ATHABASCA – A new bylaw goes into effect this fall that will impose a levy on gravel and sand as it leaves pits in Athabasca County, with the funds going towards environmentally-friendly projects such as reducing the energy consumption of both public and private buildings.
County councillors passed Bylaw 003-2023, also known as the community aggregate payment levy bylaw, by two 7-1 votes at their July 27 meeting. Coun. Tracy Holland voted against the motion and Coun. Kelly Chamzuk was absent.
The bylaw, which goes into effect Oct. 1, will see sand and gravel operators pay an extra 10 cents per tonne, then rising to 30 cents per tonne on March 1, 2024.
During a public hearing held prior to passage of the bylaw, one individual spoke against the new levy while another was in favour.
Ron Burgess, who operates his own small gravel hauling company, told councillors during the hearing that the charge is going to disproportionately affect small companies.
“I’m against the levy because I’m running a small sand and gravel outfit which does maybe 5,000 tonnes tops,” said Burgess. “You guys are going to get $500 from me, and if I go down to 1,000 tonnes, then it’s just going to be $100. That doesn’t seem worth it to me.”
Burgess also said that many of the bigger-volume pits didn’t come from Athabasca County, so on large-scale projects, the county won’t receive that income, either.
“It looks to me that the small-scale gravel person is the one you’ve targeted, and for the amount of money that you’re going to make off of me, I don’t know if it’s worth it,” said Burgess.
For Henrik Asfeldt, a county resident and science teacher at Edwin Parr Composite School, the green gains that the county should see from the levy were a huge point in its favour.
“I think that municipal governments are very limited in their sources of revenue, unfortunately increasingly so,” said Asfeldt. “If we can find a way to collect some revenue from aggregates and gravel, that’s an opportunity to diversify our revenue sources, which I’m in favour of. It’s intended to fund the green initiatives policy; I think that the effort to meet emissions reduction goals needs to be shared across all three levels of government, so I’m also in favour of the county tackling that.”
After the public hearing, councillors had their own opportunity to speak and while Holland said she was in favour of the green initiatives from the levy, the cost to business made this approach the wrong one.
“Previous councils have had this discussion, and they’ve all determined that it was bad for business. We heard from one small business owner that this would possibly put him out of business,” said Holland.
“If this is in the name of green initiatives, I would rather we look at doing something like how STARS do it, where we pay in $2 for capita. That way, the whole municipality would contribute.”
Coun. Ashtin Anderson said it’s not about making the entire county share the cost; it’s about getting something from a non-renewable resource that’s leaving the county.
“While similar councils were considering (a levy), they weren’t looking at the same situation. I think we should be looking at this now, instead of waiting on it and potentially missing out on funding that could help us with important projects,” Anderson said.
There are exceptions to the levy; if other municipalities rent or lease a pit within Athabasca County, they’re exempt, as are shipments that relate to Crown projects.
If another levy is being imposed, the load would be exempt, and finally, any shipments related to road construction/maintenance for access to the gravel pits.
