ATHABASCA — The extreme cold weather hitting all corners of the province is affecting many aspects of everyday life, from lengthy tow truck and furnace repair times to electricity demand causing grid instability. And for residents of Boyle, delayed garbage pickup has been added to that list.
An Alertable advisory from the Village of Boyle was sent out at 9:30 a.m. Jan. 15, notifying residents of a disruption to garbage collection due to extreme cold temperatures. Regularly scheduled for Mondays, this week’s garbage pickup will take place Wednesday, Jan. 17.
“We were contacted by the Waste Commission and they said that due to the cold weather they weren’t running the trucks today and they would reschedule for it Wednesday,” said Village CAO Warren Griffin. “All regular municipal services are still operational.”
The Athabasca Regional Waste Commission serves 12 municipalities garbage and recycling collection needs, including Athabasca County, the Town of Athabasca, and the Village of Boyle. Commission CAO Rob Smith said the decision to delay services in Boyle was a two-fold choice.
“Usually, the equipment and the hydraulics gives us lots of problems in the cold weather,” said Smith. “And then you don’t have a support group with regards to other tow trucks and things like that aren’t readily available. Therefore your staff, if you’ve got them out on the highway and then they do have an equipment failure, then we have concerns with their own health.”
Garbage collection in the Town of Athabasca is scheduled for Tuesdays and Thursdays, and Smith said town residents should expect pickup to proceed as usual.
Smith said delays are not affecting other areas of service, including Athabasca County, the M.D. of Lesser Slave River, and numerous summer villages in the region. But he noted the extreme weather did result in the Waste Commission closing all seven of its transfer sites from Jan. 13 to 14.
“It’s more about the operators getting to the sites and then being on site by themselves in minus 40,” said Smith. “And usually, we find that in the cold temperatures, people aren’t going to the landfill or the transfer site, so to have somebody sit there for eight hours and only one person shows up, it isn’t worth it. It isn’t worth their risk, nor the customers' risk going into the sites.”
According to Smith, the Athabasca transfer sites typically see between 70 and 80 vehicles per day — but the site only saw 11 users on Friday.
And while temperatures below -30 C aren’t abnormal for northern Alberta, Smith said delays for the Waste Commission aren’t very frequent. “We probably have maybe one or two occurrences through the winter.”
“Summertime, if we have a truck break down, we jump into another truck. But when you get into the severe cold, it’s going to be the same issues for either truck,” said Smith. “We’ve had a pretty good go so far, with the weather in December being so warm.
“I don’t think I’ve seen temperatures this low before,” he added.
Updates on collection delays and transfer site closures can be found on Athabasca Regional Waste Commission’s Facebook page. Residents of both the town and village can sign up for alerts through the Alertable app, and are encouraged to check the municipalities websites for updates.
