The Capital Regional District should free itself from self-imposed deadlines to process food scraps, CRD chairman Alastair Bryson told directors Wednesday.

“I’m concerned that we will artificially press ourselves into some sort of temporary solution, and perhaps even encourage a private investor to invest heavily in infrastructure to compost food waste in the meantime, when the better solution may be a bigger solution involving integration of waste streams,” said Bryson, who is also Central Saanich mayor.

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With a gallery packed with Central Saanich residents looking on, Bryson told the CRD’s environmental services committee the fact that sewage sludge is to be dealt with at Hartland landfill presents opportunities for processing kitchen scraps that shouldn’t be overlooked.

“I think there’s a false urgency that’s coming up here that actually should be really informed by the recent confirmation by the board that the liquid waste management plan is going to be utilizing the Hartland site for its resource recovery,” Bryson said.

He was referring to the CRD’s decision to pipe sewage sludge from a wastewater plant at McLoughlin Point to Hartland for treatment and disposal.

Bryson said the CRD should delay a plan to impose a surcharge on loads containing food scraps until processing facilities are in place. Staff had recommended delaying the surcharge three months until April 2014.

Time ran out Wednesday before the committee could decide on what to recommend to the CRD board. Members adjourned their meeting to a yet-to-be-set date.

In an effort to prolong the life of Hartland, the CRD decided to ban dumping of food scraps at the landfill as of January 2015. It had planned to introduce a 20 per cent surcharge on loads containing food scraps as of Jan. 1, 2014.

But as more organic materials are collected, the options for processing them are disappearing.

The region’s only licensed composter, Foundation Organics in Central Saanich, had its CRD contract and recycler licence pulled because of hundreds of complaints about litter and noxious odours.

Foundation had been processing organics collected in View Royal, Oak Bay and Victoria

And this week, Michell Brothers Farm, which won a five-year, $4.7-million contract to process kitchen scraps from Saanich beginning next year, notified the municipality it didn’t want to proceed because of the Central Saanich controversy.

That means food scraps collected in Greater Victoria are being trucked over the Malahat to Fisher Road Holdings in Cobble Hill. But that operation is reaching its licensed capacity. CRD directors have decided to landfill food scraps that can’t be composted.

bcleverley@timescolonist.com