Opposition halts Balzac beef plant
Mayor asks for permit denial, but hasn’t visited plant in person
The resurrection of a long- shuttered beef processing plant in Rocky View County has been temporarily stalled as a result of opposition from the nearby City of Calgary.
Harmony Beef — the new name for the former Rancher’s Beef plant near Balzac — was expected to begin slaughtering cattle in January. The opening date has been pushed off, however, as the plant’s owner attempts to deal with concerns raised by Mayor Naheed Nenshi, local real estate developers and residents of northeast Calgary.
“We’re holding off, because quite honestly, we don’t want to raise a big ruckus with the community if we don’t have to,” said Rich Vesta, the Colorado native and meat industry veteran who purchased the Rancher’s Beef site in 2013. “It certainly would have been nice to be up and running sooner.”
Vesta added he is willing to answer questions that anyone, particularly Nenshi, might have about the plant. The mayor wrote a letter to Rocky View’s reeve in November asking that county council hold off on issuing a development permit for Harmony Beef’s planned onsite wastewater treatment facility, something Vesta said he is frustrated by since the Calgary mayor has not visited the beef plant in person.
“He doesn’t seem to have the time for something that would maybe answer some questions for him,” Vesta said. “He’d rather sit on the sidelines and throw smoke bombs into the middle of the playing field.”
The Rancher’s Beef plant — located north of Stoney Trail not far from Calgary city limits — was built a decade ago by a group of beef industry investors who wanted to give the cattle industry access to much- needed local slaughter capacity in light of the post- BSE U. S. border closure. However, it ran into financial difficulties and closed in 2007, after just 14 months in operation.
When Vesta — who has held executive positions at some of the best- known meat companies in the U. S. — announced his plans to revive the plant, it sent ripples of excitement through Alberta’s beef industry. Provincial Agriculture Minister Verlyn Olson called the sale “great news,” and Vesta committed to pouring $ 20 million in retrofits into the property with the goal of creating a “state- of- the- art” facility.
But the City of Calgary has grown since the plant was last in operation, and some say the site is no longer a good fit for industrial agricultural activity. Ten years ago, Saddle Ridge was the residential community in closest proximity to the plant. Today, new communities like Redstone, SkyView Ranch, and Cityscape are even closer.
In his letter to Rocky View County, Nenshi said the city wants an independent scientific review done assessing potential impacts like noise, odour, and air quality.
“I am greatly concerned that reopening the slaughterhouse will have a detrimental effect on the quality of life of not just the residents and businesses of northeast Calgary, but also for those residents and businesses residing around East Balzac in Rocky View County,” wrote Nenshi.
Walton Development — which owns residential and commercial lands in Calgary within proximity of the slaughterhouse — has also written to the county requesting Harmony Beef submit “odour- related scientific studies and technical data.”
Sue Clark, president of the Saddle Ridge Community Association, said some kind of scientific assessment is necessary because so far, residents don’t have anything to go on other than Vesta’s assurances.
“We’re not comfortable with it at all,” she said.
Vesta has long said his plant will not be an odour nuisance because — unlike other beef processing plants — it will never house live cattle overnight, will not use onsite lagoon storage, and will not do any rendering or hide processing on site.
The wastewater treatment plant Vesta wants to build will recycle and purify water used at the site, something he said will be good for the environment because it will reduce overall water consumption by nearly 90 per cent.
Since the original development permit granting the old Rancher’s Beef plant the right to operate in the county is still in place, the only piece of Vesta’s plan that needs municipal approval is the new wastewater treatment plant.
Rocky View County Reeve Margaret Bahcheli — who told the Herald she believes Harmony Beef will add important diversity to the local economy — said that by focusing on the pending application for that wastewater system, opponents are “taking a narrow approach to trying to stop a plant that already received approval very long time ago.”
Still, Bahcheli said the county will wait to see what Vesta proposes. If he chooses to put his water treatment system inside the existing plant, rather than building a separate structure, it wouldn’t require a separate development permit at all.
Either way, Bahcheli said, the county is committed to ensuring the plant does not become a problem for any of its neighbours.
“The City of Calgary doesn’t have a monopoly on being concerned about nuisance odours and other health issues,” she said. “We’re all on the same team when it comes to how this plant is regulated, and if there is a problem, everybody will want to have it shut down.”