Klickitat County welcomes garbage from B.C.

Vancouver, B.C., is running out of room at its dump and wants to send a half-million tons of garbage a year to Washington by train for burial near the Columbia River.

Garbage hauler Allied Waste-Rabanco is bidding to bring the trash to the Roosevelt landfill in Klickitat County near the Oregon border as early as next year, when the Cache Creek dump in British Columbia is expected to reach capacity and be closed.

"Their municipal waste is no different than ours. There is no border inspection, but they do have to comply with their permit. There is a definition for municipal solid waste; they can't have hazardous waste in there," said Larry Altose, spokesman in Bellevue for the state Ecology Department. "Any shipment could be subject to a cargo check, but I would hate to be the one who has to check that one."

Send it on down, say Klickitat County officials.

The trainloads of trash are welcome, said Glen Chipman, chief financial officer for the county. Income from the landfill adds about $8 million a year to the county's annual budget. The new trash from Canada would bring an extra $1.5 million, at least.

But not everyone, even in Canada, thinks it is such a great deal.

"I don't think it is the right thing to do. We need a 'Made in British Columbia' solution," said Mayor Judy Forster of White Rock, B.C. "Would we want the United States to send its garbage up to Canada? I don't think so."

She estimates that the trash train could send as many as 23,000 rail cars loaded with garbage past the waterfront of her popular tourist town.

Forster also said that exporting garbage sends the wrong message as Vancouver prepares to host the 2010 Winter Olympic.

"We are trying to have eco-friendly games, and what are we doing with our trash? We are sending it down to the United States," she said.

Canada already sends some garbage to Washington, mainly from Whistler. Seattle sends its trash on a mile-long train six times a week to Arlington, Ore., right across the Columbia River from the Roosevelt landfill.

Metro Vancouver officials have known for a decade that the Cache Creek dump would be full in 2009. They had plans to open a new landfill. However, at the last minute, according to Metro Vancouver spokesman Bill Morrell, provincial leaders in Victoria vetoed the plan, leaving the metro area in the lurch.

"There is no way we can build the capacity we need in this region in time to meet the 2009 closure of Cache Creek," Morrell said.

"We have to take this stuff somewhere," he said.

Canadians will pay about $68 a ton to pack the trash in rail cars and send it some 450 miles south to the Washington landfill. But that, too, depends on approval from provincial government leaders in Victoria.

In the meantime, the Vancouver metropolitan leaders are launching an aggressive recycling program and hope to start building a waste-to-energy incinerator soon.

While importing Canada's garbage might seem a little odd, there is little regulation of garbage coming across the border.

"We don't have to get any approval from the U.S. as far as I know," Morrell said. "We have had letters of support from Klickitat County."

It's not an issue, said Joe Casalini, director of business development for the Roosevelt Regional Landfill in Washington.

"A lot of material goes back and forth between the two countries. Think of it as just another commodity," he said.

Moving trash by rail is safer and more environmentally friendly than moving it by truck, he said.

"Our waste-by-rail system has to be one of the largest in North America. How it works here is really unique. Our geographic setting allows us to move volumes from wet regions to dry regions. If you had to put it all on trucks, the facilities in Eastern Washington wouldn't work," Casalini said.

The Roosevelt landfill is made up of large cells heavily lined with several layers of materials to prevent leaking. As each cell is filled over time with garbage, it is permanently sealed. Methane gas created by the decaying mixture is captured by the Klickitat County Public Utility District, generating about 10 megawatts of electricity, enough to power about 7,000 homes.

Marvin Hunt, a councilor in Surrey, B.C., and chairman of the Metro Vancouver Waste Management Committee, said the garbage shipment is just temporary until a new facility is ready in the province.

"This is the Northwest. We feel like this is all family here in Cascadia," Hunt said.

"We have a little problem right now, and when you have a problem, you ask your brothers and sisters to help you out."