M.D. looking at winter maintenance

By Cole Parkinson
Taber Times
cparkinson@tabertimes.com

With the calendar now firmly in winter, the Municipal District of Taber is preparing a few locations in the region for the inevitable snow.

After two spots in the M.D. were marked as repeated concerns, administration has talked to a couple landowners hoping to correct the issues.

The road in question is Range Road 18-0, a mile west of Barnwell and west of Highway 3, which has two problem spots in relation to drifting snow on the road.

The first spot is northeast 36-9-18 W4 and the second is southwest 30-9-17.

“Historically, this has been an area that is a lot of fun in the snow time. Most of that is due to a bad sloping coming on the west side of the roadway. In the northern portion of the roadway to the south, there is a row of caraganas that has been there for as long as anyone can remember. Last year, we had to take a bulldozer in there for a consecutive year because the snow was coming across there,” said Jeremy Wickson, director of public works. “Part of overall brush clearing and things like that, we try to identify some of those trouble areas. The landowner has changed hands, the old landowner did not have any conversation in getting rid of the brush which is on their land.”

Wickson stated they would be looking for a brush clearing agreement with the landowner at SW 30-9-17 and a back slope agreement at NE 36-9-18 W4.

He also explained to council the work would be done this fall.

In terms of amount of work, they expect the back slope project to take a few days for rolling topsoil off and then moving material to the landowner’s field to be dispersed as they see fit while re-seeding of disturbed area within the road allowance would need to be done next spring.

Brush removal meanwhile, would consist of removal of roots and building a burn pile on the dry corner of land.
 
Both would also fall under operational projects and cost would be within operating budget.

“I know the road well and I know the trouble you have had keeping it relatively clean over the last few years. Now that the landowner with the caraganas is allowing us to take those out, it helps a lot,” said Reeve Merrill Harris.

Council voted unanimously to proceed with both projects. Councillors Brian Brewin, Murray Reynolds and John Turcato were absent from the meeting.