Brady Road landfill closed until further notice due to blockade
The City of Winnipeg says its Brady Road landfill is closed until further notice owing to a blockade set up outside the entrance. David Driedger, manager of corporate communications with the city said contingency plans for garbage and recycling collection are in place.
“We are trying to maintain these services without disruption during the closure,” Driedger said in an email.
In a notice on the city’s website, residents are asked to use the Panet Road and Pacific 4R deports if they wish to dispose of recyclable materials.
“Residents can also request an extra garbage or large item pickup, or contact local private landfill operators in the area to see if they are accepting residential garbage,” the notice reads. Commercial customers are being asked to contact local private landfills in the area to make alternate arrangements during the closure.
A query asking if the city is engaging in negotiations with the blockade went unanswered.
This is the second blockade outside the landfill. The first one took place last December and cost the city $1.5 million, according to a report published in April. During the last closure, 6,837 tonnes of residential, multi-family and commercial waste was taken to Prairie Green Landfill and the Mid Canada Landfill.
The first protest began on Dec. 11, when the entrance was blocked for a short time. Protestors returned on Dec. 13-14 and a permanent encampment was set up on Dec. 18, which lasted until Jan. 6, when the landfill reopened.
First Nations leaders and community members have called for the landfill south of the city to be shut down permanently.
It’s where the remains of slain Indigenous woman Rebecca Contois were found last year, as well as those of Linda Beardy, whose death police said in April was not a homicide.
Jeremy Skibicki has been charged with first-degree murder in the death of Contois and three other women: Morgan Harris, Marcedes Myran and an unidentified woman Indigenous leaders have named Buffalo Woman.
Police believe the remains of Harris and Myran are in the privately-run Prairie Green landfill north of the city.
In May, the Canadian Press obtained a feasibility study done by the federal government to search the landfill, which found it could take up to three years and cost $184 million.
“Not conducting the search could cause considerable distress to victim family members,” the report says.
“The impact of not conducting a search and humanitarian recovery for remains of Morgan and Marcedes, when it is possible that they are in the Prairie Green Landfill, could have long-lasting repercussions on the families, friends, loved ones and First Nations and Indigenous communities in Manitoba and across Canada.”
Manitoba Premier Heather Stefanson said earlier this week that the province would not support a search there for the women because of health and safety risks.
The City of Winnipeg says its Brady Road landfill is closed until further notice owing to a blockade set up outside the entrance. Read more.
winnipegsun.com
So they are blockading the dump where there are no human remains and want it shut down. In the meantime the garbage is being diverted at a further cost to the city to the private dump, where the remains of the two women are thought to be. The above video has them saying if the government will not search for them that the family should be allowed to search. What they conveniently left out is that the feasibility study said a building needs to be built heavy equipment used to transport the material in and out.
Leaked report on searching landfill for women's remains shares how 60,000 tonnes of material could be examined
"The report was prepared by a committee that studied whether it would be feasible to search for the women's remains.
It outlines a plan to hire more than 40 staff, including managers, elders and knowledge keepers, a forensic anthropologist and as many as 28 technicians to conduct the search for Harris and Marcedes Myran, who police said late last year they believe were among four victims of an alleged serial killer.
At its update last month, the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs said the feasibility study committee decided using a conveyor belt to look through debris would be the best option for the search.
The full report sheds more light on the details of that plan, including that the conveyor belt would be housed inside a roughly 23,000-square-foot structure built at the landfill site, which would ensure efforts can continue in any weather.
Search technicians would work in groups of about 10 to sift through the material as it moves down the line, the report says.
"Based on skeletal characteristics, it would not likely be possible to differentiate each bone recovered to either Morgan or Marcedes as they would appear quite similar. It may be possible to differentiate them based on age, but that requires recovering specific bones."
That means it's possible that all remains found in a search would require DNA analysis, which could take a considerable amount of time since each sample could take months to process, the report says.
The report recommends any potential costs associated with DNA analysis of human remains be assumed by the Winnipeg Police Service. Police have not responded to a request for comment on that recommendation.
It also summarizes the various states the women's remains could be found in, and outlines the challenges associated with each of those possibilities.
As well, the report provides more information about the
1,500 tonnes of animal remains that police previously said had been deposited after the load believed to contain the women's remains — information which the report says raised concerns about how challenging it might be to identify human remains.
The specific section of the landfill that would be searched holds 61,200 tonnes of materials, which could translate to anywhere between 2,880 and 7,200 loads, depending on which kind of truck is used.
While it's possible not all that material will end up needing to be searched, "it is best to plan to search all of it," the report says. The Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs
said earlier this year it was told no additional garbage was deposited in that section of the landfill since June 2022.
The search setup would also involve a screening system to separate out different materials as well as multiple trailers, including one that would act as a temperature-controlled storage unit to hold any possible remains found.
The structures would need access to electricity, water and high-bandwidth internet, the report says.
Preparations for the search would take about six months: roughly one month of training and setting up the conveyor system; two months of finding management and applying for various permissions and approvals; and three months of building, installing and hiring, a potential timeline in the report says.
The search itself is expected to take
up to three years, based on estimates that crews will sift through as much as 97.5 tonnes of materials every day.
The report notes the estimated cost for the search — which the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs said could be anywhere from roughly $80 million to $180 million — does not account for potential costs associated with microscopy and DNA sampling and testing.
"It is difficult to predict how many samples would need to be processed in such a way," the report says, recommending about $2.5 million be budgeted to potentially process up to 1,000 bone samples to determine whether they're human or animal.
The report also notes that while forensic anthropologists are trained to help identify remains by determining their age, sex, ancestry and stature, the similarities between the two women they're looking for could make that task difficult.
"This situation is unique, where we know that a search could recover the remains of both Marcedes and Morgan. Marcedes and Morgan are very similar in that they are both First Nation females between the ages of 25-45 and around 5 feet tall," it says.