Town of Drumheller will move forward with expropriation of a small portion of two parcels of land in the Newcastle area after accepting the Certificate of Approval and Resolutions presented at the regular Monday, February 6 council meeting.
Drumheller Resiliency and Flood Mitigation Office (DRFMO) project manager Deighen Blakely presented the request and noted these pieces of land along Riverside Avenue West are required by the DRFMO in order to proceed with construction of the Newcastle berm.
“Ideally we are able to come to agreement with landowners outside of the expropriation process,” Ms. Blakely tells the Mail, “but this is a tool that we will be using, in this case, in the Newcastle berm area.”
DRFMO made attempts to negotiate with the landowners to purchase the two portions of land, but all offers were rejected.
Drumheller council approved a notice of intent to expropriate in September 2022 which began the expropriation process for the two partial parcels. One partial parcel acquisition is for a total of approximately 19 square metres, or roughly 205 square feet, while the other partial acquisition is for an approximate 39 square metres, or 420 square feet.
Ms. Blakely explains, once the notice of intent was approved, it then had to go to the land titles office for registration where there was a delay of a couple months before notice of registration was received in December. With council approving the Certificate of Approval and Resolution, expropriation will now move forward to the next step and will once again need to be registered with land titles. However, there are still several steps before the expropriation process is complete and the land is acquired or the landowners receive payment.
All costs associated with land acquisitions, including legal fees, are eligible for funding through the provincial portion of the flood mitigation funding, totalling some $20 million.
As of September 2022, a total of $4.5 million had been spent to purchase 16 of the 27 properties identified for acquisition by DRFMO.

Drumheller and District Landfill is among a handful of local organizations giving inmates from the Drumheller Institution the opportunity to gain work experience, while also benefiting from some extra helping hands.
The program at the landfill has been operating for some 20 years, though it had gone on hiatus for several years until new leadership was established within the Drumheller and District Solid Waste Association (DDSWA), who brought the program back in 2022; currently there are three inmates who are employed on a regular basis.
“This modern facility (at the landfill) allows offenders to do many different jobs and tasks as it uses the current best practices in waste management, and gives the inmates an opportunity to be outdoors,” a spokesperson for the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) tells the Mail.
The program is open to all inmates for consideration. An expression of interest must be made by the inmate to their respective Institutional Parole Officer; upon expressing interest in the program, the inmate will undergo an interview process, and their case management file is thoroughly reviewed to determine if the inmate should be approved for a temporary work release.
If there are no concerns flagged in the file, a proposal plan is then brought forward to the warden who has final discretion of whether a temporary release for paid or unpaid work is granted.
“I cannot stress enough how amazing this program has been for our growth as a team and individually,” says landfill manager Sonya Adams.
Ms. Adams says although staff are given the choice whether or not to work alongside the inmates, they have welcomed the opportunity to teach and learn with them. The landfill team also shared positive comments about the program, and the pride the inmates take in the work they do.
Staff have also heard positive comments about the cleanliness of the landfill and say this is largely due to the inmate program. They have even taken suggestions from one of the longest term inmates about how to make both the service and processing of the recycling department more efficient and effective.
CSC says what the program offers to inmates--the development of employability skills and a means to safely reintroduce them into the community--is a priority. And while helping to reintegrate inmates following release is a priority, the organizations taking part in the program also receive the benefit of some extra help and “employees who are willing to work and learn.”
Other organizations taking part in the program include the Town of Drumheller and Drumheller Church of the Nazarene.