BONNYVILLE – The wear and tear caused by industrial activity on the roads within the MD of Bonnyville is a concern council will be bringing forward to the provincial government.
“We’ve been noticing and getting discussion from residents about certain roads with lots of heavy oil traffic on them, added to the farm and acreage owners,” said Coun. Ed Duchesne during a Feb. 3 committee meeting. “We’ve got some highway intersections that are dangerous and falling apart.”
Duchesne originally suggests council discuss a policy on how to address the safety concerns and roads that are falling apart, however, CAO Luc Mercier noted it would be better to request a meeting with the provincial government and the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) because there’s only so much the municipality can do.
“As a development or subdivision enhances an intersection where it needs to be enhanced, we would force that to be part of that development or subdivision approval. We would do it at any point in time. Our job would be, for example, if we had a large subdivision that was occurring on a road, we would ask the developer to do a track impact assessment on how much that subdivision would enhance that intersection, we would talk to Alberta Transportation and they would say ‘based on that, you need to upgrade this to a turning lane’ or there’s different types of intersection treatment that they would force. That would be happening at the MD level.”
He continued, “The part I feel is missing... is that when wells or industry type approvals are done, which is outside the MD mandate, they don’t look at the accumulative (impact) on infrastructure at all, especially intersection treatment.”
Mercier believes a long-term solution would need to be thorough discussion with the AER and province.
“By watching what’s going on right now and if industry picks up again like it is, they’re already drilling oil wells, I think we have to start the conversation with AER and the province,” Duchesne agreed.
Coun. Ben Fadeyiw didn’t believe reaching out to the government of Alberta would get the municipality anywhere fast.
“We’ve seen industry ask for a road widening on (Hwy.) 55 and the province told us to go pack it,” he recalled. “In regards to subdivisions, in Cherry Grove, there’s that expansion of that one subdivision. They found the road count is improper so they made the developer expand the road on Hwy. 55... I think you’re just going to be beating your head against the wall and going nowhere in regards to the province because they’ve shown that they’re not interested in doing any of that.
MD administration will send letters to the appropriate ministry to request a meeting to discuss the council’s concerns of high levels of industrial activity on roads within the municipality.
