It’s a tale of landowners versus industrial development.
Landowners and concerned citizens from the South McDougal Flats area spoke recently at a hearing about the area structure plan for their region.
Neil Konner, who owns land in the area, said many people in Mountain View County are concerned about the use of water, specifically in gravel pit mining. The county is between Calgary and Red Deer, in the Calgary-Edmonton corridor.
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“Gravel pits are used for multiple things – road construction and facets of the construction industry. Crushing is the big thing,” he said.
Landowners and concerned citizens demanded a pause to the area structure plan, but their plea was overturned at a March 27 hearing.
The group wanted to stop the area structure plan, because of extreme drought and water shortage. The drought in the area is stage 4, but could move to stage 5, the most severe.
“Right now, with the drought conditions, people in the area here are experiencing well water problems,” said Konner.
Konner knows of at least two people who have copper and lead in their water.
“They’re looking at expensive filtration systems anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000,” he said.
“Last year everything was clear. My opinion is because the water table has dropped so much because of the drought condition, through the aquifers.”
Konner said gravel pits are encroaching on the area and affecting the water, and that councilors present at the March 27 hearing voted for the area structure plan without completion of all the studies needed.
“We voiced our concerns about the necessity of the water issue which they completely ignored. They will not take into account the amount of water taken out of this area for fracking,” he said.
“Mountain View County has fast tracked this area structure plan for the sake of development and not listening to the concerns and the wellbeing of citizens in the area,” he said.
“Water is non-renewable. Once you take the water away, it’s not going to come back again, unless you have huge amounts of precipitation in the air. With the increase in population, and the industry, we’ve got a protracted negative effect with the consumption of water in the area,” he said.
