A new Port Moody's public works yard, which currently sits on prime Inlet Centre real estate on Murray Street, is the most likely candidate for the old Barnet landfill, with other potential uses including active park space and "green tech" industry.
"It has good access for trucks… and access is via the highway for deliveries of sand, gravel and salt," said PoMo Mayor Mike Clay. "It has a lot of land so we could have a repair bay for our big trucks.
"There's a lot of room to work on, it's out of the way and it's a less valuable piece of land than where it is now. It's industrial land, there aren't really any opportunities for residential — it will be commercial, industrial or park."
Clay was talking about the future of the land after local MP James Moore announced a federal grant of $705,500 last Friday towards the site's remediation. The province is matching the landfill grant via the Small Communities Fund and the city will pick up the rest of the $2.1-million tab.
Located off the Barnet Highway, below College Park, the 11-hectare landfill stopped taking garbage sometime in the early 1990s, Clay said, but continued to take green waste until it closed completely in 2002. Only about two hectares of the property were used as a landfill but the site wasn't sealed and contaminants have leached into the soil and the inlet.
In 2008 Port Moody signed a non-binding agreement with Plasco Energy, which proposed building a gasification plant on the property, but that plan was later turfed in the face of significant public opposition.
A public consultation in 2009 showed most residents were in favour of turning the landfill site into a park, with other ideas including an indoor swimming pool, educational facilities, affordable housing or a cemetery. Clay said council will likely look back to those results when it comes to deciding what to do on the landfill.
In 2011 council directed staff to investigate the possibility of moving the public works yard to the landfill property, acknowledging that the cost of remediation was the most significant challenge.
At the same press conference Friday, Moore also announced the feds would give the city $500,000 to update the PoMo complex building envelope. Up to $4 million will be spent to fix the air pockets between the new and old buildings that are causing temperature changes.
Federal cash for that project comes from the Canada 150 Community Infrastructure Program, which is also funding a grant of $125,000 to the city of Port Coquitlam to bring up to code the Sun Valley spray park and $450,000 worth of work on the Brunette-Fraser Greenway in New Westminster.
The Conservative government has earmarked $150 million in this year's budget as the country celebrates its 150th year of Confederation.
