industrial spills go unchecked.
Speaking this morning at a consultation meeting in Prince Albert, Mark Wittrup says the purpose of the code is to give companies knowledge of how to deal with spills themselves:
“So, really what we’re doing is we’re upgrading, we’re maturing the regulations so that the spills, for instance, all of the guidance somebody needs in the event of a spill is in the code — rather than having to go to several different spots to find it.”
The code essentially replaces Saskatchewan’s Environmental Spill Control Regulations and uses new reporting methods such as the amount of liquid that spilled, the concentration and the adverse effects.