BARRHEAD - Believing that there would be enough residents still willing to pay for the service, Woodlands County will proceed with a limited dust control program in 2021 despite administration’s suggestion that it was too late in the year.
Woodlands County councillors passed a motion at their July 6 meeting to direct administration to accept applications for dust control for 2021 and to proceed only when a full load of calcium dust control could be applied, with interested residents paying for the entire cost of the program.
The motion also directs administration to prepare a full cost recovery dust control program and policy revision for 2022.
Director of infrastructure Andre Bachand said that during the last council meeting, administration was requested to investigate the feasibility of providing dust control for a private residence at full cost recovery.
Looking into the matter, Bachand said they surveyed adjacent municipalities about their dust control programs. The average cost worked out to $4 per metre, based on a road width of seven metres.
(Incidentally, the County of Barrhead provides dust control at a cost of $4.92 per metre, Lac Ste. Anne County provides dust control at $5.58 per metre for the first 100 metres, and Westlock County provides dust control at a cost of $4.50 per metre for the first 100 metres. Other nearby municipalities offered the service at a lower cost.)
Woodlands’ current policy states that residential dust control will be applied at a cost of $300 for 200 metres, with each additional metre beyond the 200 costing $8.
Given that it’s currently July and advertising for the program will take two to three weeks, Bachand suggested the logistics of providing dust control in mid-summer “may not prove acceptable.” As such, he recommended against providing a dust control program this year.
Coun. Dave Kusch asked if it were possible to advertise for two to three weeks just to gauge the interest from residents before quashing the program entirely.
“We might be surprised at the interest that we have,” he said.
Bachand said it would be possible to do some advertising and then bring feedback to the next council meeting, but the risk is that they may get some applications to do dust control and then be unable to provide it.
Coun. Ron Govenlock, who put forward the motion, said the issue of dust abatement is certainly relevant in a dry year like this one and he had no issue with providing dust control to residents.
Even though it is mid-summer, Govenlock said there would be an appetite from residents to have dust control applied, even at full cost recovery.
He also commended Bachand for reaching out to other municipalities to determine what their costs are.
Mayor John Burrows asked if it would be possible to include a date in any advertisements that would inform people when a full load of calcium dust control would be applied once enough applications were received.
Bachand said they could, but if advertisements appeared in local papers this week, then they wouldn’t get enough replies to inform council before the first meeting in August.
Coun. Bruce Prestidge said he had been approached by a couple residents on the weekend about applying dust control on a road with lots of truck traffic, and he believed that road would require 2,000 metres of dust control by itself.
He added that he would speak to the residents personally to make sure they were notified of the program.
Govenlock then put forward the motion, suggesting that the solution was to just direct administration to accept applications and then to proceed with dust control once they amounted to a full load.
Initially his motion contained a reference to $4 per metre, but Coun. Dale Kluin suggested it be re-worded to instead mention full cost recovery as providing dust control in multiple areas of the county could cost a lot more.
“We shouldn’t be putting a dollar figure in there. It may come back to bite us in the butt,” he said.
