Kneehill County council members held their first council meeting of 2021 on Tuesday, January 12 and received a request to amend the previously approved budget for the Torrington gravel pit.
An initial drill test in 2009 estimated 1.5 million tonnes of gravel to be excavated from the location. However, an additional 600,000 tonnes was discovered and will incur additional costs for the county.
“Once extracted, this will provide Kneehill County with a secure source of road crush gravel for the next 13-15 years, for an estimated total cost savings of $27 million, or $1.8 million per year compared to the cost of purchasing gravel from outside sources and then trucking it into the municipality,” stated a release from Kneehill County.
Previously, $5.25 million was approved in the 2020 budget based on the original gravel estimates; due to the discovery of the additional gravel, the costs are estimated to increase to $6.5 million and will yield approximately 2.2 million tonnes in total.
“The additional costs will cover extraction, overburden, stockpile, reclamation, and gravel agreement fees to the adjacent Valleyview Hutterite Colony,” Director of Transportation for Kneehill County Brad Buchert said during the meeting.
This includes $30,000 to help Ember Resources Inc with unbudgeted costs to abandon a non-functioning shallow gas well in the location of the additional gravel, as well as $30,000 for extra fish salvage costs due to the discovery of fish in one of the pit lakes, and was a federal requirement by the Canadian Department of Fish and Oceans; the fish were most likely introduced due to overland flooding and included fish native to the nearby Kneehill Creek as well as the invasive Parisian Carp.
Work on the gravel pit began on September 30, 2020 and the remainder of extraction is anticipated to be completed by the end of February 2021; reclamation is expected to be left until spring 2021 when the weather warms.
Councillor Kenneth King motioned to authorize the amended budget of $6.5 million, transferring the remaining $650,000 from the gravel reserve and an additional $600,000 from the road reserve to cover the additional costs. The motion was carried unanimously.
Planning and Development Manager Barb Hazelton also made a presentation of a statistical summary of developments in Kneehill County between 2017 and 2020.
Residents stayed busy in 2020, with 97 development permits approved last year; in comparison, 51 development permits were approved in the county in 2019. Subdivision and redesignation permits decreased slightly in 2020, though have remained fairly consistent over the reporting period, with 24 subdivision approvals and two redesignation approvals.

“The largest trends we saw were single family dwellings,” said a statement from the county, “garden suites and second dwellings were equal in the number of applicants. Other notable trends were garages and accessory buildings, which include shops and agricultural storage buildings.”
Business and home
occupation developments also saw marginal increases, though miscellaneous developments decreased slightly over previous years.
The average construction cost was over $300,000 and Kneehill County says this will “help offset assessment decreases.”
Construction costs in 2019 and 2020 were similar, though well below those in 2018 due to two big ticket items--a $36.8 million GrainsConnect grain elevator project in Huxley and a $26.6 million solar power facility, though construction has not begun and is anticipated for May 2021. In 2019, a $6.1 million Class II Disposal well facility and a $13 million water treatment facility were approved, and a $16 million commercial greenhouse was approved in 2020--construction is expected to be completed in the fall of 2021.

There is a new Fish and Wildlife Officer in the area, and he may have some local insight into the valley.
Joa Markotic, son of Martin McSween and Yvonne Markotic, grew up in the valley and graduated from DVSS. He has returned home to assume his new posting.
“I was born in Drumheller and grew up in the area but have been living away for the past 10 years. I am thrilled to be back in the community where I grew up and hope I can make a positive impact while protecting the fish and wildlife populations in the area,” he said.
Markotic began working in Drumheller in November of last year.
He has been a Fish and Wildlife Officer for nearly two years, working in Whitecourt before being stationed in Drumheller.
“I also worked for the Fish and Wildlife Enforcement Services in Pincher Creek as a problem Wildlife Technician prior to becoming an officer. In that role, I dealt with human-wildlife conflict, including trapping dangerous wildlife such as bears and cougars, and investigating livestock predation by wildlife,” he said.
He is passionate about the outdoors and is an avid angler and hunter. He spends most of his free time outdoors, fishing, hunting, and exploring.
“A large part of the work Fish and Wildlife Officers do is to educate the public about our mandated legislation and on how to minimize conflict with wildlife,” he said. “I urge anyone who sees suspicious or illegal hunting and fishing activity, dangerous wildlife encounters, and serious public lands abuse locally to report it to Alberta’s Report A Poacher line at 1-800-642-3800.”