The following are brief reports of items discussed during a March 7 meeting of Algonquin Highlands council.

The Hawk Lake landfill has about three years to go before it will reach capacity and require closure by the township. A report from consultants at Cambium Inc. which performs monitoring at the site indicated that some 460 cubic metres of waste and cover was disposed of at the location during 2018 leaving a remaining 1220 cubic metres of capacity and giving the landfill an operational life of 3.2 more years as of November 2018. The process of developing a closure plan will begin this year.

Water trails usage continues to climb

Visitors to the township’s Haliburton Highlands Water Trails continue to increase in number year after year with 2018 the busiest year yet. A report from parks trails and rec manager Chris Card showed that 19000 camper nights were booked on sites in the trails network last year.

“Overall since 2006 this represents on average between a 10 and 15 per cent annual increase in attendance on the Haliburton Highlands Water Trails” Card told councillors.

And those numbers continue to climb. Card’s report showed that for January of 2019 trails revenue was some $13770 up from $10280 for January of 2018 an increase of 34 per cent. For February revenues were up 43 per cent over February of last year and the revenue to date for the year was also up 43 per cent over 2018.