A steamed Councillor Trent Houk raised a fuss at city council over city administration's handling of topsoil removal in the city's southeast quadrant.
At council's June 27 meeting Houk asked about a huge pile of topsoil being removed by a contractor from around Walmart located north of Carlton Trail.
Houk said he estimates the city was getting 50 cents a yard for the topsoil, while the company contracted to collect it and sell it is getting up to $24 a metre. He later added the city had missed out on some $130,000 in revenue as a result of that contract.
"It is good topsoil and we're basically giving it away," said Houk. "And we didn't put it out to tender and I want to know why."
His exchange with administration officials lasted about 15 minutes and dominated much of the discussion during council's "announcement and inquiries" portion of the meeting.
Public works Director Stewart Schafer responded that the topsoil, while "it may look good, is not good for planting purposes," an assessment he said other outside experts agreed with. It has to be mixed with good topsoil to be of any use, he said. Furthermore, when they had to move it they had nowhere to put it.
Schafer said it would have cost the city $8 a cubic metre to move it. Instead, they were getting $.50 cents a cubic metre from a contractor for them to use it and remove it. The price was negotiated, and Schafer admitted "yes, we probably should have brought it to council."
Keith Anderson, parks and recreation director, agreed with Schafer that the topsoil was not good material. The soil there was from the building of Walmart and was basically "the scrapings of the site." He said the city used much of the good topsoil from there in Fairview Park when it was built,, but what was left over was basically black dirt mixed with clay, difficult to work with and not good topsoil.
"We needed to get it moved out of the way to make that lot available for future development," said Anderson.
Houk responded he contacted a company on his own accord to take some soil samples and those will be sent away to the University of Saskatchewan for testing. He will be reporting back on the findings.
Houk also disputed Anderson's assessment of the topsoil, saying he and people he's talked to say it is good topsoil. Houk said he looked at it himself and he "could not see the clay in what was left of the pile that's there."
For his part City Manager Jim Toye said he looked forward to results, but said he would be "quite surprised if it's any different."
On a separate matter Toye noted there was a party also interested in removing the pile of soil at the Credit Union CUPlex site. They are prepared to have an open tender if that is council's directive.
Houk commented he had been at the CUPlex site to do repairs at the theatre, and said he observed the pile of soil and was "disappointed" to see the contractor had poured clay on top of the pile of soil there.
"We did at one point have an asset, we did have some sellable topsoil," said Houk. Now, "the contractor has gone and put the clay on top of it. It's useless."
He said if it was to be sold it should be tendered in the name of transparency, and if not use it for lots that need to be filled or squared off such as in the industrial park.
Anderson responded there was still usable product at the theatre, with one pile of good topsoil and to the east of that was an old dumpsite which is a mix of old car parts, topsoil and clay. "So there is some separation there, there is usable product there," said Anderson."
Councillor Ron Crush's comments on the matter was that he was not going to get into the "micromanagement" of the project, saying he trusted administration's decisions on how to sell or utilize the topsoil material are "being made in the appropriate way."
