A regional composting centre for kitchen scrap waste has been proposed for a clear-cut Western Forest Products acreage across the road from Jordan River’s Sandcut Beach. The JDF Land Use Committee will meet with Regional Director Mike Hicks about this application on Jan. 20. 

Potential operator David Laing from DL Bins is hosting an open house on the subject at the Shirley Hall tomorrow at 2 p.m. Details can be found on pg. 10/11 of the latest newsletter from the Otter Point and Shirley Residents and Ratepayers Association: http://www.opsrra.ca/Newsletter%20pdf/OPSRRA%20DEC%202014%20Newsletter.pdf

Local residents are rallying against the proposal. Their well-researched arguments can be found in the following two documents. The OPSRRA report notes that the facility will be visited by two tandem dump trucks daily, however the following reports suggest that number could be as high as 14 trucks per day – all barrelling down the West Coast Road from Victoria and elsewhere.

* Proposal for Composting Facility in Shirley (pdf file)

<clip> “The CRD has received an application for re-zoning to allow a composting facility to be operated on Lot 72 of the Private Managed Forest land above Sandcut Beach, a Regional Park. The proposal to build a composting facility in Shirley-Jordan River seems innocent at first glance, but is it a Trojan horse that could affect air quality, ground water, wide patches of forest floor, wild life and property values?”

* JOhn Quinn Proposal for Composting Facility in Shirley (downloadable file)

Report from a Shirley resident with 20 years of senior experience in the waste industry in Canada and internationally. <clip> “We are being asked to have a processing facility for Victoria’s garbage dumped into our community. Victoria should deal with their own garbage – they can call it compost, put a red ribbon on it and promise to kill the rats that hitch a ride out on the trucks but it is still garbage. We should not accept this zoning change under any circumstances.” – John Quinn