No plan yet to deal with piles of wood waste left from Fiona

Six months after post-tropical storm Fiona left a path of destruction across the Maritimes, waste left behind from the storm continues to pile up in some areas.

The Cape Breton Regional Municipality (CBRM) is trying to figure out what to do with piles of wood waste sitting in its landfill from the thousands of downed trees.

“It's hard to put a weight number on it because we weren't able to weigh it as it was coming in. The traffic was too much. We had to divert it into a separate entrance,” said Francis Campbell, solid waste manager for CBRM.

Campbell estimates there is between 20,000 to 25,000 tonnes that came into the site.

The job now is to process it all, and then find a business or individual to take it.

“That's at least two years’ worth of normal brush that would come in here,” said Campbell.

Stephen Moore, executive director of Forest Nova Scotia, says following the closure of Northern Pulp, there is not enough market in the province to deal with the amount of downed trees from Fiona or even leftover wood for that matter.

“There is missed opportunity, because if you look at how other places use this type of product, whether it's the leftover wood from lumber or waste wood, other places use this to heat their homes for instance, heat buildings, heat businesses,” said Moore.

Moore says with the region's weather pattern changing, a new plan needs to be put in place to deal with debris.

Meanwhile, the CBRM says they need space and are worried about potential hazards.

“Whenever you have wood piled like that, there's always a worry about fires, so that's our biggest issue to get it processed and put away,” said Campbell.

The city says more room may be needed with still several downed trees yet to be cleaned up.