Mountain View County council has passed a motion instructing administration to enter into an agreement with Huron Resources Corporation to upgrade Twp. Rd. 312 from Rg. Rd. 271 to Highway 582 west of Didsbury at the company’s cost.
The move came during the recent regularly scheduled council meeting and is being made to facilitate the construction on the Lone Pine Creek petroleum battery facility.
“The plan is to construct a battery within SW 13-31-27-4 and use Twp. Rd. 311 as the primary access road,” administration said in a briefing note to council.
“Huron has expressed that they would agree to reconstruct the road to county standards at their cost but have requested that the construction of the road be done in stages.”
The first stage of the project would be to remove the existing chip seal surface and leave the road in gravel until 2020.
“This would be done so that if the road were to break up, it could easily be maintained and would not have to be banned in the spring. The road would be reconstructed in 2020 and then paved in 2021.”
The county will require appropriate financial securities from Huron to be in place before authorizing any re-construction, council heard.
Huron’s Kevin Carroll, vice-president of engineering, appeared before council as a delegation to discuss the project.
He said the road being updated will require temporary closure during the upgrading.
“It is understood that Mountain View County will provide this closure on behalf of Huron,” he said. “Huron intends to follow Twp. Rd. 312 west and Rge. Rd. 271 north to Highway 582. Local traffic would follow the same route while the road is closed. The detour is such that stakeholder disruption is minimized.
“The bulk of the closure time would occur in summer 2020 while the road is rebuilt.”
The project would see the existing base removed from the roadway in 2020 and asphalt paving done in 2021, he said.
