Photo: Staff of Castanet
Rural communities west of Kamloops will be served by a new garbage and recycling collection truck after an amendment to the disposal contract is approved by the regional district.
At its Thursday meeting, the Thompson-Nicola Regional District Board of Directors learned that there had been disruptions to curbside collection service for residents of Electoral Area J – which includes Tobiano, Savona and Cherry Creek – due to collection truck breakdown.
Jamie Vieira, deputy general manager of district operations, told directors that when the curbside collection contract was awarded through a public procurement process in 2020, the company selected – Central Cariboo Disposal – offered two pricing options.
“One being buying and using the old refuse collection truck – us buying it and using it as our primary vehicle – and a second option of buying a new vehicle. Both had separate monthly running costs associated with it,” Vieira said.
He said the decision had been made for CCD to purchase the used curbside collection truck from TNRD and that in the event of a mechanical problem, another truck based at 100 Mile House would be available within three hours. .
According to a report prepared for the meeting, the 12-year-old truck has now covered around 300,000 kilometers and, from May 2021 to September 2021, it broke down eight times.
“These outages necessitated the use of an alternate collection vehicle, which is limited to collecting only one type of material at a time, and therefore essentially doubles the time required to travel a route,” the report states.
According to the report, some residents had to leave containers at the curb for up to a day and a half before all types of materials were collected.
Vieira said the suggestion is to move from the first option of the original proposal to the second option, which involves buying a new truck.
He said the contractor was willing to honor the price of the proposal he had originally submitted for the second option, which would mean a cost increase of approximately $303,000, bringing the total contract value to 1, $2 million.
The report said Ronaye Elliot, Director of Electoral Area J, was in favor of changing the contract.
Sally Watson, director of Electoral Area E, said she was “flabbergasted” by the amount and asked whether this change should be decided on the basis of a referendum.
Vieira said it would, but since this particular service was established under the authority of the 2008 solid waste management plan, it would not need to hold a public vote.
“This public process gave us the opportunity to establish the service,” he said.
The board of directors voted in favor of changing the contract leading to the purchase of a new collection truck, Watson having opposed it.