SARM votes to ban plastic bags, increased funds for bridges

Saskatchewan rural municipalities continue voted in favour of banning plastic grocery bags while lobbying the provincial government for more infrastructure funding and flood mapping.

This week the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities (SARM) met in Saskatoon for the 2014 mid-term convention. During the first round of resolutions the delegation of more than 1,000 members voted in favour of a provincial ban on plastic grocery bags, citing issues with landfill management.

Torch River Reeve David Smith told the delegation at TCU Place how about six weeks ago his landfill, which is shared amongst nine other municipalities in the area, was inspected and the results weren’t great.

“At that time we were told we had to clean up our landfill and area caused by plastic bags,” Smith said. “Inspectors said we had a nuisance area where the wind was picking up plastic bags and blowing them down wind getting caught on other people’s properties and in neighbouring trees.”

A cleanup cost of $2,500 prompted Smith to present a resolution, asking SARM to lobby the province for an outright ban, something he says he saw in Fort McMurray.

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“I was up in Fort McMurray and they banned bags and their landfill is clean. They are a pain and our people can’t keep them in our landfill. It costs us nothing and across the province it’s an environmental mess,” Smith said.

SARM president Ray Orb said it might be a challenge asking for a ban on plastic grocery bags, adding there are biodegradable options available right now so people can stop using plastic.

“They are little more expensive but over the long term it will help our landfill and maybe that’s the route we should go,” Orb said.

The delegation passed another resolution asking the provincial government to raise its funding caps for larger culvert and bridge replacements. Right now the province has a $750,000 cap for road and bridge construction, but with project well above the $1 million mark, SARM wants more help paying for them.

Orb warned his members that raising the cap could mean less projects get funded.

“When you raise the cap you actually allow for fewer projects because if you have a higher cap less RMs are getting funding,” Orb said, adding RMs are under the gun because bridge projects are getting more expensive.

In Torch River, a rural municipality with more than 30 bridges, increased infrastructure funding is badly needed, according to Smith.

“We have one bridge they quoted us at $1.9 million to replace and we have more than 30 bridges reaching their life expectancy and that doesn’t count the other infrastructure,” Smith said.

Orb says SARM members need to be patient.

“The best we can hope for is that the province puts more money into the program and that we could raise caps to give more funding to the RMs that need it, so more RMs would get funding,” he said.

Other resolutions passed on Thursday include keeping the four-year term for RM councillors and reeves, keeping rural pension plans as defined benefit plans, and increased measure from the province on flood control programs.

The delegation voted in favour of lobbying the provincial government to provide funding through the Water Security Agency (WSA) to municipalities to address flood mitigation initiatives including engineering and technical support, flood-plain mapping and permanent solutions to flooding concerns.