Task force created to sort out Cornwallis gravel issue

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This article was published 04/02/2023 (1252 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Rural Municipality of Cornwallis council and gravel pit owners have agreed to create a task force to figure out what to do about the poor shape of roads used to haul aggregate as the RM’s attempt to hike the gravel operations licensing fee has stalled.

Reeve Sam Hofer has promoted the fee increase as necessary to fix deteriorated roads in the municipality, suggesting taxpayers are effectively subsidizing gravel operations when the cost of maintaining hauling roads is considered.

Alternative Landscaping president Chris Griffin said gravel pit operators are willing to work with council to find a solution, but added council needs to consider that only a small portion of roads are used to haul gravel and weigh the economic benefits gravel operations provide the municipality.

“I think that this group is more than willing … to find those solutions with you, but we’re not more than willing to be chastised to say that taxpayers are subsidizing,” Griffin said during a recent meeting held to discuss the issue.

Council had tried to pass changes to the municipality’s mining and transportation of aggregate bylaw that would have created an interim licensing fee, raising the annual cost of a licence from $10 to $6,000. Fees for mining and transporting aggregate have already gone up.

The extra money collected for the fees, and from the licence if it eventually goes up, will go to road maintenance and to funding whatever method is used to measure the amount of gravel taken out of pits, as some fees are based on the amount of gravel mined. The proposed method seems to be the use of LiDAR-equipped drones.

The amendents actually passed third reading on Nov. 15, but council wanted to send the proposed $6,000 licensing fee to administration and its lawyer for review.

Gravel pit owners then challenged the proposed increase during a Jan. 10 council meeting, taking exception to Hofer’s prior assertion that the previous fees were so low that, when the cost of maintaining roads used to transport gravel was considered, taxpayers were effectively subsidizing gravel pit operations.

One gravel pit operator asked for a meeting where council could explain how it arrived at the proposed interim fee of $6,000. That meeting took place on Monday at the RM of Cornwallis offices where Hofer said that, due to a procedural oversight, the old fee structure with the $10 licence would remain in place, at least for this year.

“Once we didn’t follow the proper procedure in the bylaw, we were stuck with the old bylaw, so you’re at $10,” he said.

Hofer explained that the $6,000 figure was based on an early estimate for the cost of surveying gravel pits twice per year (the RM subsequently determined twice a year wasn’t necessary, and at least one estimate from another company came in at a lower cost).

The reeve also provided a slide that indicated it would cost $800,000 to fully reconstruct a one-mile road in the municipality alone. Meanwhile, the RM showed a $212,223 deficit when gravel remittance income for 2017 to 2021 was compared to haul road expenditures in the same time period.

“We’ve got multiple texts, emails from people that are upset,” Hofer said. “They want to see these roads fixed, but if there’s no money where are you going to get it? How are you going to fix them when there’s no funding?”

Federal gas tax money provided to the municipality could be put to better use in his opinion, Hover said. He provided figures that show between 2009 and 2019 the RM spent $776,332 on maintaining aggregate haul roads when there are communities that need other infrastructure such as sewage lagoons.

Griffin agreed that some of the roads are inadequate for the amount of traffic that travels them. However, he questioned the value of using a drone scan of gravel pits to determine how much was removed as a basis for fees, and suggested the RM already has the income to maintain hauling roads.

“The reality of it is that we’re talking about 30 miles of road here,” Griffin said. “We’re not talking about all the roads in the municipality.”

Griffin said, assuming it cost $10,000 per year to maintain the hauling roads, then the expense would be $300,000, something that figures provided by Hofer during the meeting indicated it can afford.

While Hofer said there were more pressing matters than striking a task force, such as finalizing the 2023 budget, it would be possible to strike such a task force by mid-March. As the idea of the task force arose for the first time during Monday’s meeting, other details such as its composition need to be worked out.

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