County Business Briefs: Company to ready land for worker transport pickup, drop-off for renewables projects

By MEDICINE HAT NEWS on March 17, 2022.

https://www.medicinehatnews.com@MedicineHatNews

With spring construction season ready to kick off, Monarch Corporation has received a permit to grade and gravel four acres of land it owns between Medicine Hat and Dunmore to create a car park and bus pickup for workers at renewable energy projects in the region.

Related company Traxx buslines will shuttle up to 300 workers required to build the Empress Solar Park which will be constructed by Atco through the end of the year.

Permits issued after the county’s municipal planning commission meeting on March 8 state the transfer point will be in operation from 6:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. for the next eight to nine months.

The lot will be accessed at the western end of Third Avenue in Dunmore, which serves as a parallel service road on the south side of the Trans-Canada Highway.

Wind project permits

As well last week, the county’s planning commission issued permits for the construction of a laydown yard and the substation connected to the Hilda Wind farm that will be built this year.

The substation will be constructed in the northwest quarter of a section which is bordered by Highway 41 and Township Road 184.

The laydown yard will be located off Township Road 182 and Range Road 21.

Hearing for wind project

EDF Renewables is seeking to create a Wind Energy Facility overlay for its proposed Bull Run Wind farm the company is planning to build next year.

A public hearing into the zoning change will be held at the next Cypress County council meeting on March 22. It involves a wide area running mostly parallel to Highway 41A, between the Trans-Canada Highway and secondary highway 515.

The company has said it would plan to build the 270-megawatt array, comprising up to 50 turbine sites in 2023, after it completes the Cypress Wind energy project on the west side of Highway 41 in the same vicinity.

Council will also consider the same day a zoning change to redesignate for Highway Commercial development the southeast corner of the intersection of highways 1 and 41, east of Dunmore’s corporate limits.

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