A private firm that operates Cache Creek Landfill has purchased a major industrial property in the community, what it calls a sign of its long-term investment in waste management.

A subsidiary of Belkorp Environmental Services Inc. brought a 36-hectare parcel beside Highway 97, the site of a former log chipping operation long since closed. Another Belkorp firm, Wastech, operates Cache Creek Landfill.

Russ Black, vice-president of corporate development at Belkcorp Environmental, said the company intends to use the land as part of its Cache Creek Landfill extension project. The property itself won't be used as a landfill.

Despite losing Metro Vancouver as a customer, the company is in a long-term plan to develop a new landfill beside the current facility, which is scheduled to be full within four years.

Metro Vancouver and Wastech are also in discussions about a proposal to utilize methane produced from the existing landfill to create energy at the site or to ship to Kamloops for injection into the Fortis natural gas line.

Black said that decision is nearing. The new property gives the option of locating reciprocating engines to burn landfill gas in order to create power for the B.C. Hydro grid. It also leaves possibility of co-locating another use, including greenhouses, that could utilize waste heat from those engines.

"If you can go electrical generation and use the heat . . . that's the best case long-term scenario," Black said.