Town completes work on waste Transfer Station

By Heather Cameron
Taber Times
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Recently, the Taber Waste Transfer Station underwent some improvements.

“The improvements that we made was to remove the entire North wall of the building, which had two overhead doors and a centre column that has been struck many times as it was too small of an area for the large trucks and equipment, and extended the building 32 additional feet of drop off space,” Lisa DeBona, Waste Services and Administrative Manager for Engineering and Public Works for the Town of Taber, said. 

“We designed it so that the entire frontage of the building is open with a hanger style door that opens up and out of the way of the equipment and will help reduce the amount of litter escaping in windy conditions and staff time to clean up the grounds.”

DeBona says that the Waste Transfer Station was constructed in 1997 and had not had any improvements before now.

“We have a larger volume of waste coming into the building than originally planned for as well as larger equipment that is needed which the design of the building did not support,” DeBona said. “All of these issues create congestion and safety concerns for our staff operating the waste disposal and patrons of the station dropping off waste. The improvements affect the operation of the Transfer station in regards to efficiencies with the added space which will allow our equipment to be able to work the pile while at the same time patrons can drop off without waiting while safely having an area to do so. The lifecycle and safety of the building is affected as well because there were some major cracks on the front wall that have been removed and the sprinkler system that was not working before is now operational in the event of a fire.”

The Town of Taber, DeBona says, started planning for the improvements in 2022 and put the contract out for public tender and awarded it.  

“Administration brought forth the project, we had an inspection done of the building and have been considering this for the last 3 years,” DeBona said. “When the Town and other municipalities dissolved the Waste Authority in December of 2016, the capital assets reserves were returned to their respective municipalities with the Town receiving $169,608, this partially funded the improvements, the remaining amount was funded through Canada Community Building Fund (Formerly the Federal Gas Tax Fund) and Capital reserves.”

Construction, DeBona says, was supposed to start in the fall but due to material delivery delays and weather for concrete installation, they were unable to start construction until April of 2023.  

“We have since completed the improvements and the Waste Transfer Station is now back open to the public,” DeBona said. “There is a new safety procedure in place to note; we will close the building in inclement weather with winds 70 km/hr and over.”

For more information about the Waste Transfer Station, visit: https://www.taber.ca/town-services/public-works/taber-transfer-station. 

“We are very pleased with the improvements as it will positively impact our operations at the Waste Transfer Station and hopefully improve conditions for patrons bringing their waste down,” DeBona said. “We have been working diligently over the last five years to make improvements to the grounds and with the services we offer like extended recycling options etc. and updated signage.  The Waste Transfer Station is often overlooked when it comes to exciting projects, but it is a very necessary one that we want to keep improving upon.”