More than six months after Prince George city council considered recommendations from the Advisory Committee on Bear Awareness, administration will present a report on how they could be implemented at the Monday, April 7 council meeting.
The committee made eight recommendations:
- Establish a staff position focusing on sustainable waste management and achieving provincial Bear Smart status to reduce human-wildlife conflict,
- Create a Bear Aware Technical Committee relating to the Bear Smart program with representatives from different local groups including Lheidli T’enneh First Nation, the Regional District of Fraser Fort George and more,
- Adopt bear-resistant solid waste garbage bins through a two-year pilot project,
- Continue to phase-in bear-resistant solid waste receptacles in public spaces like parks and bus stops,
- Participate and support programs aimed at reducing bear attractants like fruit gleaning,
- Adopt a new bylaw focusing on wildlife attractants and solid waste,
- Amend existing bylaws to permit electric fencing to securing wildlife attractants and
- Create educational materials on human-bear interactions for inclusion with spring and fall billing cycles as well as bear awareness information on garbage collection schedules, social medial platforms and website.
Staff’s report on the recommendation said that the cost of hiring a sustainable waste co-ordinator would be an annual cost of around $140,000.
That would represent about a 2.5 per cent increase to residents’ solid waste rates, equalling a $4 increase in costs to residents with small garbage containers, $6 for residents with medium containers and $7 for residents with large containers.
Regarding the Bear Smart garbage receptacles, the report notes that they are now the standard when new ones are installed.
The rough estimate for bear-resistant garbage bins for residents is $400 to $500 per bins. With approximately 26,000 bins in the city, the total cost to replace all of them exceeds $10 million.
The appropriate financial reserve does not have enough funds in it, so staff said that the replacement would have to be debt-financed through the Municipal Financing Authority.
It would cost the city about $850,000 in annual debt servicing costs, equal to about a 15 per cent increase to solid waste costs. That would lead to an annual increase worth $26 to residents with small garbage containers, $34 for residents with medium containers and $41 for those with large containers.
In order to include bear information with utility bills, staff note that the city would need to buy a new inserter machine to handle adding an extra page to the 20,000 bills it sends out.
This would cost around $25,000, but the city would also have to use a larger size of envelope representing about $3,000 more in costs per billing cycle.
The meeting starts at 6 p.m. in council chambers on the second floor of Prince George city hall. For those who can’t attend in person, the meeting will also be livestreamed on princegeorge.ca.
