The following resolution was…

The following resolution was passed at Council's regular meeting held June 21, 2017:

WHEREAS Posting 013-0299 on the Environmental Bill of Rights, entitled “Excess Soil Management Regulatory Proposal”, is posted for public comments until June 23, 2017;

AND WHEREAS The Corporation of the Municipality of Neebing is a small, northern, rural municipality whose infrastructure includes approximately 500 lane kilometers of rural roads;

AND WHEREAS prudent rural road management and maintenance requires that the Municipality keep the ditches on the roads clear of accumulations of vegetation, soil and debris;

AND WHEREAS the process by which a municipality does this work is called “ditching”, wherein excess soil and vegetation are dug out of the ditches at regular intervals;

AND WHEREAS “excess soil” as defined in the posting documents is generated through the ditching process;

AND WHEREAS it appears from a reading of the posting documents that a municipality would not be required to have an “excess soil management plan” or “ESMP” because the purpose of a ditching project is the “regular maintenance or repair of infrastructure, including roads, drinking water, sewage and stormwater systems”;

AND WHEREAS the posting documents are vague and inconsistently written in terms of whether or not municipalities would be exempt from the other requirements of the Regulation;

AND WHEREAS the costs of consultants for verification purposes, monitoring, recording and reporting exceed the financial capacity of the Municipality, and, it is suspected, for any small rural municipality;

AND WHEREAS any project undertaken by a Municipality would involve “regular maintenance or repair of infrastructure” or the installation of new “infrastructure”;

AND WHEREAS for these reasons, Municipalities with populations less than 50,000 persons should be exempted from all of the requirements of the proposed regulation;

NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Council for The Corporation of the Municipality of Neebing calls upon the Provincial government to exempt municipalities with populations less than 50,000 persons from compliance with any part of the proposed regulations;

AND FURTHER, THAT the Council for The Corporation of the Municipality of Neebing provide these comments to the Province during the review period.

[Original Comment ID: 209796]