Shell Canada has agreed to contribute $1.25 million toward the repaving of Burnt Timber Road (Twp. Rd. 304), Mountain View County infrastructure manager Ryan Morrison told councillors on Aug. 24.Mountain View and the MD of Bighorn have applied jointly for a provincial resource road grant to repave just over 28 kilometres of the road west of Highway 22. The project is estimated to cost $5.4 million and the province can cover up to half of the total amount.Shell's contribution will be applied to offset both municipal contributions, Morrison said.Shell is the major owner and operator of the Burnt Timber Gas Complex and uses the route to transport sulphur trucks to its Shantz processing plant.The county's operational services crews have been doing extensive maintenance on the road to avoid the major capital investment, administration said earlier this year. With the road traversing muskeg, and built in the late 1980s to a higher standard than Highway 22, the county wants to ensure the base is preserved, CAO Tony Martens said.The province has indicated that this year is the last in which resource road grants will be available and approved projects must be undertaken by 2013.
