While the search for the arsonist who went on a spree early Friday morning continues, the fire department said residents can help make themselves less likely targets.
"Whoever is responsible for the arsons is going around trying to ignite materials that are available to them," said public information officer Jeff Budai.
"So if you can reduce combustible material around your house and behind your garage and so on, hopefully that will slow it down," said Budai.
Growing number of Albertans choose to live in harm`s way
EDMONTON - Until the Lost Creek fire roared down the mountain to within a stone`s throw of his house, Jerry Kumiszczo never dreamed his home could be at risk of being consumed in a forest fire.
"You always read about fires happening in the papers or on TV, but you never think it will be you," explains Kumiszczo, who lives with his wife and family in Crowsnest Pass.
"I don`t think we were prepared at all. We didn`t think it was going to happen." He`s thankful Alberta wildland firefighters bombed his property with fire retardant and set up sprinklers to save his home from the 2003 blaze, but it was a harrowing experience.
Last week, Alberta Finance Minister Iris Evans was trying to douse the flames and cool the jets.
"We don`t have to be going full-speed-ahead all the time," Ed Stelmach`s money ma`am said, responding to projections that the province likely won`t be the Canadian economic hot spot next year. "... Like gangbusters," she shrugged.
Especially when our existing economy is already "head and shoulders above the rest," she said, and provinces like Saskatchewan and Manitoba have a lot of catching up to do.
Still, it`s worrying. "There`s been a lot of discussion that has people rightfully concerned," she said after a lengthy headbanging session with her top bureaucrats over what to say in the upcoming first-quarter budget update.
Coal-fired electricity generation projects have been put on the back burner in many North American jurisdictions as proponents grapple with what are essentially moving targets around emission constraints, evolving technology for emissions capture and storage and a demonization in public sentiment of coal as an energy source. Despite those realities, a Calgary-based group, Bow City Power Ltd., is marching forward with plans for a 1,000-megawatt, approximately $2-billion-plus coal-fired power plant outside of Brooks. The idea of a power plant in the area goes back decades and has involved a variety of significant corporate players, none of which have yet been able to bring it to fruition. However, since 2007, former Alberta Energy Resources Conservation Board chairman and former Alberta Energy and Utilities Board member Brian Bietz has been spearheading the concept. Bietz`s largest partners include Sherritt International Corp., which did a lot of development work around the project, and Philip Hughes, the former president and chief executive of power distribution giant FortisAlberta Inc. The Herald sat down this week with Bietz, chairman and chief executive of Bow City Power, to discuss the project.
Over three decades, seasoned meteorologist Bill Hume has studied his share of quirky Alberta weather -- golf-ball sized hail, tornados, blizzards and of course the province`s famed chinook winds.
But it`s the future that has him concerned. He fears that within 40 years, Albertans could see prolonged heat waves, dwindling water supplies and new breeds of pests.
Jim Fairbairn will get a hundred calls in a couple days when he places an ad for one of the bedrooms in the house he rents out to students in University Heights.
"We always get calls two weeks later, after it`s been (rented). Everyone`s always looking for houses," says the landlord and recent university graduate.
Though student housing crunches aren`t new in booming Calgary, where low vacancy rates have been the norm, what makes this year different is there are even fewer listings out there than last year.
Some aldermen aren`t too worried about weeds in your yard. In fact, they don`t seem to care about their own property, either
For you or me, it`d be a written warning, followed by a fine of up to $200 for failure to comply.
For top bureaucrats at the City of Calgary, it`s a potential $5,000 penalty, plus the crimson-cheeked shame of being caught in violation of your own stringent bylaw against out-of-control weeds.
That`s the cost for failing to control noxious plants, as listed in the Alberta Weed Control Act, legislation under which the City of Calgary is now a suspected delinquent. The province is upset over city hall`s neglect of its own property and if you look around, it`s easy to see why: ditches full of weeds; neglected boulevards; vacant lots shaggy with growth.
More highway sheriffs will be patrolling Hwy 2 once another satellite office is set up in Central Alberta.
The Alberta Solicitor General and Public Security Department continues to eye Olds as a second sheriff location in the region. Fourteen sheriffs are based in Red Deer, patrolling area highways.
Department spokeswoman Eilish Lemieux said Olds is being "considered" for a satellite office where sheriffs would be based from. Also being contemplated is Whitecourt in northwestern Alberta.
The Ontario Court of Appeal says the restructuring plan intended in part to unfreeze $32 billion of asset-backed commercial paper investments should proceed as planned — marking a major victory for individual investors.
The City of Lethbridge is among those investors, leading to a situation where the $30 million in assets have been frozen pending the decision. Because of that, an audit on the city`s 2007 finances which was due in Edmonton in May has been delayed.
In the decision released late Monday, the three judges unanimously found an earlier decision made by an Ontario Superior Court judge two months ago should be upheld.
"I was delighted with the court decision," said Lethbridge Mayor Bob Tarleck.
City council Monday approved first reading of a proposed capital budget amendment of $3.3 million for the purchase of lands that are required for the future expansion of the Medicine Hat Regional Airport.
Second reading, a public hearing and third reading will happen in the next few weeks.
The budget amendment for the land purchase and environmental remediation would be funded by debenture borrowing, which will be repaid over 20 years at a cost of $250,069 per year and will be recovered through taxes.
The Box Springs Business Park (BSBP) came out the winner Monday night when city council – by a 7-2 vote– chose it as the preferred site for the proposed Regional Event Centre over Lansdowne Equity Ventures Ltd.
Now it`s up to council to cost out exactly what that means to local taxpayers and to decipher what federal, provincial and other possible funding might be available for the project.
"We`re not going to build it on the backs of the taxpayers," stated Ald. Julie Friesen. "First we have to find out whether we can afford it. This is not a done deal. We`re not there yet."
OTTAWA -- Industry Minister Jim Prentice touted Canada`s "stable" supply of oil and gas to an audience of American politicians and heads of industry yesterday as he called for a relaxing of barriers that hinder cross-border trade.
Speaking at the Americas Competitiveness Forum in Atlanta, Ga., Prentice said freer trade is vital to economic prosperity in the Western Hemisphere.
Otherwise, he warned, there`s a risk the Americas will be left out while others prosper. "We need to make trade logistics and border infrastructure a priority in the short term or lose opportunities to other global competitors who are better organized to facilitate trade," he said.
Cecil may follow St. Regis as old-style taverns disappear
The 95-year-old St. Regis Hotel will pour its last beer on Aug. 31, before its stacking chairs and video lottery terminals are replaced with office desks and developers` computer screens for The Bow tower`s project office.
And with the city in negotiations to buy the similarly historic but seedier Cecil, it`s last call for an era.
"The tavern hotel was becoming a dinosaur," said Morris Blitt, who owned the St. Louis Hotel before its demise in 2006.
City offers free Bridges land in trade for affordable units
The city is offering a prime piece of inner-city land and cash in exchange for a developer delivering at least 45 new affordable housing units.
As part of its approach to increase the pool of apartments with manageable rents, the city has issued a request for proposals for a site in the northeast section of The Bridges development.
"We believe it`s a premier location and this provides us a unique opportunity to leverage that," said James Robertson, the city`s manager of land servicing and housing, of the lot at 9th Street N.E. and Memorial Drive. "We`re putting some money and land on the table and maximizing the benefit to the community."
It`s cracked and sideways, but new well spurs investors
Investors piled into Fairborne Energy Ltd. Monday after the former income trust drilled a prolific horizontal well and applied fracturing technologies that analysts speculate could crack open two trillion cubic feet of recoverable gas beneath the company`s west-central Alberta properties.
The billion-dollar oil and gas explorer, as measured by market value, released drilling results from a horizontal well at Harlech, an area in the west-central part of Alberta, where the foothills begin to grow towards the Rockies.
Before it grows into a bigger concern for the province, discussion needs to take place to weed out what plant pests can and can`t be controlled on municipal land, say city officials.
As reported in the Sun yesterday, a provincial weed inspector has recently issued a complaint to the city claiming it has neglected to control the wild, invasive plants on its own municipal property. And if the city does not take action, taxpayers will end up having to foot the $5,000 fine if the penalty is imposed.
Construction is beginning on the $13-million Gaetz Avenue and 32nd Street improvement project.
Traffic will be kept moving on both streets during the staged construction project, but motorists should expect some lane closures and delays, said Tom Warder, city Engineering Services Department manager.
Once construction is completed, Gaetz Avenue will be widened to six lanes, between 34th and 30th Streets. And 32nd Street will also be six lanes wide between Taylor Drive and 49th Avenue.
New traffic signals will be installed at Gaetz Avenue and 34th Street, and 51st Avenue and 32nd Street.
Town and school officials in Stettler are looking at how to trim construction costs that came in higher than expected for a joint administration building.
The town and Clearview School Division have joined forces on a unique venture to share an 18,000-square-foot administration building. They agreed to split the estimated $4.6-million price tag.
However, Alberta`s hot construction industry has pushed the cost to $5.2 million, prompting town and school officials to take another look at the project design, said town manager Rob Stoutenberg.
Here`s a very interesting story not just that these major investors visited to check it out for themselves, but more for the key paragraph discussing the amount of investment coming into Alberta in the next 5 years... and you don`t think that this will drive the property market back on track!
Here`s are two key paragraphs (check out these staggering numbers):
"Sources said Gates and Buffett, who in recent months said he favours investing in the Canadian oilsands because it offers a secure supply of oil for the United States, visited the booming hub to satisfy "their own curiosity" but also "with investment in mind."
There is presently $125 billion worth of new construction being planned for the oilsands, which when combined with operating expenses add up to a whopping $215 billion over the next five years."
P.S. Economist state that approximately 50% of Oilsands investment goes to or through Edmonton region. hmmmmmmm
The stage is set for the much-anticipated expansion of the Medicine Hat Lodge Resort Casino & Spa.
City council this week passed a bylaw to close a portion of Redwood Crescent SE to allow for a consolidation with adjacent privately-owned property to the north and west.
The area in question has been declared surplus to the needs of Alberta Transportation and the City of Medicine Hat and will be used by the Lodge for parking purposes. The Lodge will provide the necessary fencing and landscaping.
