FORT ASSINIBOINE - Woodlands County council delayed a decision during its June 4 meeting on changing the level of supplemental winter maintenance service, most notably snow removal that the municipality provides Ledcor Highways Ltd through a mutual aid agreement for Highway 658 (Fort Assiniboine to Blue Ridge), Highway 33 (Fort Assiniboine to Barrhead) and Highway 661 (Fort Assiniboine to Swan Hills).
Ledcor is the company the province contracts to provide highway maintenance service for the area. Administration provided four options for councillors to consider, ranging from maintaining the status quo to various levels of reducing the service the municipality provides to Ledcor. The recommendation of the administration was to consider providing supplemental service under the mutual aid agreement to Highway 661 only.
Infrastructure manager Paul Macaraeg stated that since 2019, Woodlands County has had a subcontracting agreement with the company to supplement the winter snow removal services for the roadways mentioned above, as the municipality felt the contract provider was not delivering the service its residents expected.
"Historically, these highways have proven to be the most challenging for maintenance from the perspective as they are at the far end of Ledcor's maintenance area of beat, so we've decided to stand up and provide our residents that higher level of service."
Macaraeg said the province's highway standard is that the contractor must react within two hours of a snowfall event, and the response time to meet the province's snow and ice removal criteria after a snowfall is 18 hours for a Class C highway and 24 hours for a Class D highway.
A Class C Highway must have an annual average daily traffic (AADT) level of between 5,000 and 7,000 vehicles, while Class D has between 2,000 and 5,000 vehicle crossings. The province deems Highways 658 to Blue Ridge and 33 to Barrhead as Class C, while 661 is Class D.
As far as the municipality's level of standard, according to Policy 3231 (Winter Operations), snow removal begins when there are 2.5 centimetres of snow accumulation on paved roads, and the county will make a "reasonable effort to clear all roadways within 96 hours of a snowfall ending.
Using that as a guide, Macaraeg said public works staff prioritize work based on the level of service expectations in the following descending order of priority: provincial highway driving lanes, county road driving lanes, provincial highway shoulders, provincial highway private approaches, and county road approaches.
Currently, according to the Request for Decision (RFD), there are two plow trucks and one backup truck in the Fort Assiniboine public works yard assigned for the maintenance of paved roads in the winter operations plan. These trucks, as indicated above, are dedicated to clearing provincial highways first.
"Based on feedback from our area supervisor and operators on how we do meet these timelines based on service requests, we have seen zero complaints on our paved roads regarding winter maintenance. However, there has been an uptick in gravel road maintenance service and maintenance requests as well as for maintaining accesses."
The RFD states that there were eight requests in the 2023/2024 fall/winter season, compared to 14 requests in the 2024/2025 season. There have also been approximately ten service requests in the county regarding private access snow clearing.
Some improvement ideas Macaraeg public works staff have discussed to improve service times on gravel roads include mounting a three-quarter-ton truck with a V-plow attachment as well as fitting one of the county's decommissioned garbage trucks with a sand attachment for snow and ice control to work in parallel with snowplow operators.
Macaraeg then walked councillors through a typical winter storm event, in which the temperature drops 10 degrees from -12 to -21 overnight, accompanied by snowfall, forecasted as heavy and wet, beginning at 6 a.m. and lasting until 6 p.m.
"During the event, crews are responding round the clock to keep up with weather conditions," he said.
Macaraeg added normally, staff work eight hours, but that the municipality could authorize up to 12 hours during storm events.
He also noted that under their agreement with Ledcor, Woodlands County reserves one truck for snow and ice removal services for Highway 658 and Highway 33 and another for Highway 661.
Ferris said that thanks to the mutual aid agreement, the municipality is diverting resources away from other snow removal efforts and allocating them toward provincial assets.
"We are focusing on something that doesn't belong to us, and the complaints we are receiving on assets that we own are increasing because we take longer now that we have to do these stretches on provincial highways," he said.
Blue Ridge Coun. Bruce Prestidge, while agreeing with Ferris, said the county had little choice.
"Ledcor wouldn't look after the road properly. We talked to Alberta Transportation, we talked to Ledcor, and we did not get anywhere," he said. "[Ledcor] would show two days later after there were six inches of packed snow on the road. It was dangerous. The amount of log and oil trucks on Highway 658 is tremendous, and they pack everything down, and our residents couldn't even drive down the road. That is why we got into this arrangement, for the safety of our residents, which outweighs some of the money we are spending."
The discussion then shifted to whether the county was incurring a loss by providing the extra service on the highways.
Whitecourt Central Coun. Alan noted that under the terms of the mutual aid agreement, he believed Ledcor had to reimburse the municipality for the work they've done.
Chief Administrative Officer Matthew Ferris suggested that when councillors and administration debate the level of winter maintenance needed for roads within the county's borders, they should focus on the municipality's assets.
"[The highways] are not assets of Woodlands County. The province has downloaded a significant amount of things to municipalities. This is one more thing where we are being forced to step up," he said. "I fully recognize the importance of safety, but the province is paying Ledcor a significant amount of money, and I have to assume, as a private business, they are still making money off of the costs from us."
Goose Kake/Freeman River Coun. Peter Kuelken asked if the municipality had any "leverage" with the province, specifically Alberta Transportation, to pressure Ledcor into living up to provincial road cleaning standards.
"Because it affects our residents, yet nothing is being done. We need to hold them to standards set out [by the province]. And are we not required to [do the work] at the same level Ledcor is?"
Infrastructure services director Jeff Zhang said sort of.
He noted because the municipality is essentially a subcontractor under Ledcor, they are effectively being given their marching orders of when and where to clear and sand," he said,
Zhang added while the county was taking a "significant role" in Ledcor's winter maintenance, they did not have to live up to the same level as the contractor, as essentially, the municipality only serviced the stated roads during daytime.
"We work from 5 a.m. to 7 p.m., we don't provide any services during the night. If Ledcor has to send a truck to get the road up to provincial standards, then it is up to them."
Barry Kerton, TownandCountryToday.com
