Town's appeal of biodigester in limbo for now

The Town of High River's appeal of the province's approval of the proposed biodigester west of the town is still in play.

The Town had appealed based on its opposition to the digestate pond being left uncovered.

Mayor Craig Snodgrass says originally there was some concern the appeal might be denied because they hadn't filed a Statement of Concern right at the beginning.

"It's not actually a full denial. What they are doing is questioning whether they will accept it or not because we did not file an SOC (statement of concern) and it's not just the Town of High River, there are two others mentioned in the letter that also did not file SOC's but have filed appeals," he explained.

He says the Town didn't file a Statement of Concern at the beginning because the town is outside the project's two-mile zone and was never notified about it.

"Our legal team has clarified that there is legislation in law that says that even though you didn't file an SOC you can still appeal if you can prove that you are directly affected by any project and we of course absolutely feel that we're going to be affected by this project, positively or negatively, whatever it is, it's not that far away from High River and it is quite a big industrial piece of gas production," he says.

"So we will be making our case back to the director and Alberta Environment to make sure that our appeal is accepted and we want to have a voice at the table and to be making sure that our concerns with the digestate pond and the regulatory environment is handled properly and it's as good as it could be and should be in the way these things are built and operated and maintained and regulated is at the highest level that it can."

Snodgrass says the letter the Town received has been turned over to Livingstone-Macleod MLA Chelsae Petrovic.