Wheatland County advocates for greener solutions

Miriam Ostermann
Times Associate Editor

 

In light of the provincial government’s recent announcement to introduce a $3 billion carbon tax starting at the beginning of next year, Wheatland County is moving forward with eco-friendly projects and its first formal environmental strategy.
As a number of innovative projects are currently underway in the county – the wastewater treatment pilot project in Rosebud, the floating island project in Carseland, and the waterline to Gleichen – the county also hosted the Community Futures Wildrose’s Generating Electricity from the Sun workshop and is actively pursuing provincial and federal grants to incorporate solar panels on the roof of the office’s expansion.
Despite a proactive push for environmentally friendly options throughout the area, the county has also focused their efforts closer to home. So far, lighting fixtures at the county office have been replaced with low consumption LED lights, a corporate sustainability review was conducted late last year, and heating and cooling upgrades to their shops are under discussion.
“The biggest thing is we want to be good environmental stewards,” said Alan Parkin, chief administrative officer with Wheatland County.
“We need to continue to strive to be better in what we do. We do a lot of great things, but there’s always room for improvement.”
The environmental strategy is still in its early stages, but aspires to create awareness and communication with the ratepayers on clean energy options, opportunities, and projects within the county. Administration presented county council with the information a couple weeks ago, and remains optimistic of implementing the strategy next year for the next five years – the average time necessary it took other municipalities to see results.
“We have a number of environmental projects out there, but we haven’t done a good job in communicating them to the ratepayers,” said Lisa Bastarache, Wheatland County communications officer.
“We’ve just started going through our process for developing an environmental strategy in terms of what we’re doing here in the county, as well as promoting it out to the ratepayers as to what they can be doing. It’s such an agricultural community so everybody understands how important the environment is.”
On April 7, approximately 60 people attended the solar workshop, with many more left on the waiting list, where Executive Director of the Solar Energy Society of Alberta Rob Harlan provided sought-after education on grid-tie solar options for Alberta producers and processors.
According to Parkin, the county has noticed an increase in solar farm applications for residential installations, and mentioned one of the biggest projects on a major farm site in western Canada that’s located in Wheatland County. With the release of details regarding the NDP carbon tax, where residents may spend an extra $500 to $1000 annually at the gas pumps and on heating bills, Harlan hopes more people will break past the economic barrier and lack of information, and join those who have already installed solar options – numbers Harlan said have grown by 100 per cent each year for the past three years.
“There’s definitely an increased awareness of the necessity of moving toward clean renewable energy sources,” he said.
“You have other parts of the world, Germany and California, solar is becoming a regular thing everywhere, people just assume that that’s how you do it. Alberta hasn’t had that kind of exposure just because we’ve had the luxury of so much fossil fuel resources in the province.”
While solar energy requires no significant ongoing maintenance and isn’t associated with ongoing fuel costs, Harlan and the county realize the cost required upfront for installation, and the length of time required to see a return on the investment, may be a barrier for some residents to jump on board. By spreading the word through further workshops, the continuation of eco-friendly projects, and the creation of the environmental strategy, Wheatland County may influence more ratepayers to become proactive.