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Township considers buying algae harvester By Liz Dadson |
Huron-Kinloss council To Comment on this article Click Here |
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Huron-Kinloss council is considering the purchase of an algae harvester. Prompted by complaints from cottage owners along the shoreline in the township, council discussed the issue of improving beach clean-up, at its general committee meeting last night (Sept. 7). Facilities and recreation director Mike Fair explained that the algae clean-up is currently being done by a contractor who is on-call to several municipalities and may or may not be available upon request. The annual cost for the contracted services over the past four years is as follows:
If council wants to provide beach-cleaning services on a regular basis, Fair recommended purchasing the required equipment, and implement new operational policies and procedures for beach-cleaning. He said the cost for a Barber Algae Harvester is $59,900 plus an 80-horsepower tractor to draw it at $75,000. Currently, a staff person escorts the contractor at all times while in service to answer questions and monitor for safety reasons, said Fair. If regular beach-cleaning is to proceed, staffing requirements would have to be reviewed, he said. "I'm all for getting a harvester to do beach clean-up," said mayor Mitch Twolan. "I'm all for it too," said councillor Jim Hanna, "but if we do it, we have to raise the tax money for it. Otherwise, something else will suffer." Councillor Carl Sloetjes suggested purchasing the equipment and hiring a contractor to operate it and store it at his/her own implement shed. "We need to have it running five days per week or six or seven days," said Hanna. "It's what the people want, so fine, let's do it, but remember there is a cost for this service."
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He noted that clearing algae from the beach is not even
a municipally-mandated service, so the township will have to raise
taxes to cover the cost. Fair said that even if the township has its own machine, council will still get complaints that the beaches aren't clean enough, because the harvester can't be at all the beaches all the time. Council agreed to have staff draw up some numbers as to the cost if the township purchases the machine, and contracts a driver and tractor to operate it - plus having the harvester in service twice as much as it is now. "I just don't want to have to drop road and bridge projects to pay for this," said Hanna. Scrolling stops when you move your mouse inside the scroll area. You can click on the ads for more
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