Victory Silica appealing rejection of county sand and gravel pit

By COLLIN GALLANT on October 14, 2021.

cgallant@medicinehatnews.com@CollinGallant

A defeated proposal to permit a new sand and gravel pit just north of Irvine will go to an appeal, this week’s meeting of the Cypress County planning commission heard on Tuesday.

Victory Silica presented the plan to the Sept. 14 meeting but saw the application rejected. A new report from planning staff presented this week said a formal appeal has been filed.

Two years ago that company announced it had found a local source of sand for its refinery at Seven Persons, and had signed an agreement with Shortgrass Ranch owner Randy Lehr to extract it.

The company handles and upgrades sand for use in oilfield drilling and glass and fibre-glass insulation manufacturing.

The pit would be located about half a kilometre northeast of the hamlet, with the nearest residence about 670 metres away. It has a current zoning classification of Agriculture-2, which allows such pits as a discretionary use.

According to the original proposal, once developed the pit would have operating hours of 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. from March to November, and be able to load one transport truck every 20 minutes.

They would head north, away from the hamlet, on Range Road 30, then east or west on township roads to reach the Trans-Canada Highway near Walsh or Dunmore.

All production would be trucked out and no third-party sales or gravel crushing would take place at the location. Any rock and gravel in the mix would be stored on site and used in eventual reclamation.

A date for the appeal is not immediately known.

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