Composting his displeasure with RM

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This article was published 08/04/2011 (5534 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Samborski Garden Supplies has a tentative agreement to move its composting operations, but the co-owner of the com­pany says he is bitterly disappointed such a deal couldn’t be reached with the Rural Municipality of Macdonald.

Samborski had been negotiating a deal with the RM last year to relocate its Winnipeg-based operation to a 75-acre section of land located within the municipality. The company even paid for an environmental study of the land while the negotiations continued.

Negotiations were suspended after the second of two applications from the company were rejected by municipal officials.

The company has since reached a tentative deal with the City of Winnipeg to develop a new site near the Brady Road Landfill. But co-owner Len Samborski said he is frustrated his company has nothing to show for the $30,000 it spent trying to negotiate a deal in Macdonald.

“We’ve (gave) it two tries and (were) turned down both times,” he said. “Basically we spent a year and a half pursuing this deal and spent a lot of money doing it to have it quashed.”

Reeve Rodney Burns said that a composting facility wasn’t a good fit for the municipality at this time.

“We felt that because of the talks that Samborski’s has been having with the city, that the Brady dump site would be a better fit for the composting application,” Burns said. “The operation causes quite a smell and there are too many houses near their current site.”

A provincial order was issued last September that demanded Samborski cease operations at its current Winnipeg site because of complaints from residents in the neighbourhood of Whyte Ridge.

The company was forced to suspend its composting operation as a result of the order, a decision that cost the company 75% of its business, according to Samborski.

An agreement with the city about the Brady Road site should be finalized later this spring, he said.

“We are moving forward with our plans to move next to the Brady Road Landfill,” Samborski said. “We have had a lot of discussions over the last few months and now we are just trying to get our Is dotted and our Ts crossed.”

Samborski said he expects construction at the new location should start by this summer and is expected to be operational by the fall. He added that the new operation will include an indoor composting facility to eliminate odours.

prescott.james@canstarnews.com