With a scale facility at the Regional District of Nanaimo Landfill at risk of failure, the regional district board has approved more than $572,000 for its replacement.
The scales were installed at the Cedar landfill in 1991 and help calculate tipping fees, according to a staff report. An April 2015 assessment by Mettler Toledo, scale manufacturer, found there was risk of one of the scales failing, vehicle damage and injury and a decommissioned scale deck was salvaged and installed as a temporary mitigation measure.
Malfunctioning doors and windows and “maintaining the integrity of the roof,” were among issues cited in the RDN report.
The board has awarded a $498,301 contract to Island West Coast Development for scale and scale house construction. In addition, there was $12,500 budgeted for pre-design and request for proposal stage, $7,000 for traffic lights, $5,000 for construction oversight and a $50,000 contingency for a total of $572,801, which the regional district said is within the 2017 budget.
“They’re going to replace the inbound scale and the outbound scale where they’re currently located,” said Maggie Warren, landfill scale and transfer service superintendent. “So we’re going to re-use the existing foundations and the scale house will get torn down and they’ll replace it with a brand new one in the same location as well.”
Warren said the old scale decks will be pulled up, new ones will be put in place and load cells used for weighing will be upgraded to the latest digital versions available from Mettler Toledo.
Although a start date hasn’t been determined yet, Warren estimates construction beginning in September and taking as long as two months.
A temporary scale will be set up during construction, which could cause delays, said Warren.
Island West Coast Development was the only proponent, according to the regional district.