Rocky View County (RVC) is not yet caught between a rock and a hard place when it comes to its municipal gravel supply for local roads and highways, but there are some longer term questions about the viability of RVC to meet its own gravel needs.
According to Byron Riemann, director of operations with RVC, the County used to operate nine of its own gravel aggregate pits, but is now almost completely dependent on supply from private companies to service its road needs.
“We changed our business plan where we used to own a couple of gravel pits ourselves, and we used to lease a few – in total about nine,” he said. “But we have moved a little bit away from that because, one, the gravel pits we had agreements with are starting to be depleted. And two, new gravel pits opening up right now aren’t really a dime a dozen – and the County doesn’t do its own gravel-prospecting.”
There are several gravel pits operating right now within RVC’s boundaries, but these are exclusively controlled by private industry, confirmed Riemann.
“So we have to buy our gravel from industry just like any other developer to do re-gravelling of a road and (fulfill) our contracts to do repaving,” he said.
“Gravel, even though it is out there (in the County), it does follow its own path. It doesn’t just appear and it doesn’t just generate. And the gravel that is already out there in Rocky View County has somewhat already been blocked up to a certain degree by (private) industry … That is a risk the county is going to have to look at in terms of our future (road-building) programs.”
While RVC does collect levies of $0.40 per tonne from gravel pits operating and selling gravel within its own borders, these levies do not add up to much at the end of the day, according Riemann.
“I wouldn’t call it a significant number at all,” he said. “We see a range anywhere from $750,000 to $1 million of potential money that would come in from our levy program [per year]. And if you look at what that levy program is used for in terms of road construction, road construction costs quite a bit. If you look at the standard pavement of a construction road, it is about $1 million per kilometre.”
Riemann calculated the County’s gravel supply would be sustainable over at least the next five years, but he admitted that any large spike in the price of gravel could be a cause for concern in the longer term.
“There is gravel to be supplied,” he confirmed. “Obviously, we want to stay tuned to whether that gravel (price) starts to increase to a point where it drives it out of the market for us.”
He added there are some municipalities that are even forced to import their gravel from outside of their own boundaries.
“And you can just imagine if you have to travel or haul that gravel a lot longer distances, it’s going to add up on the cost,” he said.
When asked if the County had contemplated potentially once again quarrying its own gravel pits to secure future supply needs, Riemann said RVC is always keeping an eye on its gravel costs and reassessing its gravel situation.
The key concern, he noted, was to maintain local roads to the safe standards taxpayers and citizens expect.
“It’s definitely a business decision we would have to continue to assess,” he stated. “If industry pricing gets to the point where it’s driving our road construction and our (road-building) programs out of alignment with what’s an acceptable budget figure we can present to our council, then we would have to look at something different.”
