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County council briefs

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Adam Jackson / Black Press staff

The County of Stettler will apply for a grant that will be greatly beneficial to the Regional Water Treatment Plant.

The grant application, which was agreed to by the 16 communities participating in the program, has no financial implications at the moment, but money will be disbursed as required by the Shirley McClellan Regional Water Services Commission.

“Basically there is a regional cooperation grant that is for funding for strategic initiative that we would like to apply for with the 16 communities,” said CAO Tim Fox.

“It’s essentially to help with the cost of doing a business plan, reviewing agreements and training — kind of an expansion of a business plan aspect.”

The County of Stettler is waiting for other municipalities to agree to apply for the grant.

Botha delays decision

In council on July 13, the County of Stettler announced that they have come to an agreement with all communities participating in the Regional Fire Department program in the past — with the exception of Botha.

“We’ve provided fire services for Botha, White Sands, Rochon Sands and Gadsby through an agreement to provide services on an on-call basis so through the studies and doing fire-costing, we wanted to bring the cost to their attention,” said Fox.

The County of Stettler, through a consultant, has come up with a budget that will be charged to the communities.

Botha is set to pay $4,290 for 2011.

“The three other municipalities have agreed to pay the annual cost, but Botha still wants to go back and discuss it with council and ratepayers,” said Fox.

The County of Stettler has the right to terminate Botha from the agreement, but they will still have 120 days to decide on the matter.

“I think it’s just a matter of them needing a little more time than the other three,” said Fox.

Recycling bins to be placed in Stettler, Botha and Erskine

The County of Stettler has approved a request to place three bins at the Botha, Erskine and Stettler waste transfer sites.

“We definitely want to move forward with the trial,” said Fox. “They actually expanded upon that and budgeted $5,000 to hire a couple summer students to help out as well,” said Fox.

The bins carry a total cost of $900 per month to pay for bin rental and dumping services, which will be covered by the County of Stettler.

BioGas operation moving forward

The County of Stettler is working on a proposal, to bring the BioGas operation plans up to speed.

The county approved a request for proposal from a consultant with the price tag of $62,043, which will help them adhere to environmental standards established by the Province of Alberta.

The county has also approved another consultants’ proposal for an emergency plan at $3,500.

“It’s exciting to move forward, but with the application process and submitting it, it’s still about an eight-month process between now and when we start building,” said Fox.