Concerned Foothills Residents' Appeal Against Hemp Operation
on Highway 552 East

274 Avenue, 32 Street & Highway 552 East

Hi folks, this page is a gathering place for information pertaining to the appeal against Development Permit Application 21D 053 for the purpose of Intensive Vegetation Operation and Agricultural Processing and Distribution
Landowner: 1 6 5 1 9 9 3 Alberta Ltd.
Applicant: Township Planning and Design Inc.

Calvin Harvey appeal against DP 21D 053

Info to participate in DAB appeal hearing

Letter from Ryan & Elisa McKellar

Water, Water, Everywhere but Not a Drop to Drink, or bathe in, or do your laundry or even water your garden – if Alberta Environment and Parks keeps handing out water licences without due diligence.

Right now, we are in the middle of appealing a decision by Foothills County, which approved a development permit for an out-of-province landowner for an Intensive Vegetation Operation and Agricultural Processing and Distribution (DP 21D 053). The proposed operation at first glance, seemed alright, but we dug a little deeper and realized that there were more questions than answers in the original application to Foothills County. But mainly, the applicant wants to use well water to irrigate their crops – namely hemp that will be feedstock for their processing and extraction facility.

So, this is where Alberta Environment and Parks comes in. It seems that they are so busy in the water licencing department that they are issuing temporary permits without sending the required notices to area landowners. Go figure!

Much to our dismay two temporary (1 year) water diversion licences have been issued for the development approved by Foothills County: one for well water (Table 1) and the other for surface water (Table 2). Apparently the well has now been drilled and is in service – keep in mind no exploration permit was issued and a notice to area landowners was not done.

The most bizarre thing is that the temporary diversion licence for surface water is from a stream that originates from a spring on our property. The actual flow of water from our spring is 10igpm (imperial gallons per minute) as tested in the last week of May 2021. This stream runs through the applicant’s property and onwards through various other properties along highway 552. Now here is the really dumb part of this surface licence – the actual water volume of this spring feeding the stream is 10igpm (Table 3) but through the wisdom of Alberta Environment and Parks the applicant can use (divert) a maximum of 0.004 cubic meters per second which equates to over 50igpm! Not sure how Alberta Environment and Parks can justify this when the diversion from the stream is 5 times more than can be produced by the spring.

In addition to that, Alberta Environment and Parks did not check their records to see if any licences to divert water (or in our case a Registration for Traditional Agriculture) exist for this spring and stream. The latter does exist and approved May 9, 2002, at 200 cubic meters annually at source for our use. While consumption downstream off our property doesn’t impact us, the temporary licence (or possibly permanent) to divert over 50igpm by the hemp operation certainly affects any properties downstream from the hemp operation.

Granted temporary licence for up to 5,000 cubic meters from drilled well

Granted temporary surface license to a maximum of 32,621 cubic meters from stream

Actual tested flow from spring in imperial gallons per minute
(source for stream)

Rounding of quantities in some instances

All numbers are calculated at 219.97 imperial gallons per cubic meter. If US gallons conversion required then recalculate using 264.17 US gallons per cubic meter