The site of a former demolition waste landfill in Delta will be put to better use.
The city recently approved a development variance permit for an industrial site in the 8000-block of River Road to permit the construction of a new 357,000-square-foot warehouse building.
Council also approved the replacement of an aging watermain fronting the site, agreeing that Delta should contribute $125,000 in funding.
The 16.4 hectare (41 acre) site consists of five separate lots which are located in close proximity to the Burns Bog Ecological Conservancy Area and the Fraser River.
Through a separate subdivision application, the owner is also proposing to consolidate the properties into a single lot.
The site was previously known as the Alpha Landfill.
Sunbury River Road Investments wants to have a new distribution centre at the site of a former demolition landfill on River Road
A report to council notes the project supports the redevelopment of old landfill sites and is consistent with Delta’s Saving Our Industrial Lands (SOIL) initiative.
SOIL was developed to promote the redevelopment of old landfills to create new economic opportunities.
In 2004, the operator of the former Alpha Landfill was sentenced to 21 days in jail and fined $71,000 for dumping waste into Burns Bog. That incident occurred in 1993.
Elenora (Taffy) Anderson, 60, president of Alpha Manufacturing Inc. at the time, was sentenced but released under certain bail conditions.
Alpha Manufacturing, which operated the landfill until 1995 when its permit was revoked, was also fined $640,000.
The fines were upheld after an appeal a year later, but the jail sentence thrown out.
Alpha's site was one of eight the province permitted to operate on River Road beginning in the mid-1980s.
Several Delta councils expressed deep concern about the dump sites being so close to the Fraser River and Burns Bog, both ecologically sensitive areas.
Perhaps the most notorious of the sites was Delta Shake & Shingle on River Road.
That former landfill sat vacant for years following a fire in 1999 that burned for 10 weeks and prompted Delta to declare a state of emergency.
Subsequently, the city acquired the site through a tax default.
Over the years, Delta unsuccessfully tried to sell the property and even pitched it as a location for a new provincial jail.
The city later through SOIL approved a tax exemption bylaw that enabled the municipality to provide property tax reductions to encourage the remediation and redevelopment of old landfills.
Ocean Trailer assumed responsibility for the closure and cleanup of the former Shake & Shingle property and now runs a successful trailer and container business there.
