News | Action Surface Rights

Alberta AG condemns Tory fail

April 13, 2016 By Admin

13 Apr 2016

Lethbridge Herald

Dean Bennett THE CANADIAN PRESS — EDMONTON

AUDITOR GENERAL RIPS FAILED SCHOOL CONSTRUCTION

Alberta’s auditor general says the former Progressive Conservative government’s grand plan for 100 new schools was built on empty promises, administrative chaos, and almost no money. Merwan Saher, in a report issued Tuesday, said Albertans during the era of former premiers Alison Redford and Jim Prentice were promised something that had little hope of succeeding.

“I believe the lessons for ministers are don’t create false public expectations,” Saher told reporters after filing his report to the legislature.

Saher was asked last fall by Rachel Notley’s NDP government to investigate school construction under the previous two premiers after it announced there would be lengthy delays in 101 Tory-announced school projects.

In the decade prior to 2011 the province was building on average 18 schools a year, Saher said.

All changed under Redford’s government when it promised 50 new schools in 2012, but also introduced organizational changes that sowed confusion between the Education and Infrastructure departments with no clear hierarchy of authority, the auditor general said.

“No one was responsible for overall results,” Saher wrote.

Bureaucrats couldn’t give ministers the correct information because no one had the full picture, he said.

As a result, he wrote, “ministers made public commitments and announced completion dates without evidence those dates were reasonably attainable.”

Redford resigned as premier in March 2014 in a scandal over lavish spending on herself and inner circle.

She was replaced by Prentice whose government announced another 55 new schools.

But Saher said the funding in the budget for the schools was unclear under Redford and all but non-existent under Prentice.

Filed Under: News

Livestock tax a ‘very dangerous precedent’

April 13, 2016 By Admin

13 Apr 2016

Lethbridge Herald

Dave Mabell Follow @DMabellHerald on Twitter

[email protected]

Plan angers independent business group

A tax on livestock production is the wrong way to pay for maintenance on rural roads. That’s the view of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, after hearing from hundreds of members in Lethbridge County.

Herald photo by Tijana Martin Follow @TMartinHerald on Twitter. Amber Ruddy, the Alberta director of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, spoke to The Herald on Tuesday prior to attending a council meeting in Coalhurst.

They’re angry to hear Lethbridge County council plans to levy a $5 tax on every head of livestock, says CFIB spokesperson Amber Ruddy. Other counties and MDs have found other ways to keep their roads open, she says.

“This would be taxing one industry,” she said during an interview with The Herald Tuesday. “That would set a very dangerous precedent.”

The county says it’s planning the tax because it’s exhausted all other options, she noted. But it should look at contracting out more of its road work.

The livestock industry is already facing increased costs due to insurance and safety requirements in the province’s Bill 6, she said. Now Lethbridge-area producers are faced with additional costs.

“One sector can’t be hammered so hard,” she warned. “Everybody uses the roads, not just the farmers.”

If the tax is imposed despite their protests, Ruddy said, producers may decide to relocate to a lower-cost part of the province. Lethbridge County’s spending has grown far more rapidly than its population, she added.

The county may be getting some assistance from the provincial government, she predicted. If it follows through on its plans to increase spending on “core infrastructure,” the county should use those funds for road and bridge repair. “There’s nothing more core than that.” Looking to Thursday’s budget speech, Ruddy said CFIB members are hoping for a reduction in the province’s business tax — in light of this week’s announcement that it’s scrapping its proposed $178-million plan for tax credits to businesses which create new jobs.

Despite predictions of a provincial deficit of more than $10 billion this year, Ruddy said Alberta business owners are not in favour of a sales tax. That’s what other provinces use to help balance their books.

“That’s not popular among our members,” she said.

They don’t want to lose that “Alberta advantage” even though, she said, “That advantage is now razor thin.”

Filed Under: News

Study shows fracking behind Alta. quakes

April 1, 2016 By Admin

30 Mar 2016

Lethbridge Herald

Bob Weber THE CANADIAN PRESS — EDMONTON

RESEARCHERS SAY WASTE WATER NOT THE CAUSE
New research suggests that hydraulic fracking of oil and gas wells is behind earthquakes caused by humans in Western Canada.

A study, published Tuesday by a group of top Canadian researchers, says problems in Alberta and British Columbia aren’t being caused by injecting waste water underground. It’s a major step in understanding seismic events that have already led to changed regulations in Alberta and caused public concern in both provinces.

“It’s critical that we get to a complete scientific understanding of the issue,” said David Eaton, a University of Calgary geophysicist and a co-author of the study.

Fracking involves pumping high pressure fluids underground to create tiny cracks in rock to release natural gas or oil. Scientists had previously concluded that oil patch activity can cause earthquakes by making it easier for faults in underground rock to slip, but they didn’t know whether the Canadian quakes were caused by fracking or by the disposal of waste water by injecting it back underground.

Public interest has been high, especially after a tremblor in January shook pictures on the walls of homes in Fox Creek, Alta., a community in the centre of the Duvernay oil and gas field. Measuring between 4.2 and 4.8 on the Richter scale, the quake was the largest of hundreds of similar shakers around the community since 2013.

Eaton and his colleagues began with a database of more than 12,000 fracked and disposal wells drilled between 1985 and 2015. They cross-referenced that with another database of seismic events over that time.

A complex statistical analysis pinned the blame convincingly on fracking and not disposal, Eaton said.
“There are more earthquakes in Western Canada that are more related to hydraulic fracturing than waste-water injection by a factor of about two.”

Eaton said the situation is reversed in the United States, where waste-water disposal is considered to be behind most human-caused seismic activity.

That doesn’t mean that a lot of wells cause earthquakes. Eaton calculates that about 0.3 per cent of fracked wells create problems.

But there are enough wells drilled for even that tiny fraction to be a concern.

“Even at 0.3 per cent, because of the very large number of hydraulically fractured wells, it still represents an issue that is of high priority to address scientifically,” said Eaton.

Alberta’s energy regulator has already changed regulations for the industry as a result of the Fox Creek earthquakes. Eaton said regulators in British Columbia are also considering changes.

“The regulators have been quite responsive.”

Filed Under: News

Alberta Energy Minister keen on industry group’s well clean-up proposal

March 22, 2016 By Admin

Lauren Krugel

CALGARY — The Canadian Press

Published Tuesday, Mar. 15, 2016 3:46PM EDT

Last updated Wednesday, Mar. 16, 2016 2:50PM EDT

A proposal to use federal infrastructure funds to accelerate the cleanup of inactive oil and gas wells in Alberta – with the aim of spurring employment in the ailing industry – has the thumbs-up of the province’s Energy Minister.

The Petroleum Services Association of Canada announced Monday that it made the $500-million pitch to Ottawa earlier this month. The sum would cover a small fraction of the work needed to decommission the 75,000 wells across the province that are no longer producing.

“Good on them,” Energy Minister Marg McCuaig-Boyd said of PSAC’s move.

“That is one way to get Albertans back to work in the interim and it isn’t unprecedented,” she told reporters after speaking at an energy conference in Calgary on Tuesday.

McCuaig-Boyd referred to the Alberta government’s $30-million contribution to the province’s orphan well fund during the last downturn in 2009.

While Alberta does have a polluter-pay policy that makes companies responsible for well decommissioning, McCuaig-Boyd says the province also has big economic problems.

“I think we could put a lot of folks to work in a fairly quick time (with the federal money) because the skills are out there right now and it is an issue that needs to be dealt with,” she said.

“It will provide some jobs. No solution is going to provide jobs for everybody, but we need to look at how we can get as many Albertans back to work as we can.”

The Saskatchewan government made a similar federal pitch last month.

That province’s proposal would cost Ottawa $156-million and would generate an estimated 1,200 jobs over the next two years.

Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall said he’s not heard back from Ottawa yet on his proposal, but that he’ll be watching next week’s federal budget “very, very closely.”

“We’re hopeful (the PSAC ask) helps . . . provide some momentum to our request and that the federal government would indeed go with our request,” Wall said in a phone interview during an election campaign stop in Saskatoon.

Meanwhile, in her speech, McCuaig-Boyd touched on pipelines, saying the NDP government is taking a “calm and strategic” approach to the heated issue.

“We will get nowhere by beating our chests and shaming people into getting what we want,” she said. “That strategy has been tried in the past here in Alberta and federally and, to be honest, it’s failed miserably. Instead, we are taking a different approach.”

She said without a pipeline to the West Coast, the industry will slow down and have a lower demand for the hydroelectric power British Columbia wants to sell to Alberta.

“There’s a little give and take needed,” said McCuaig-Boyd, who added that she has not yet had the chance to broach the topic with her B.C. counterpart.

“If we don’t get the pipelines we’re not going to need as much power, so it’s plain and simple.”

Filed Under: News

‘Orphan’ wells left behind in oil slump

March 22, 2016 By Admin

A pump jack on land south of Calgary, whose owner fears the well will soon be considered orphaned.

As companies in Alberta’s oil patch fight for survival, some are not decommissioning and cleaning up old sites, reports Kelly Cryderman

CALGARY The Globe and Mail Last updated: Friday, Mar. 18, 2016 7:35PM EDT

Hundreds of thousands of oil and natural gas wells dot Alberta’s landscape, and all are supposed to be sealed and cleaned up by their owners once their productive life is over.

But the dramatic crude price drop that began in mid-2014 means many energy companies, especially smaller producers, are fighting for their survival. If a wave of weaker oil and natural gas companies go bust before doing legally required end-of-life work, they will leave multiple “orphan” wells behind.

“In my mind, there’s no winner here. It’s going to cost somebody, and possibly the taxpayer in the end,” says Patricia Walker, a High River, Alta.-based consultant hired by landowners to help with disputes with energy firms.

To help protect the province from the financial risk of a massive environmental cleanup of old wells, the government has required companies to have enough assets or keep enough funds on hand to properly decommission their own sites. And even if this system doesn’t work, the oil industry as a whole funds an Orphan Well Association that works to seal up and “reclaim” the land around old, unwanted wells.

But there are warning signs the oil-price rout – and another year of casualties for Canadian junior and intermediate oil and gas companies – could dampen enthusiasm for the continuing care of the province’s well sites. According to Sayer Energy Advisors, 20 oil and gas companies went into receivership in 2015, compared with a typical annual average of around eight. Companies with larger inventories of wells could be “the next big blow up,” according to a report from the firm earlier this year.

Gale Tharle, a 4th-generation Alberta rancher, is photographed on his land an hour south of Calgary.

Chris Bolin

Already, the last 18 months have seen a major increase in the workload for Alberta’s Orphan Well Association. The number of orphan wells awaiting cleanup jumped significantly, going to around 700 from a previous total of 162. And a government-funded board forecasts that this year will see a dramatic increase in the government’s tab for lease payments to farmers and other landowners – meaning many small oil and gas companies no longer have the available cash to service their most basic of business costs.

Ms. Walker said her company, My Landman Group Inc., is helping Gale Tharle, a landowner near Mossleigh, Alta., who hasn’t been paid rent by the small oil producer who has one well on his land for three years. The rancher is now involved in a complex quest to receive the rent he is due, and is also grappling with invasive weeds, an old working shack with broken windows, and a pump-jack in disrepair on his land. Ms. Walker believes the insolvent company’s assets will eventually end up being added to the Orphan Well Association’s rolls.

“It looks like everybody will be out of luck.”

Wells and wellheads

Suspended well: A well that still has wellhead equipment present and may have produced in the past. These wells are currently not in production, usually due to economic reasons. But they may become active again with improved technology, infrastructure or commodity pricing. To suspend a well, an operator must notify the energy regulator and perform a series of procedures to ensure that the well poses no risk to the public and environment while it’s inactive.

Abandoned well: A decomissioned well where the wellbore has been properly cleaned and plugged, and cut and capped – which involves cutting the well casing a minimum of one metre below the surface and placing a vented cap on top of the well casing.

Reclaimed wellsite: A wellsite which has been properly abandoned, and has received a reclamation certificate for the land surface. Upon completion of oil and gas activity, a company must return the land as close as possible to its original state.

Orphan well: A well that has been investigated and confirmed as not having any legally responsible or financially able party to deal with its abandonment and reclamation.

Sources: The Alberta government, the Alberta Energy Regulator and the Orphan Well Association

According to the Alberta Energy Regulator, more than 440,000 wells have been drilled in the province since 1963. Of those, 67,000 have been sealed up in a process called abandonment by the oil and gas industry and 105,000 have been both abandoned and have had the land cleaned up (reclaimed).

Of those that remain, many are still in use and have a productive life ahead of them. But there are tens of thousands, at least, that need to be abandoned and reclaimed.

“Albertans expect that the polluter clean up their mess. There is room to improve the current policies. That is why this government is looking at ways to make improvements,” said Alberta Energy Minister Marg McCuaig-Boyd.

The NDP government is in talks with the Alberta Energy Regulator about how to best address the issue of aging energy-sector infrastructure, but the province doesn’t have rules governing specific timelines for when wells need to be cleaned up. Industry watchers say the cleanup of old well sites won’t be a priority for companies being forced to lay off workers and struggling to stay afloat.

“How many non-producing wells are just being left sitting out there with nothing being done to clean up the oil industry’s legacy?” said Edmonton-based landowner advocate and lawyer Keith Wilson, who has long expressed concerns about the costs of cleaning up a growing inventory of wells in the province.

Mr. Wilson and others say with no specific timeline attached to the cleanup, some oil companies will simply keep wells in an inactive or suspended state – and will therefore avoid the biggest cleanup costs that can sometimes run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, per well, or more. He worries some level of government, and citizens, will eventually end up footing the bill for the cleanup, including those sites with land and water contamination issues.

Wells in the Orphan Well Association’s inventory

THE GLOBE AND MAIL SOURCE: Orphan well association

The industry acknowledges the dramatic oil-price decline – spurred by worldwide crude surpluses – is putting pressure on Alberta’s safety net for dealing with wells with no current economic value.

“The speed of the drop has really been challenging for the entire sector, globally,” said Brad Herald, a director of the Orphan Well Association and a vice-president at the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP).

But Mr. Herald also emphasized that many currently inactive wells are still assets, not liabilities, and may be returned to productive use when the time is right. He also said that wells from bankrupted companies are often sold to more solvent players, and it’s not a given that wells from insolvent companies will end up as orphans.

“Whenever there are companies in receivership, there’s more risk that we ultimately might see more orphans – and there are some sizable companies in receivership. But there’s also a fair bit of interest in the packages right now,” he said.

“It is great opportunity for companies if there is some cash flow elasticity to build their portfolio.”

And in Alberta, safeguards are in place to make sure that the “polluter pays” principle is upheld. One safeguard is the Alberta Energy Regulator’s licensee liability rating (LLR) program, which uses a comparison of assets to cleanup liability costs. When the liabilities outweigh the assets, the company must put up a cash deposit for the difference.

Even when the government’s system doesn’t work, and individual companies go bankrupt without cleaning up their old sites – there is a fail-safe. The Orphan Well Association, funded by industry levies, is designed to provide a safety net when companies fail and there is no market for their assets. Over the past 25 years, the industry has put more than $200-million into properly sealing and cleaning up old sites.

In light of the

economic conditions and the increased workload for the association, Mr. Herald notes the industry has doubled the association’s annual budget to $30-million from the previous $15-million.

There are also requests from some quarters to the federal government for cash. Last month, Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall called on Ottawa to come up with $156-million to clean up 1,000 non-producing wells in his province as a job stimulus program. And this week the Petrole

um Services Association of Canada made a similar request for Alberta’s much more numerous wells – asking for $500-million in federal infrastructure dollars to put a dent in the association’s estim

ate of about 75,000 inactive wells requiring abandonment and surface reclamation, with the similar argument the plan will create jobs, retain expertise, and provide economic and environmental benefits.

There is a precedent for a government infusion of cash for a cleanup: In the global downturn of 2008, the Alberta government gave an extra $30-million to the Orphan Well Association for cleanup work.

Both Mr. Wall and the association say the extraordinary economic fragility in Western Canada’s economy demands this type of response – and are looking to next week’s federal budget for news. Even critics such as Mr. Wilson concede it might be cheaper to clean up many of these sites sooner rather than later.

However, the downturn in the energy industry has also created a new source of discontent among the farmers of Alberta, who for decades have been sharing their land with oil and gas companies. If there are no environmental problems, many landowners are happy to receive the “rents” energy firms pay for access to the land and to compensate farmers for their loss of use of it.

But a growing cohort of mostly smaller firms, many financially strapped, have stopped making these rent payments on their wells, especially in the last two years. In cases where energy companies don’t pay, the Alberta government is supposed to pay the landowner and chase after the company to be reimbursed.

The Surface Rights Board – a quasi-judicial body that helps resolve disputes between landowners and mineral rights holders – has been overwhelmed by an increase in work and costs related to unpaid rents.

The board paid out more than $1.7-million in 2015, compared with about $722,000 in 2014. Chairman Gerald Hawranik forecasts government-funded payouts to landowners for rents they are owed by energy companies will hit $3.5-million in the coming fiscal year.

“It has been escalating,” Mr. Hawranik said. “Almost every month there are more applications.”

Filed Under: News

Well cleanup proposal has merit

March 18, 2016 By Admin

8 Mar 2016 Lethbridge Herald

The idea of putting federal money toward cleaning up old oil and gas wells continues to gain support. Last month, Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall pitched a request for $156 million in federal funding to clean up non-producing wells in his province. Then this week, an energy industry group, the Petroleum Services Association of Canada, announced it has asked Ottawa for $500 million in infrastructure dollars to clean up inactive oil and gas wells.

Alberta Energy Minister Marg McCuaig-Boyd threw her support behind the PSAC’s request, saying, “Good on them. That is one way to get Albertans back to work in the interim and it isn’t unprecedented.”

McCuaig-Boyd was referring to the $30 million the Alberta government contributed to cleaning up orphan wells during the last economic downturn in 2009.

We’ll have to wait and see if the Trudeau government’s first federal budget, to be announced next Tuesday, contains any money for such a proposal, but after Wall made his pitch in early February, Canadian Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr said there was a possibility Ottawa could help pay for such work. Carr noted while restoring habitat around inactive wells is the responsibility of the energy companies, he acknowledged the government is well aware of the need to restore jobs to regions hard hit by slumping oil prices.

The call for federal help to deal with these wells has merit. For one thing, when an oil company goes bankrupt, abandoned wells have no one to look after the rehabilitation process. Alberta reportedly has 700 such wells, and a Saskatchewan government spokesperson told Reuters it anticipates that 1,000 wells will be abandoned in addition to the 100 already-abandoned wells.

Wall said the federal program to assist with well cleanup could result in 1,200 jobs, direct and indirect, in the oil and gas support sector — jobs that are needed in view of the layoffs that have hit the oilpatch during the fall in oil prices.

McCuaig-Boyd also pointed to the jobs aspect of the idea.

“I think we could put a lot of folks to work in a fairly quick time because the skills are out there right now and it is an issue that needs to be dealt with,” she said.

In all, Alberta has some 75,000 wells that are no longer producing and $500 million would cover only a fraction of the work necessary to decommission that many wells, according to a Canadian Press story in Wednesday’s Herald.

But it would be a start, and as the proponents note, it would create jobs — jobs that are badly needed in the oilpatch right now, and for Alberta’s economy as a whole.

If the federal government has room in its 2016 budget for this proposal, it could be money well spent.

Comment on this editorial online at www.lethbridgeherald.com/opinions/.

Filed Under: News

Hope is blowing in the wind

March 18, 2016 By Admin

18 Mar 2016 Lethbridge Herald

Bill Graveland

THE CANADIAN PRESS — PINCHER CREEK

Alberta’s wind energy industry getting bigger role

There are three things one can be assured of in the Pincher Creek area of southwestern Alberta — death, taxes and the wind will blow.

Windswept is the word often used to describe the region with its rolling hills, cattle ranches, farms and the Rocky Mountains to the west.

And it is the wind that’s eliciting some optimism at a time when Canada is seeking to reduce its carbon footprint and turn to alternative energy sources.

With their giant 80-metre-high turbines stretching as far as the eye can see and 45metre-long blades turning gracefully in the breeze, wind farms are potentially a big beneficiary of changes promised by both the Alberta and federal governments.

“The wind is always blowing in southern Alberta it seems,” said Wayne Oliver, TransAlta’s operations supervisor for the region, which includes Fort Macleod.

“For the locals who have grown up around the wind from childhood, it’s just another day for them.”

TransAlta, Canada’s largest publicly traded power generator and marketer of electricity and renewable energy, has 460 wind turbines in the area. Some of the older models are being decommissioned and the pricetag for new ones isn’t cheap, running between $2 million and $5 million, depending on the output, which can be as much as three million watts of electricity per hour.

But Oliver said 100 megawatts of energy will supply the needs of about 120,000 homes.

He also said most people don’t understand where their electricity comes from.

“The general public just wants to know that when they hit the switch the lights will come on and they can cook supper when they get home from work.”

With Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promising to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and Alberta’s plan to impose a broad carbon tax and eventually end coalfired electricity generation, wind energy is getting increased attention.

“We have a long-term, viable resource in the quantity of wind that blows through southern Alberta,” Oliver said.

“Until we get to the point that we’d have large-scale battery storage of wind energy, wind is always going to be supplemental to a base power load structure,” he added.

“In Alberta we have coal and natural gas, we have some hydro. These are our baseload generators and wind can nicely supplement that for the time being.”

TransAlta said last month that plans to invest in hydroelectric, wind, solar and natural gas co-generation facilities in Alberta were “on hold” until the details of the province’s climate change plans are known.

Filed Under: News

Proposed transmission line threatens heritage rangeland

February 22, 2016 By Admin

21 Feb 2016

Lethbridge Herald LETTERS

Southwestern Alberta is more than a place to live; it’s the heart and soul of Alberta’s heritage rangeland. It’s an increasingly rare piece of Alberta’s once vast natural capital. Plants, birds and animals that are threatened on the nearby landscape thrive here because of landowners’ careful stewardship.

The ecological health of this land forms the foundation on which geotourism operators — including B&Bs, fishing guides and equestrian trail riders — build businesses.

This landscape’s arresting, unspoiled beauty attracts film companies and Hollywood producers. These same virtues are the reason Travel Alberta, showcasing the world-class appeal of southwestern Alberta, markets it around the world.

AltaLink proposes to have the people of Alberta spend $750 million to erect a new transmission line that invades this iconic heritage viewscape and industrializes the headwaters of the Oldman watershed. I ask these questions: 1. How can it be, especially in times of acute economic uncertainty, that AltaLink can propose to build a lattice-tower array that isn’t needed, plan to locate it the worst possible place, and expect Albertans to pay for the product?

2. Do Albertans want to spend the better part of $1 billion to erect an ugly, steel-and-wire electrical substation at heaven’s gate?

One profound reason this headwaters landscape is without industrial development is this: Landowners, government fish and wildlife officials, land trusts, and environmental not-for-profits have invested time and money to protect wildlife habitat, native grasslands and forests of ancient limber pines.

One of AltaLink’s proposed routes, if realized, would carve an industrial route through, or be located directly adjacent to, eight conservation easements. In other words, what society has laboured to protect for posterity, AltaLink has chosen to degrade for short-term corporate profit … doing this with the expectation that the people of Alberta will accept the destruction and pick up the bill.

We can’t let this happen. We can’t allow AltaLink to devalue Alberta’s premier viewscapes and diminish this region’s sustainable rural economy, or put land, groundwater resources, native grasslands and the health of livestock and wildlife at further risk.

David McIntyre

Crowsnest Pass

Filed Under: News

Landowners oppose transmission line

February 22, 2016 By Admin

21 Feb 2016

Lethbridge Herald

J.W. Schnarr

[email protected]

GROUP SAYS CHAPEL ROCK PROJECT NO LONGER NEEDED

A group opposed to transmission line development planned for the Pincher Creek area say while they support the development of renewable energy, the Chapel Rock transmission line is an expensive and unnecessary burden that will be forced onto the shoulders of ratepayers.

Ted Smith, president of the Livingstone Landowners Guild, said an analysis of the project by the group has identified a number of concerns.

“Our main concern is that it is completely not needed,” he said. “The need for this line was decided in 2008, and things have drastically changed since then.”

In a Feb. 7 news release, the guild stated the cost of the project has increased from $180 million eight years ago to $750 million currently.

They also state the line is no longer needed, as previous projects in the area have lapsed or been abandoned. Turbine technology has also changed to the point where turbines can operate in less-wind proof areas, closer to current transmission lines.

More equitable distribution would also add to reliability and consistency of power delivery, according to the release.

Another major criticism of the line is the belief it would degrade the tourism and aesthetic value of the area, as well as be an unnecessary intrusion on environmentallysensitive land.

The guild states the development is in violation of the South Saskatchewan Regional Plan, which directs industrial development to use “existing disturbed corridors.”

Smith said the guild is not against development, but that they try to support development that “makes sense, and that can be aesthetically, environmentally, and economically.

“We’re not an anti – (development) group,” he said. “We’re very much support it. Our group started out with some oil and gas proposals, and we just worked with the companies and got them to (develop) in a more sensible fashion.”

Smith said as it stands, there is no way the guild can support the line.

“It’s totally ridiculous,” he said. “It makes absolutely no sense.”

He added the group consulted with engineers who stated the job could be done in a different manner that would cost far less.

The Livingstone Landowners Guild is comprised of ranchers, acreage-owners, local business operators, and others interested in maintaining the aesthetic and ecological virtues and quality of life of local residents. Currently, Smith said there are as many as 90 families involved in the organization.

“It’s just all local people that have come together to support good development and oppose things that are being done badly,” he said.

Follow @JWSchnarrHerald on Twitter

Filed Under: News

Betting the farm on big data Agriculture industry using innovation to boost yields and profits

February 16, 2016 By Admin

14 Feb 2016 Lethbridge Herald Ian Bickis THE CANADIAN PRESS — CALGARY

The family farm is going high-tech. From robotic milking machines to datagathering drones, industry watchers say technology is making agriculture more precise and efficient as farmers push for increased profits and yields.

Associated Press photo In this Sept. 18, 2014 photo, with the drone’s camera aimed at himself, Dwight, Ill., farmer Matt Boucher demonstrates the maneuverability of the craft at his farm. The family farm is going high-tech. From robotic milking machines to data-gathering drones, industry watchers say technology is making agriculture more precise and efficient as farmers push for increased profits and yields.“There’s a whole confluence of technologies that are adding a lot of value on the farm quickly,” said Aki Georgacacos, co-founder of Calgary-based Avrio Capital.

The venture capital firm focuses on agriculture and food innovations, and Georgacacos says changes like fine-detailed mapping and sensors for everything from soil moisture to fuel use are just beginning.

“We’re not even scratching the surface,” he said, adding an older generation of farmers have been slow to adopt new techniques. But that’s changing. “Right now we’re at a bit of an inflection point, where we’ve moved beyond early adopters and we’re moving now into fast followers, and so we’re getting to a point where the rate at which some of this technology is accepted is accelerating.”

On Monday, Avrio Capital finished raising $110 million in late-stage venture capital that it plans to invest in the next wave of farm-tech companies.

One of them is Fredericton, N.B.-based Resson Aerospace, which has developed drone-based crop monitoring to know when fields need to be sprayed or watered.

Another is Winnipeg-based Farmers Edge, which 10 years ago was based out of Wade Barnes’s basement in rural Manitoba, where he and cofounder Curtis MacKinnon were pushing to make local farms more efficient.

Barnes started introducing farmers to technology that allowed them to apply varying amounts of fertilizer on their fields depending on where it was most needed.

“That was quite revolutionary back in 2005,” Barnes said in an interview.

Today, the company has evolved into what Barnes says is one of the biggest in the world working in farm data management, using cloud computing to crunch numbers from soil sensors, satellite imagery, weather stations and other inputs to make farms more efficient.

In January, Farmers Edge secured a $58-million investment from investors including Japanese conglomerate Mitsui & Co. and Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

“The next big revolution in agriculture is big data,” said Barnes from southern Russia, where he was setting up another satellite office for the company now operating on four continents.

Already, he said, farmers are seeing 30 per cent increases in productivity by using the data available, and the technology is only getting more accessible. A system that five years ago would have cost $15 to $25 an acre now costs under $5, said Barnes.

Cheaper technology and advancements in productivity are more important than ever as pressure mounts on the world’s food systems, says Viacheslav Adamchuk, an associate professor in McGill University’s bioresource engineering department.

“We are not going to see more arable land; land is all allocated. The population is growing, the climate is changing,” he said.

Adamchuk’s research has focused on sensor technology in farming, which he says has come down dramatically in price in recent years while at the same time growing in precision.

He estimates that farmers can shave off at least 10 per cent — and upwards of 40 per cent — of their input costs on things like fertilizer, seeds and water thanks to global positioning systems and sensors that allow them to use those resources only where needed.

“You can maintain the same yield with less inputs,” said Adamchuk.

Stan Blade, dean of the University of Alberta’s faculty of agricultural, life and environmental sciences, says innovation is key for the future of farming.

“The farmers who succeed are the ones who are going to incorporate new technologies,” he said.

“Auto-steered tractors, yield monitors on combines — I mean we’re all using those things now because it just makes us that much more efficient. They decrease labour, they make things more efficient, they make things safer, so it just presents a whole array of new opportunities for producers that are involved in generating these yields.”

Filed Under: News