County relays local concerns to MLA

By John Watson Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Wheatland County council took an opportunity to raise local concerns with the Province of Alberta during the April 7 meeting.

Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills MLA Tara Sawyer attended council, presenting another avenue for their priorities to be heard. 

Sawyer’s riding includes the villages of Standard and Rockyford, which necessitates addressing concerns within the county among her jurisdiction. 

Council cited a number of immediate concerns and priorities, including but not limited to gopher control, the repair and replacement of local bridge infrastructure, repairs to secondary roads, funding for water, sewer and wastewater infrastructure, and long-term transportation plans. 

“A lot of the issues, at least in my division, are the provincial secondary roads that are in dire need of repair. It has been an ongoing thing as long as I can remember and it does not ever seem to get much traction there,” said Coun. Rick Laursen. “We are having some issues with WADEMSA and we are having troubles with dealing with EHS. They are not necessarily holding up their end of the bargain.”

Coun. Glenn Koester added to the conversation the county’s ongoing concerns relating to local bridges and culverts, taking a similar tone to Laursen, emphasizing the current state of disrepair and the necessity for repairs and replacements to take place.

“It’s the bridges. The province, I don’t know what happened, they changed the rating; we can’t put fully loaded trucks on our bridges anymore – most of them,” said Koester. “There are a few that we can, and they are in dire need of repair.”

With the imminent development of the De Havilland aircraft campus, Coun. Kieth Clayton noted concern as to whether the province has taken into account the access to service the development area off of Highway 1.

Due to significant traffic influxes, the Carseland and Strathmore industrial areas may very soon begin to struggle with accessibility and are estimated to be at risk of shutting down quickly, as Clayton described. 

Among the concerns regarding gopher poisoning were that by the time actions are set to be taken in the later spring and into summer months, it will effectively be too late to control populations for this upcoming growing season.

“With respect to the gopher situation, we absolutely advocated … it is a federal issue, not ours, we were equally frustrated,” said Sawyer. “We very much understand because as a farmer, I am dealing with it just like everybody else, which is why Minister [RJ] Sigurdson and the Premier went to bat pretty hard.”

For many of the county’s concerns, Sawyer iterated that the topics have been heard and many will simply take time in order to address.