Wheatland County Reeve Glenn Koester spoke to the The Drumheller Mail about the 2015 County accomplishments and 2016 initiatives.
Paving on Hammer Hill Road, between highways #1 and #817, is completed. Range Road 255 and most of Township Road 230 have been regraded. The County Office addition was completed along with landscaping and the parking lots. The Carseland/Speargrass raw water pumphouse construction is finished which was damaged in the 2013 floods. The rejuvenation projects for cemeteries in Carseland, Gleichen and Eventide were completed and the work is ongoing at the cemetery in Rosebud.
July 2015, the public and campers of Akokiniskway Golf Course & High Eagle campgrounds started using the Rosebud Sump Dump for RV’s.
The Planning and Development team focused their efforts on getting out into the community with Open Houses, Information Sessions and school visits explaining the need for better planning.
The Emergency Response Centre training was conducted in seven communities in Wheatland and the Firefighter Recognition program was established for all Fire Associations within the County.
The County partnered with neighbouring municipalities and Alberta Agriculture and Alberta Environment in a Flowering Rush Task Force. Flowering rush seems to be an ideal ornamental pond plant. Plants grow on the water’s edge or fully submerged. They are striking, with stalks up to a metre tall, topped by nickel-sized pink flowers. But flowering rush also spreads easily and is hard to kill, making it a formidable invasive species. Flowering rush can restrict water flow in irrigation canals and through culverts. It makes poor duck habitat and crowds out native species. Invasive species such as flowering rush can also drop land values.
Mutual Aid agreement and the Aerial Ortho Photo projects was finalized with Rockyview County.
The Ag. Plastics Recycling program is set to roll out in the early 2016. Plastics protect much of our agricultural commodities today, in North America — twine and net-wrap secure livestock forage and bags shelter grain and hay The estimated values for agricultural waste in Alberta are estimated at 15,600 tonnes of plastic and paper waste being produced annually. Anywhere from 6,600 to 14,000 tonnes of that waste is plastic, and much of it ends up in the burning barrel, blowing away, buried or trucked to a landfill.
The template for a Regional Assessment Review Board was presented to the municipalities in the region, and an agreement should be finalized soon.
The listing of land used by the County for Contaminated Sites review is being worked on.
A major initiative to be accomplished in 2016 will be the waste water field improvement system and the County is working with Symbiotic Enviro Tek. This will be Symbiotec’s first pilot project in Alberta for a wastewater treatment solution. A conditional approval from Wheatland County to move forward has happened, however the County still requires letters of intent, guidelines under the code of practice, service agreements and implementation of site preparation work. Koester explained, “The water treatment system is to make the water so clean, it can be used for greenhouses and crop irrigation. It will not be used for drinking. “ Symbiotec’s has estimated the cost of this project for the whole field at $6,000,000 with the waste water coming to $3,000,000.
