gravel pit

[cowman]

Linda: I guess there is a major battle brewing south of you over a gravel pit? The municipality is going to develop this large pit west of Bowden...I assume on the Red Deer River or the little Red? Supposed to have a 50 year lifespan?
Anyway the residents are up in arms! Same old county BS...no public input...just bull it through and to hell with the people!
The guy who owns the land apparently built a new "mansion" right beside the proposed pit, last year! He is not a happy camper to say the least! Of course he was probably taking the option money all along, but I think he is miffed that he wasn't informed they had designs when he got approval to build his house!
The reeve sort of arrogantly shrugged off any concerns the residents have..in my opinion! He seems to do that quite a bit lately?

[grassfarmer]

cowman, if the proposed pit is on private land the county will need the landowners consent to even begin testing for gravel, if it't on public lands they need a Surface Material Lease from Sustainable Resource Development which could require an Environmental Appeal Board hearing if there were valid reasons for the public to oppose it.

[rodb]

If this pit is the one I think it is, it has been in use for years and is just being expanded. Our neighbour is doing some of the stripping with buggies to remove the overburden.

Time will tell on what the scar will look like or if the water table will form a fish pond when they are done.

[rodb]

I would suspect that Alberta Environment would still need to give approval.
If anyone wishes to strip peat moss on their own property they are required to have an approval from Environment so this sounds like it would require one as well.

[cowman]

Well I assume they've got all their ducks in a row, although they tend to shoot now and ask later on a lot of things!...but they have a good lawyer on retainer?
I suspect this is probably a case of "not in my back yard"...I mean who wants to live beside a gravel crusher!
The transfer site is still a hot potato, with the squatters raising all kinds of hell...while the cats and hoes continue to work away!
The county is now reluctantly hinting there may be more to this than a transfer station...why horror of horrors...they actually said a biodigester might be in the works somewhere in the future! I suspect they have not been real "upfront" about this whole deal?...Oh well if people don't like it they get to turf them next year?

[coppertop]

There has been a lot of controversy surrounding a propoal for a biodigester near Lethbridge.

The proposed site is beside the jail, but residents that live on country residential acreages are vehemently opposed to it.

At one public meeting one of the county councillors ended up with a black eye in a skirmish. Hopefully that won't happen in your county cowman.

[cowman]

Well we mostly try to act civilized up here but one old boy punched out a councillor a year or so ago!
Now I am not a "neutral citizen" on this biodigestor thing! I have my greedy little aspirations in the pot! I chipped in a few bucks to explore the possibility of a bio digester? In the main part because I believe it is the future....and(honestly) with an eye to picking up some business!...I may not be as altruistic as I portray myself sometimes on here? Actually I am a greedy little money grubber! LOL

[coppertop]

cowman, how in the heck can the county be investigating the biodigester and private citizens putting money into a proposal ?

I think the proposed biodigester in Lethbridge is for waste from McCain's plant there, but I understand the one that Red Deer county is proposing would be for solid waste and possibly manure, is that correct ?


Now, do you have a feedlot or hog barn you haven't been telling us about cowman ?????

[cakadu]

Many kinds of waste can go into a biodigester and with the continued push towards "green" and environmentally friendly substances, this will only continue to grow in popularity. Municipal, industrial, manure,forestry and slaughter plant wastes are the primary materials that can be used in a digester.

One of the biggest challenges for biogas development (part of the larger bioenergy picture) is the fact that there are no incentives towards this technology. At the moment, this is making it a non-money making proposition.

Having said that though, many municipalities will have to look at dealing with their waste in a more efficient fashion and making money on a biodigester may not factor into it. Put another way, dealing with waste will make it a priority, whether money can actually be made from it or not.

We cannot keep taking materials to the dump or even a transfer station. More effective methods may have to be used to deal with the growing waste problem.

[cowman]

Nope no feedlot, no hog barn...but a bio digester is like a real simple gas plant and some contractor will be running it? I have all the GPO certificates and training and have been kissing a lot of butts lately??? LOL
Heres the way this thing worked: To access government funds the municipality had to be involved. All the credit here, goes to the Ag fieldman at Red Deer county. The federal government gave the county a large sum of research money under the "Green Municipal Enabling Fund"...approx. $160,000! PFRA and AVAC gave approx. another $100,000, but first they wanted to see some private interest, before committing the money? The local REA threw in $2K, Sunterra, YB Meats, Olymel threw in $2K each, and 31 farmers and investors paid $100 each! This money of course was a drop in the bucket compared to the government money...but it showed an intention to participate? So for $100, you were in and a part of the project...which means you got the test results and were kept informed of what was going on!
Linda is very correct in saying the project is a money loser...right now! But the fact is a lot of this is very new technology and will be worth something somewhere down the road? Also there are incentives generally not available to the general public? The project has applied for $16 million from the GMEF and the government has encouraged them to pursue this further!
It gets more complicated. The proposed bio digester would in all probability produce methane gas into the pipeline, instead of the common practice of producing electricity. There are two gas companies involved in this now. The CO2 would be seperated out and used to "flood" existing natural gas fields in place of water. One of these very large gas companies is willing to invest some very serious dollars! Also at our last meeting, a group(farmers and Monsanto) requested that we consider their own intent to build a canola crusher and bio deisel plant in conjunction with the bio digester! A side note to this is the major farmer involved in the bio deisel plant...sold the land to the county for the transfer site!
The times are achanging and this is the future. Maybe it is a long shot but well worth pursuing? Just my opinion.

[rodb]

Cowman

I like where they are heading. Biodiesel,biodigester and ethanol plants have synergy that should be used. We need to involve other municipalities and have domestic sewage routed through these faciliies as well instead of the poor excuses we use for sewage treatment plants.

I know that domestic sewage is not as good a fuel for the digester as other sources but if it is dewatered and they paid a cost that was equivalent to running the cost of their present systems, most of which need to be updated, I believe that we would be more enviromentally friendly.