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Town of Bonnyville clearing the way for easier snow removal

20.04.02Snowdump
Businesses will be permitted to use the Town of Bonnyville's snow dump location for the remainder of this winter, while another site is looked into for future use. Photo by Robynne Henry.

BONNYVILLE – Snow is piling up around local businesses, and the town has stepped in to find a solution.

Business owners turned to the municipality for answers about where they should put excess snow after being told by the town and Alberta Environment they couldn’t pile it in ditches or areas where they had before.

During their regular meeting on Jan. 28, council tasked administration with exploring potential spots. In the meantime, contractors will be allowed to utilize the town’s current dump site.

 “In previous years, snow haulers dumped snow into any land that was available to them, however, the situation is that Alberta Environment is now pressuring businesses to stop that practice,” explained assistant CAO Bill Rogers. “As a result, we received requests from the town to provide a place to dump snow since they can’t put it into town ditches and there’s no public dump site.”

According to Alberta Environment, if snow is collected and stored improperly, it can pose a risk to local water bodies due to possible contaminants, such as organic chemicals and phosphates.

In order to get an idea of what other communities have in place, administration reviewed practices for the City of Cold Lake, Town of St. Paul, and City of Red Deer. Examples ranged from a registration system at no cost to the public to having multiple sites restricted to snow collected only from inside the city limits.

CAO Mark Power noted a number of municipalities currently use an honour system.

“I don’t know how good it is because it’s an honour system,” he detailed. “If they haven’t registered and our guys are using it and they see somebody hauling that isn’t registered, that’s the only way you catch them. But, I don’t think MD of Bonnyville residents and the businesses around us have the same problem as the people in town.”

When council discussed the possibility of stationing someone at their site, Power didn’t believe it would be a benefit because of the potential costs associated with filling the position.

For the remainder of this winter, businesses are permitted to use the town’s snow dump area, located off of 47 Ave. It’s proximity to Jessie Lake and small size were among the reasons why it was closed to the public.

 “They’ve always found alternate places to do it, but there’s no engineered sites in the area and this is the thing we’re currently faced with,” Rogers noted. “The guidelines from Alberta Environment notwithstanding, if we allow others to use it, that would result in the town incurring a cost and having snow pushed into a large pile and some other things that are going to increase our costs.”

Once administration has a few options for a permanent snow dump, the topic will come back to council for further discussion.

Robynne Henry, Bonnyville Nouvelle

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