By Jasmine Franklin
Residents around the Springdale Road area, have had enough with tanker trucks using their roads and kicking up dust.
Residents northeast of Rimbey brought up the issue with Ponoka County nearly one year ago; tanker trucks travelling from the Rimbey Gas Plant have been avoiding their required route of Secondary Highway 771 and using Springdale Road, causing grief for surrounding residents.
“Because the gravel road they are supposed to use is in such bad condition, the trucks sneak across the county speeding and leaving dust,” said Charlie Cutforth, Ponoka County’s chief administrative officer. “The only way we can enforce change is to ban the trucks from Springdale Road.”
Cutforth said the county tried to compromise and originally asked the trucks to slow down and use caution. Some complied but not enough to avoid a ban.
“They just weren’t co-operating,” Cutforth said. “The residents have been very patient with us when we tried to compromise firstly.”
As of Nov. 10, tanker trucks are banned from the road, but Cutforth made it clear that the ban is for tank trucks only and not the residents.
The fine for using the road depends on the weight of the truck and the load it’s carrying. If a fully loaded truck were to use the road, fines range anywhere from $500 to $5,000.