EJQ2 - Fall 2024 - Journal - Page 21
However, there are recent cost increases for soil relocation. The old days
of charging $25 per standard truckload of soil seem to be long gone. Soil
receiving is now a business, and the overall attention and awareness
that the Excess Soil Regulation has brought onto the owners of reuse
sites has increased the truckload costs by up to four times, depending
on the soil quality and location. Most receiving sites are now contracting a QP to review the soil quality data and determining the applicability of the excess soil to be placed on their property. Overall, having a
QP monitor the soil quality coming into the site is a sensible thing, but
it does come with a cost. Based on the relocation of the majority of the
excess soil at local reuse sites, in this example we will assume that $50
per truckload was realized across the project from the previous $25 per
truckload (a relative increase of $25 per truckload across 16,400 m3 or
1,640 truckloads of excess soil). With this assumed increase in soil relocation tipping fees, the increase resulting from the Regulation in this
example is $41,000, for a total excess soil management cost of $77,000
related to O. Reg. 406/19 and compliance.
The winning bid for the contract was $4.95 million. The percentage of
the total cost of the excess soil compliance is 1.56 per cent. So, in this
example, the cost of compliance could be considered minimal.
Urban development site
When a general contractor was awarded the development of a local police
support services building, excess soil management and compliance was an
afterthought. The planning activities needed to be implemented quickly
to ensure that the construction schedule could be met. Through quick review of existing due-diligence level documents and completing an updated
APU, designing the SAP and completing the SCR program within a short
nine weeks, the construction schedule commenced on-time. However, although the site was most recently used for crop production, it was revealed
through historical reviews that the site was used for 昀椀ll placement below
imported topsoil. The source of the 昀椀ll was unknown, and as such, the typical exemptions for this type of Project Area were not applicable. Without
the exemption, the project was deemed to require reporting on the RPRA
Excess Soil Registry and full planning documents.
Based on the project design, an estimated volume of excess soil to be
generated was approximately 50,000 m3 from the site grading and
excavation of the two levels of below grade parking. A strategic testpitting program was executed for the collection of 110 samples for
characterization.
E N V I RON M E N T J OURN A L QUA RT E RLY RE PORT • FA L L 2 02 4 • P AGE 2 1
