EDMONTON- The City of Fort Saskatchewan continues to find unique ways of keeping maintenance costs down.
For several years, Fort Saskatchewan has been using sheep as lawn mowers, to keep the grass short at the local museum grounds. Now, the city has started replacing grass with artificial turf at some of its busiest intersections.
“Veterans Way sees about 25,000 vehicles a day travelling through the city. And of that traffic about 15 per cent of it is truck traffic,” explained Robin Benoit, director of Infrastructure Management with the City of Fort Saskatchewan.
“You couple that with de-icers that we use in the winter time, we have a difficult time getting grass to grow in the area…it didn’t look very good at all.”
The turf is similar to what’s used on professional sports fields. Benoit says he doesn’t know of any other communities in Alberta making the move from grass to turf, but there are several in B.C.
About 3,600 square feet of grass will be replaced with turf at some key Fort Saskatchewan intersections. The cost is about $60,000. Benoit says while the initial cost is a bit higher, the City will save money in the long run because artificial turf doesn’t need as much attention as grass. The turf is expected to last about 25 years.
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“That way we’re controlling the weeds, we have less maintenance in the area, which is safer for our workers. They don’t have to work in that high traffic volume environment.”
The project is a pilot right now; turf was installed at two intersections about a month ago.
“The intent of our program is to mix both the artificial and natural vegetation in there. We are going to be moving large planters onto those turfed areas and we’ll be putting real flowers in for spring and summer.
“It’s working as it’s planned. We’ll see how it goes through this winter.”
And while Benoit says he’s heard positive feedback from the public, there’s no intention of installing turf at any of the city’s natural parks.
“We don’t want to compete with the sheep,” he laughed.
With files from Vinesh Pratap, Global News.
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