A St. Albert ski club went solar this week after it unveiled a wall’s worth of solar panels on its new shed.
A small group of dignitaries gathered at the new St. Albert Nordic Ski Club (STANSKI) storage shed in Kingswood Park Monday. The shed, which has been up and running since mid-February, received its last few solar panels that morning.
The shed is part of a 15-year, $1.67-million renovation of the park by the ski group that includes some $350,000 in city and provincial funding, says club spokesperson Wayne McCutcheon. “We were outgrowing our space in the original garage,” he explains and they had to move to make way for an upgrade to a pump station. The club and the city decided to build the new two-storey shed by the Kingswood Park shelter.
The building has in-floor heating, says STANSKI trail manager Hugh Rutherford, which is a great way to de-ice their trail-making machinery.
“It’s got double the [wall] insulation of a regular commercial building,” he says — R40, which is equivalent to most house roofs — as well as insulated doors and triple-glazed windows. These features, plus the grid-connected solar panels, should substantially reduce the building’s operation costs and carbon footprint. “All summer long, we will be sending power back [to the grid].”
The building came in handy during the recent Alberta 55 Plus Winter Games, McCutcheon says, and will be a great place to wax skis during next year’s Special Olympics. “This new building will last us a long, long time.”
City crews have chopped down about 170 poplar trees this winter, mainly along Boudreau Road and Sir Winston Churchill Avenue.
The cull was part of the city’s poplar removal program, says St. Albert operations supervisor Mike Jones, which has been running since 2001. Poplars, which he calls “the weed of the tree family,” are notorious for their ability to crack foundations with their surface-growing roots. The city has been chipping away at its poplar stock to prevent damage to roads and buildings.
Boudreau Road used to have a thick canopy of poplars up until this winter when crews started cutting them down. “The trees were all dying,” Jones says, with many having dead tops and others showing frost cracks, cankers and disease. Three had fallen onto the roadway. “We made the decision that they should all come out.”
Fortis Alberta recently removed several large poplars along Sir Winston Churchill as well. The company had been trimming the trees on one side to keep them away from power lines, Jones says, which made them so unbalanced that they were a danger to the public.
All of these trees will be replaced by elm, spruce and other species as soon as the weather allows, Jones says. “For every poplar we take out, we put two trees back in.” City boulevards will likely be poplar-free in three years, he adds.
Anyone with questions about the poplar removal program can call Public Works at 780-459-1557.
Icy conditions could put a chill on this year’s Springing to Life event, says its organizer.
Bird watchers will flock to the Big Lake Environment Support Society (BLESS) observation platform this Saturday morning to take part in Springing to Life, an annual celebration and count of birds during the spring migration.
This will be an interesting year, predicts organizer Dan Stoker, because much of Big Lake is still frozen. “It might actually slow the migration down or there might be a huge wave of birds coming later.” Large numbers of Canadian geese have already gathered at nearby Nadeau Pond, he notes, as well as crows, bohemian waxwings and a few ducks.
Ornithologists will be on hand with spotting scopes for anyone who needs one, Stoker says. Participants are asked to dress warmly.
The event runs until noon on April 16 and 23. For details, email [email protected].
