The Municipality of Killarney-Turtle Mountain is making headway on their landfill expansion project having approved the tendered proposal from Dirt Pro Ltd.
Earlier this spring the municipality was awarded $813,000 from the Manitoba government under the Manitoba Growth and Renewal Opportunities Fund, also known as the Grow Fund. This fund is specifically for municipalities outside of the Winnipeg perimeter for projects like this.
The cost of building a new cell at the landfill site has been on the rise, and with that price still increasing the concern was the municipality wouldn't have enough funds set aside in the budget even with the addition of the Grow Fund. By council planning pro-actively, the project is well within its timeline of starting this summer.
"Now the only issue about all of this stuff is that the tenders came in quite high," shares Mayor Janice Smith. "And what does that mean? That means that the project is going to cost a little more than getting it totally covered through the grant and through the money that we had set aside for that. But we had done a debenture already and had that approved. So, at this point we still have some tenders going out for like a grand plan, which is seeing where and what other areas of that property are going to be viable to do further expansion."
"And then we were hoping to get a new shop out there at the landfill at the same time," she adds. "So as long as those still come in reasonable, we are still planning to go with the whole project."
Mayor Smith says they're still on track to begin the construction this summer. She adds the need for the project to happen sooner than later is what prompted them to acquire a debenture, so they weren't reliant on the budgeted funding nor the government grant to foot the entire bill.
"We're hoping that the shop part of the project will come in low. We're hoping that the engineered costs are going to come in a little lighter because we have some details that they can kind of cross reference. And we're also hoping to do some road work on our own using our own guys and our own equipment," explains Smith.
"So, we don't really know how much that's going to come in, but we did get approved through the municipal board to borrow the money, and we definitely had the room to borrow it," she adds.
The municipality received 11 tenders for the waste cell construction component of the project, all of which came in higher than originally anticipated. The contract was awarded last week with the successful bid coming in at just over $1.6 million.
The original total project budget was $1.626 million. However, due to current market conditions, the revised budget, is now estimated at $2.0 million, shares CAO Meghan Cuvelier Klassen.
Tender documents for the remaining components of the project, being the new shop/office and the master plan, are currently under review and are expected to be released by the end of the month, she adds.
"In terms of funding, we have up to $2.1 million available through grant funding, $300,000 from reserves and surplus funds, and the remainder to be financed through borrowing. When we submitted our borrowing bylaw, we applied for up to $1 million, which provides the flexibility to proceed with the original full project scope, should council choose to do so, despite the increased costs," explains Cuvelier Klassen.
The cost is significant, but the expansion project is crucial.
When it comes to waste disposal, Smith says their municipality is very fortunate that they have the room at the landfill site to do the expansion project.
"There are so many municipalities that have to ship their garbage elsewhere and at a cost that is astronomical. We think that building this landfill cell is astronomical. Well, shipping it out on a weekly basis is crazy expensive. And again, we are being responsible and taking care of our waste ourselves, whereas some of these other municipalities haven't been able to do that and then they have to pass it on to another area."