In just a couple of months, Drumheller youth will be hitting the open road participating in Two Wheel View tours.
    The Badlands to Banff Tour is back on the road and already seven youth are signed up and are busy preparing for the trip.
Andrew Germain, who is in Grade 10 at St. Anthony’s School, will be participating for his third time. He says the experience is valuable for youth.
    ‘The experience and leadership skills that I gain, and the friends that I make,” he says are the reasons he keeps coming back.
    The trip goes from August 9-20 and is a staged cross-country bike ride, where participants pedal and camp all the way from Drumheller to Banff.  
    Randy McHugh, who is in Grade 8 at DVSS, is taking on the challenge for the first time. Two Wheel View did a presentation at her school, and she was hooked.
    “As soon as they said bike trip, I wanted to go,” she tells the Mail.  “I’m excited.”
    Along with the Badlands to Banff tour, Matt Doyle, Evelyn Stanger and Jasmine Russell are also participating with Two Wheel View, but on an excursion from Montreal to Quebec City.
    “The three of us are going together and we decided we would team up with Banff to Badlands tour to fundraise about half of the amount needed for Quebec,” explains Doyle. “Drumheller is banding together to get some kids to go on some amazing bike adventures.”
    Another challenging part of the journey is the fundraising campaign. Already the team is working to raising $950 per participant. They work as a team to meet this goal.
    “All the fundraising for Badlands to Banff is done as a group. Since the trip has started, no group has had to pay for any of the expenses” said Germain.
    To meet this goal, they are volunteering with the Gran Fondo, which rolls through the valley on June 24. They will also have a July 1 barbecue at the Canada Day celebrations. They are also planning a bottle drive on May 24. They are also reaching out to local businesses for sponsorship.
    “For the past few years businesses have been quite generous and we are thankful for that,” said Germain.
    As far as other preparations, Germain tells The Mail, it is helpful for the rider to do a bit of training before they go, however the toughest leg of the journey is heading up The South Hill getting out of the valley.

ATCO Power may be moving away from coal sooner rather than later, and that could have an effect on the Sheerness power generation facilities near Hanna.
    According to a National Post story published May 10, ATCO president and CEO Nancy Southern, indicated they are looking at “greening” its coal-fired power plants by 2020, far ahead of the Alberta government’s plan of phasing out coal by 2030.
    “Our belief is that it makes sense to move to gasification of those coal plants now,” Southern is quoted in the story.
    Hanna Mayor Chris Warwick says he has not had confirmation of the plans in Hanna, although he has heard this is in the works.
    “What it means is we can plan better because we do have some timelines. I would be extremely surprised if they don’t convert this or build new, or a combination of both because you can’t shut all this coal down because we don’t have enough energy to fill that void.”
    There are some differences in operations when they are converted. He explains that energy output could be lower with natural gas, however, in a coal operation, a portion of the power goes towards operating the plant.
    “From what I am told the net result is close just by changing the burners out,” he said, adding the site is well suited with a natural gas pipeline in close proximity to the site.
    While he sees there are positive aspects to converting the plant, it will not bring with it the same level of staffing as the current operations.
    “Westmorland Coal Company has around 100 employees and ATCO has around 100, but there are about 20-30 jobs on the ATCO side that are dedicated to the coal portion of it. You need people to run the crushers and conveyors,” he said. “So there is a net loss of 120-130 people. “
    “At least if they retool, our water supply is solidified and my understanding is even when the mine is shut down, the are several years of reclamation work to put the land back to the way it was. So there is still work to be had.”
    He sees the development as both positive and negative. The most positive is that it appears that conversion is a real possibility.
    “It is positive in the fact that now we know when it is happening. It is negative in that it is earlier than I anticipated,” he said. “From our point of view, it puts a little pressure on the government to start rolling out what the compensation packages are going to be for the coal affected communities. They are reaching out to us and we have good communication so that is a good sign.”