Sparwood considers urban-wildlife committee
Sparwood council reached consensus Sept. 1 that staff should draft terms of reference for a committee made up of council and community representatives. The proposal will return to a future committee-of-the-whole meeting before council decides whether to formally establish and fund it.
Council also asked staff to invite the Conservation Officer Service to make a presentation and to involve WildSafeBC where possible.
No change was made to garbage or recycling collection at the meeting.
Acting Mayor Amy Cardozo stressed that council was deciding what information should be collected, not whether to retain or replace the current service.
Sparwood introduced curbside recycling on April 6. Residential collection now alternates weekly between garbage and recycling, replacing weekly garbage pickup.
Since the change, council and staff have heard concerns about residents having to store garbage for two weeks and about bears accessing household waste. The District says five months of operation is not enough to establish meaningful long-term trends in cost, participation, waste diversion, service performance or wildlife activity. A comprehensive review may continue into 2027.
The potential committee would examine more than collection frequency. Its work could include the cost of restoring weekly garbage pickup while retaining recycling, the condition and certification of existing carts, options for stronger auto-latching carts, secure communal bins, education and enforcement, local wildlife data, and practices used in other mountain communities.
It could also consider whether parts of the Bear Smart Community framework would be useful in Sparwood and whether reducing food waste or improving secure storage would do more to prevent conflicts than changing the pickup schedule alone.
Councillor Steve Kallies said the wildlife issue existed before curbside recycling and will continue regardless of the collection model. He said he has received more public input on the matter than on almost anything else during his four years on council.
“This is us paying attention to the wildlife problem,” Kallies said.
Kallies cautioned that a committee should not be interpreted as an immediate commitment to spend $100,000 or as a way to delay action. Chief Administrative Officer Michéle Schalekamp estimated that obtaining the breadth of outside analysis discussed by council could cost roughly $75,000 to $100,000, based on previous municipal projects.
The District has more than $100,000 remaining in council contingency funds, Schalekamp said, but council did not allocate that money Sept. 1.
Cardozo supported gathering broader and more structured public input. She said heated social-media discussions may discourage people who support recycling from commenting, making it difficult to determine whether online comments represent the wider community.
Atwal emphasized food-waste reduction and better information about wildlife incidents, while Nand had previously suggested collecting garbage three weeks each month and recycling during the fourth. No collection option received approval.
Once prepared, the proposed committee’s terms of reference are expected to cover solid-waste service as well as the wider interaction between people and wildlife. Any recommendations would come back to council for a decision.