It was all about searching for answers and options during a town hall meeting for Last Mountain Lake residents on Thursday night.
SaskEnergy will cut natural gas service to 250 properties in that area. The company has said it’s no longer safe to provide service in that area, due to the frequent ground movement in that area.
SaskEnergy coverage on Globalnews.ca:
“We’re seeing ground movement that started in the summer of 2014 (and it’s) not stopping. In the zones where we’re removing service it has actually started to accelerate. So those rains from 2014, we’re still seeing the impacts of that,” said Dave Burdeniuk, SaskEnergy’s director of government and media relations.
Cancelled gas service will affect residents in Regina Beach, Saskatchewan Beach, Buena Vista, Craven, Sundale and Shore Acres.
“The community is made up of really large slump blocks of earth that can be the size of a city block. You can have 20 houses on one slump block,” he added.
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“Those are moving and our gas lines are under tremendous strain. We’re seeing more movement in two years than we would see in decades.”
READ MORE: Natural gas shut-off just another impact of slumping for Regina Beach resident
Residents living on impacted properties have until Sept. 5 to find an alternate source of energy. But it could be even sooner.
“If conditions change, if we were to get a really intense heavy rainfall in that area this summer we may have to move in within days and shut off our service,” said Burdeniuk.
The company is offering residents $2,500 to help transfer service.
“I get it, you got to put safety first,” said Saskatchewan Beach resident Richard Chapman.
“But with all that technology they put in, I was hoping they could work through it and put in a system that was going to maintain itself. But it looks like they are experiencing more hill movement than they thought was ever going to happen, and the system is not designed to take it.”
Chapman isn’t concerned about any impacts on property values.
“I don’t think this natural gas thing is going to hurt sales much, I really don’t,” he added. “In two years everybody is going to have propane so this issue won’t be coming up. It will slow it up for maybe a year, people will be a little leery of it. Then all of a sudden everyone is going to have propane so it will be a natural thing.”
SaskEnergy is holding another town hall meeting Saturday afternoon in Regina Beach.
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