Construction firms are scrambling to find locations for truckloads of excavated material
KELOWNA – Construction has been booming in the Okanagan for years now, but it’s unearthed an underlying problem that is in dire need of a solution – find a place for fill?
Where can builders put excavated material? The City of Kelowna only accepts a limited amount of fill as cover for materials at its landfill to cover its waste, leaving construction firms scrambling to find locations for truckloads of excavated material that must be removed to allow for construction projects.
Rob Desjardins, Estimator and Project Manager of Desjardins Contracting Ltd., raised the issue in 2017 in an open letter to the City of Kelowna, District of West Kelowna, Westbank First Nations, District of Lake Country, Okanagan First Nation, District of Peachland, Regional District of Central Okanagan and local developers. Yet what was recognized as a serious problem is nearing a crisis point almost five years later.
“The Kelowna landfill site has approximately 8 years’ worth of fill on-site already for what they need to cover their garbage,” Desjardins notes. “They’re running out of room. We’re getting pretty creative, as we have dump sites that we are developing ourselves with private landowners. I have two dump sites we’re working with now.”
The cost to dump a “box”, or one truck load (a pup, or trailer, makes it two boxes) has risen from $15 per box five years ago to $20 today, and some private sites are charging between $40-45 per box.
“That’s a lot of dough when you’re talking a couple of thousand boxes of material,” Desjardins observes.
Existing landfills willing to increase the amount of fill it receives would be the best solution, but gravel pits could be another destination dumping ground. But a solution – and hopefully an economical one at that – needs to be found soon.
Westcorp of Edmonton has received permits to build a new 33-storey, 185-room hotel/65 residence hotel and conference centre on Water Street. That project alone is expected to produce 110,000 cubic metres of fill – or around 8,000, 25-ton truck and trailer loads of fill.
Generally speaking, finding places to dump fill on any project has become increasingly difficult.
“It would be silly if we ended up having to carry the fill further and further afield, burning more fossil fuels to do so, bringing it up to a place like Brenda Mine which is an hour’s drive away,” he states. “
The clock is ticking.
Tailgate Toolkit Program To Help Workers
While the industry as a whole is successful and growing, there is increased concern about an increase in recreational drug use amongst employees. With workers within the sector earning high wages, and many being single with plenty of disposable income, they are being targeted by drug dealers looking to expand their destructive market.
To combat that, Rory Kulmala, CEO of the Vancouver Island Construction Association notes the organization has developed a Tailgate Toolkit Program, a harm reduction initiative focusing on the opioid crisis by specifically addressing construction workers – who sadly are becoming amongst the highest percentage of opioid related deaths in the province.
It has been so effective that the Thompson Okanagan and other regions of the province will be sharing the program.
“A number of years ago as the opioid crisis grew, VICA got involved about providing some training about what was happening in our community,” Kulmala recalls, adding they recognized a need for resources to educate everyone about the threat.
Just over a year ago, the Vancouver Island Health Authority, now Island Health, reached out to develop a specific program for the construction sector. A few years earlier, VIHA had released a report about illicit drug overdose deaths in BC and it revealed some fairly startling facts.
“Of the people that died from toxic drug exposure, although 51% of them were unemployed, half of the rest were employed in the construction and transportation industries. That was enough for us to respond to VIHA’s need, as we could see that employees within our industry had become targets.”
Kulmala points out that although the industry is being targeted, it’s not a construction-only problem. It’s a societal one, and a key to battling it is to reduce the stigma associated with drug use.
“Often, the catalyst for behaviour when it comes to addiction is that it comes from mental problems, dependencies for pain reduction, and through research we did, the stigma and bravado of men within the industry were things that resonated,” he notes.
Focus groups included people who had or were exposed to dependency were helpful in identifying contributors to drug use.
“We had some very candid conversations about that, and what led to the work hard, play hard life, and that included working through pain,” he notes. “It doesn’t make them bad people, or directly correlate to who they are as people.”
The Tailgate Toolkit Program is set up to be communicated during regular “tailgate talks” that typically focus on safety on the job site. It is aimed at raising awareness about the issue, reduce the stigma surrounding it, and helping guide those affected to helpful resources.
“This is really where the program gets to the front line of workers,” Kulmala states. “The tailgate talk is a safety talk that should be on every construction site, so adding this is the same as reminding people to wear their equipment and boots.
“The toxic drug crisis is taking more lives than workplace physical harm is. So looking at it in that light, recognizing that 81 percent of these fatalities are male workers and our demographic aligns with that. 63 percent of those died in privates residences, which means they have means and they have jobs. It paints a very compelling picture.”
VICA spent the first half of this year doing research and they’re now delivering the program, which includes training supervisors and initiating Tailgate Talks. Hundreds of Vancouver Island construction workers have already been exposed to the program, and VICA has received additional funding to share their program with other regions throughout British Columbia, including Prince George, Kelowna and the Lower Mainland.
“We have to change the language we use and reduce the stigma. With men, we don’t talk about our problems. We also have a problem where men can’t have a problem without being criticized. We can’t bury our heads in the sand,” he says. “You can bet there’s going to be a campaign if somebody falls off a building so that they don’t’ do it again. We have to do that with the toxic drug crisis.
“We’re preaching to people to be aware, and to not be afraid if they know somebody who is in trouble. We’re a resource where we can help guide people, and if workers don’t want to go through their employer, they can go through our Harm Team to connect with the necessary resources.”
Mark MacDonald of the Business Examiner and Communication Ink Social Media