Mixed waste means the end for Jasper transfer station

If Parks Canada gets its way, the dump at the Jasper Transfer Station will someday no longer be accepting trash.

Jurgen Deagle, realty and municipal services manager, said it was potentially true that the pit section, or dump, at the transfer station, may close. “The dump at the transfer station is a contaminated site and so there is concern within Parks about continuing to add to that contamination,” he said. The contamination is in the table water, underneath the dump, where over 20 chemicals have been detected including copper, arsenic, lead, and mercury.

“We’ve been monitoring the wells there and there’s a number of different chemicals showing up in the wells that wouldn’t normally be there,” said Deagle.

Thus far, conversations have mainly remained within Parks Canada but have included a couple meetings with the municipality regarding the site. “We’re just trying to work out what our options are,” he said. Jasper’s transfer station is the only fully operational dumpsite in a national park in Canada.

Lori Rissling-Wynn, environmental stewardship coordinator for the town of Jasper, said that until Parks comes up with an options package it is too early to begin discussions. “We’re still in consultation with Parks Canada and we’re working cooperatively coming up with a plan,” she said, noting the municipality would not go ahead with any action before consulting the public.

One thing Deagle was happy to confirm is that there would be some changes to the pit area in order to deal with the contamination, but it was still too soon to discuss these publicly. “We’re not sure what those changes are going to be yet,” he said. “Before we decide on anything we’re going to take it to the public and say, ‘Here’s kind of what we’re thinking,’ and there’s probably going to be a couple of options and we’re going to ask the public, ‘Which of these works for you?’”

According to Deagle, the contamination stems from the misplaced waste that ends up in the dump, which should never include hazardous household or trade wastes.

“If you were to drive out there today and have a look in the pit, you would find a number of things that would contaminate the ground water, things like used oil cans or cans of paint, things that will contain hazardous chemicals, which normally shouldn’t enter the water, are being dumped in the pit,” he said.

Because it dates back to the late 1960s, the Jasper dump, has no liner, a barrier meant to prevent contamination from escaping, Deagle said. Other dumps, such as the one in Hinton, have these liners.

Deagle suggested the best way to prohibit contamination is to “not dispose of hazardous materials and to handle them separately.” For this option to work, the onus is on those who utilize the dump to ensure their waste is properly sorted and disposed of, rather than just unloading mixed waste into the pit.

New to her position, Rissling-Wynn said that education about what can be dropped off will be an important part of her role as the environmental stewardship coordinator.

“The environmental stewardship program will always continue to have an education outreach component where we’re encouraging residents to take advantage of the programs that are in existence now so that we can minimize waste and what actually gets put in a bag and called waste, we want to keep that at a minimum, so we want to get all the things we can recycle and compost out of there,” she said.

Rissling-Wynn pointed out that the municipality encourages residents to take advantage of all the diversion opportunities at their disposal and take care of waste appropriately. “Reuse, recycle, compost, get rid of your household hazardous waste and your paint and your batteries in the appropriate manner and take advantage of the round up opportunities so that the end result is to minimize what goes in the pit,” she said.