County council has given a gravel company another five years to finish mining a decades-old gravel pit near Villeneuve, along with a stern message to hurry up.
Council voted 4-3 in support of a motion from Couns. David Kluthe and Tom Flynn to give Yellowhead Aggregates an additional five years and six months to reclaim the Friesen Pit. Mayor Don Rigney and councillors Ken McGillis and Don McGeachy opposed the move.
The Friesen Pit is a gravel mine located about five kilometres west of St. Albert next to Highway 633 and Range Road 264. Owned by Yellowhead since 2001, the pit has been around for about 40 years. The company was supposed to have reclaimed the pit by last December; it hasn't, and has asked the county for a 15-year extension.
Kluthe said that was simply too long. "If they can't get it done in five years, that's more than enough time to finish up."
This vote should send a message to all gravel companies in the county, Kluthe said — meet your deadlines or risk losing your investment.
"It is a gravel pit area, but these companies have to realize they've got a timeline and they have to stick with it," he said. "They can't ask for extensions for forever and ever."
Deadline debate
The pit is designated as a quick-extraction area under the Calahoo-Villeneuve Sand and Gravel Extraction Area Structure Plan, and was originally supposed to be mined and reclaimed in around 2006. Council extended the deadline to Dec. 31, 2010, back in 2007.
Residents complained about the site's weeds, noise, traffic and lights at a public hearing last June. Yellowhead general manager Marlea Sleeman said her company was behind schedule on the pit in part because it had decided to mine out an adjacent pit beforehand. They asked for extra time to sell all the sand they'd dug up.
McGillis said in an interview that he supported the idea of giving Yellowhead more time to sell its sand, but thought eight-and-a-half years was more appropriate as an extension. "If we impose too strict a time limit, we're going to strand a lot of aggregate in the ground." The county will have to keep a close eye on Yellowhead to make sure it starts its reclamation efforts on time.
Flynn said he wanted to push the company to get its reclamation done on time without trapping valuable resources in the ground. "If we've got land disturbed already, we may as well try and mine out as much as we can," he said.
Rigney said complaints at the public hearing convinced him to oppose the extension. "What's the point of having a plan if you're not going to follow it?" he said in an interview. He argued for a renewable one-year extension that would be contingent on the company actually addressing the concerns of residents.
"I don't want to strand any resource either, but for heaven's sake, to have a quick-extraction [area] and have a best-by date [and] to even consider extending it for 15 years seems to be a complete breach of faith with the surrounding affected residents."
Yellowhead has put in new fences and stepped up its weed controls in response to concerns from residents, Sleeman said. The company should be able to sell its sand and reclaim the pit in five years so long as the market stays hot. "We're going to have to wait and see what the market is going to do," she said.
Robert Lema, who has lived next to the pit for 40 years, said he was disappointed, but not surprised, by the decision. "This is the second extension that [Yellowhead] has wanted," he said. "Why can't they meet their initial commitments?"
County officials should leave gravel along the Sturgeon River in the ground, Lema said, as it forms a natural aquifer. "We're destroying another water reservoir," he said. "It was good fresh water until they started mining it."
McGeachy and Division 6 councillor Karen Shaw could not be reached for comment.
