County of Paintearth - long known for big rigs and oil - will soon host Alberta's largest wind farm

BY DAVE HUSDAL

Away from Alberta's increasingly roaring truck traffic on Highway 2, the County of Paintearth might not seem like a development hot spot.

Unless, of course, you consider the energy industry, and the opportunities it presents.

In the Paintearth area, a 75-minute drive east of Red Deer, things are looking up.

Way up, in fact. As in sky-touching up. This year the area will welcome 83 huge wind turbines that will soar roughly 120 metres - the height of a 40-storey office tower - into the sky around the village of Halkirk, population 113.

They'll form the province's biggest single-phase wind farm, and provide 150 megawatts of green generation capacity, enough to power 50,000 Alberta homes.

The $357 million investment in what's known as the Halkirk Wind Power Project will add to jobs in a sparsely populated region, and should help bolster the population.

The project is being developed by Edmonton-based Capital Power, which wants to capitalize on the region's steady light-wind regime and access to major transmission lines.

While huge rotating turbines might not fly so well in the more heavily populated Highway 2 corridor between Edmonton and Calgary, the citizens of Paintearth have been welcoming, says Gary Cook, business development manager for Capital Power.

"We've been welcomed into the community. We've had very strong support," Cook said. "We've been surprised with the level of engagement and people's willingness to help out whenever they can."

Cook said developing a project like the one now under construction 120 kilometres east of Red Deer is easier in a less-populated area, because achieving setback distances from homes and existing development is less of a challenge.

The area's familiarity with power generation and the energy industry likely doesn't hurt either.

Job generator

Paintearth has long been home to one of Alberta's larger power plants, the coal-fired Battle River Generating Station, which has a capacity of 670 megawatts. The plant, around since the 1950s, is north of Halkirk on the banks of the Battle River.

The stable power production business has provided needed jobs to go with the up-and-down agriculture and petroleum industries.

Work on the new Halkirk project started in the fall, but most of the concrete work and all of the turbine installation work will come in 2012. There will be about 150 jobs created during construction, with about 14 to 16 permanent jobs resulting from ongoing operation of the giant wind turbines, Cook says. Paintearth property owners will also benefit from lease payments and another significant taxpayer.

The wind industry boost is welcome at a time when the oil and gas business has also been picking up in the area and Alberta generally.

That means there's more work for companies such as Coronation-based M & N Construction, which now has a fall and winter workforce that varies between 150 and 200 employees. The firm's main focus is pipeline construction, but it's also involved in facility construction. Its clients range up into the Fort McMurray region, but local work has also grown more plentiful lately.

Archie Merchant, M & N Construction's president, sees that continuing.

"It's getting busier in the area," Merchant said, with work coming not only from major players such as Apache Corp., but also from small oil producers trying to make their mark in a region where next-generation horizontal drilling technology is squeezing more out of long-producing zones.

While doing business away from the oilpatch hub of Red Deer can be a challenge, Merchant said a community such as Coronation (population 1,015) also has its advantages.

"It's been a great place for our business, because it's a family-based business, and it's a great place to raise a family," Merchant said.

Taxes are also lower (Paintearth's non-residential development makes up close to 85 per cent of its assessment base), but the labour pool can dry up fast during a boom, Merchant notes.

On the other hand, staff can find nice homes for far less than what they would pay in Red Deer or smaller oilpatch centres. Homes in Coronation and neighbouring Castor, for example, can often sell for less than $120,000.

Both Merchant and County of Paintearth administrative officer Tarolyn Peach say they expect oilpatch activity will fuel business opportunities in the area.

"The motels and hotels are full here," added Merchant, noting that wasn't the case a few years back.

Industrial

The County of Paintearth comprises roughly 3,226 square kilometres. The region's spine is Highway 12, which runs east-west, connecting Red Deer with Saskatchewan. Halkirk, Castor and Coronation are all located along the highway, and once shared the same rail line, but it was abandoned east of Stettler, the regional service centre 20 minutes west of Halkirk, more than a decade ago.

Now the old right-of-way provides a corridor for a regional water line and communications lines.

The new water line taps into the Red Deer River and is available to businesses looking to set up shop in Crowfoot Crossing, the 77-acre industrial park the county is developing at the junction of highways 12 and 36. The increasingly busy Highway 36 is a popular north-south haul road for heavy oilpatch equipment headed to Fort McMurray. The road is more suitable than Highway 2 for oversized loads because it lacks underpasses that can be obstacles.

The county has been busy talking with various developers, in an effort to add a large truck stop and hotel to Crowfoot Crossing, a major truck stop. Paintearth is designated as the "high-wide load" corridor for the province. Each day an average of 1,300 large trucks pass through the county, most headed north to the oilpatch.

Lots in the industrial park sell for $70,000 per acre.

"We have several interested developers right now looking at opportunities in our subdivision," Peach said.

That likely reflects not only Alberta's resurgent oilpatch, but general activity in the area, where companies such as Apache and Cutpick Energy are expected to drill hundreds of wells in the years to come.

There's also optimism in the small-business community.

"In our communities, we've had several new commercial businesses open in the last little while," said Peach, who notes the expanded Home Hardware store in Castor can draw business from far beyond the community.

While retail leakage to service centres to the west (Stettler) and to the northeast is a concern to the business communities in Castor and Coronation, Peach says it's not hard to find retail options locally.

"There are very few things that I can't get here," said the county's CAO, who notes her father, who lives an hour away, considers it a treat to hit Home Hardware and other shops in Castor.

Castor Mayor Gary DeVloo confirms economic activity is growing in the area, along with new home construction. DeVloo said one of the keys for his community is maintaining good recreation facilities that keep people playing locally. It's easier to shop down the road if you're already going there for things such as hockey tournaments, DeVloo notes.

While the Paintearth area hasn't grown significantly in terms of population, Coronation, Castor and Halkirk have all maintained schools, and access to medical services locally has been a key focus. Castor, Coronation and Consort, further east down Highway 12, have long shared five doctors to keep residents from heading west to Stettler.

Unlike some parts of rural Alberta, Paintearth municipalities clearly have a friendly spirit of co-operation when it comes to attracting investment. Said DeVloo: "If it's in the county we all win … if it's Coronation, Castor, Halkirk or the County of Paintearth, we all benefit."

from Western Investor January 2012