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Landowners frustrated with county, acreage people

Leduc County landowners concerned they'll only be able to operate machinery an hour a day

Dear editor,

When we bought our land in 1964 we were given a piece of paper with our names on it. We thought, “Are we ever lucky we own some land. Now we can use it as we want, without abusing or destroying it.”

Pretty soon we found we didn’t own it as the county told us what we could or not do. We were just renters of the land as we paid rent every year (taxes). That has gone on every year. We were okay with that.

Then we found we had another stakeholder to contend with which is the acreage owners. There are some who are our neighbours, some who are four to five miles away. They dictate what a person can or cannot do. As one of the signors of the petition said they wanted the land to remain the same. If that is the case what about their fancy lawns and gardens? That is not how the land looked originally.

As far as Highway #21 we have permits from Alberta Transportation and have always done as they advised.

The next thing the acreage owners are going to want is no machinery to start until noon and quit at 1 p.m. All the material that came in here has come from the Town of Beaumont, which was at one time part of Leduc County. It has all been tested for weeds. We certainly do not want contaminated soil on our land. We can supply anyone that wants to see the tests free access. As far as an environment assessment there has been one done. We have an application for bringing in dirt to fill the spot that we took the clay from. This application has been in since October of 2015. Every time we think everything is okay the county wants something new done.

You would think it is a million dollar undertaking.

If the powers that be were in the private sector they couldn’t afford to take months to make up their minds as they would be broke.

Dennis and Joan Marsh, Leduc County