November 29, 2007 by Walter Schneider.

According to the Lamont County re-zoning proposal, Bruderheim will be almost completely surrounded by heavy industry (without a doubt, most of it would be petrochemical). To a somewhat lesser extent, similar restrictions to expansion would be true of the Town of Lamont.

In the long run, Bruderheim will be able to expand only into the direction of Highway 15 (through a one-mile corridor to Highway 15.) Expansion beyond that is barred by the buffer zone surrounding the heavy-industrial zone. As of now the proposed re-zoning will permit Lamont to expand east (beyond Highway 831) and south (beyond Highway 15).

Update 2007 11 29: The map accessible to the right of this page is an excerpt from a county document that was presented by the County Office along with its re-zoning proposal on April 25, 2007.

Up to the 24th of April the map showed that the area to be rezoned was to extend all the way north from Highways 38 and 45 right up to the North Saskatchewan River.
On April 24, just a day prior to the presentation of its proposal to the Lamont County residents, the map had been redrawn to reduce the area to be rezoned, after it became known to the County Office that the Lamont County residents were going to show up in force on the Evening of the County Office’s presentation. The area to be rezoned was reduced to what is shown now on that excerpt.

Very curiously, there is now a revised version of that County Office map (dated Sep. 11, 2007). That revised version shows that the buffer zone between the eastern boundary of Bruderheim and the proposed heavy industrial zone has been expanded by half a mile to the east on the following land locations: NW10 56 20 W4; SW10 56 20 W4; NW3 56 20 W4; SW3 56 20 W4; NW27 55 20 W4, and SW3 55 20 W4. The September 11, 2007 revision of the map also shows a revision of the zoning adjacent to Lamont. While the April 24 edition of the County Office map showing the proposed rezoning showed no restriction for the land at NW20 55 19 W4, the September 11 revision indicates that that land now has become part of the buffer zone between Lamont and the area zoned heavy industrial.

The important issue in regard to those September 11, 2007 revisions is that they were not presented to the Lamont County residents nor to the residents of the Towns of Bruderheim and Lamont. Mind you, at the public hearing at which those zoning revisions were presented, 58 county residents and people other than councillors and County Office staff attended - a far cry from the many hundreds of people who attended the official announcement of the re-zoning bylaw on Aprol 25, 2007.

If you are a resident of either Bruderheim or Lamont and if you don’t agree in any way with the County’s intentions, it would be a good idea to attend the December 4 Municipal Government Board’s preliminary hearings in Lamont and in Bruderheim. (Full Story)

It appears as of now that the Lamont County’s lawyer will ask for an adjournment of the MGB hearing (with which, it appears, the Town of Bruderheim will concur), as there will be a December 11 council meeting at which the indicated revisions to the zoning changes in Lamont County will be approved.

Both, the Town of Bruderheim and the Town of Lamont, will apparently be able to live with a “moving” buffer zone as the two towns expand over the years. However, the directions those expansions will take will be forced to some extent by the locations of what heavy-industrial plants will then exist.

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November 29, 2007 by Walter Schneider.

Breaking News from The Globe and Mail

Japan’s Inpex gets toehold in Alberta oil sands

ROMA LUCIW

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Inpex Holdings Inc., Japan’s largest oil explorer, has bought a stake in an Alberta oil sands project from French energy giant Total SA, its first direct investment in Canada’s energy industry.

Inpex purchased a 10 per cent interest in Total’s Joslyn oil sands project, located northwest of Fort McMurray, the company said in a statement posted on its website on Tuesday. The purchase includes stakes in three oil sands leases as well as the right to participate in building a massive upgrader near Edmonton.

The price tag of the deal between Inpex’s Canadian subsidiary, Inpex Canada, and Total was not disclosed….(Full Story; related stories)

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