Edmonton Headlines: Wednesday, March 29, 2017

Edmonton’s Capital Region

We have a few stories here and there from outside of Edmonton city limits, but, today, let’s take a look at what’s making news outside the Henday.

A couple of our suburb cities are looking at building their largest public facilities ever. Spruce Grove is beginning the work to create a new sport, ice rink and event centre. Fort Saskatchewan is considering a new pool at their Dow Centennial Centre, but only if a plebiscite passes on this fall’s municipal election ballot.

One of the major infrastructure projects announced in the provincial budget was a bridge-twinning in the Industrial Heartland to Edmonton’s northeast (and Fort Saskatchewan).

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If you missed it yesterday, there was some news from Leduc about a new horse racing and gambling project, plus the world’s largest marijuana growing facility.

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As spring rolls on, farmers will be planting their crops. And harvesting a lot too, this year. To the west of Edmonton, Parkland County is coming off a harvest that was declared a state of agricultural disaster, so stakes are a bit higher out there as recovery continues. It’s a waiting game to see if either the provincial or federal governments will offer any specific financial assistance.

Some farmers around the Edmonton-area are still going to be harvesting from the end of last year, because the wet fall kept crops from being harvested.

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While people in Edmonton’s southernmost neighbourhoods wonder why they aren’t getting more schools, Elk Island Public Schools counts itself lucky to keep getting new schools and modernizations.

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We’ve talked a couple of times in the last month or so about the Enbridge oil spills in Strathcona County, and it turns out more than one-million litres of oil has been spilled.

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And St. Albert is looking into how to create zero garbage for landfills.

Medical news

News stories often proclaim the latest “breaththroughs” in medical research. You should be skeptical of those headlines, and (sometimes, unfortunately) not get too excited about the hype.

Meanwhile… check your immunization records because you should consider a second shot of the mumps vaccine if you never had two of them. Thanks a lot, Jenny McCarthy (and Robert DeNiro)!

Good news

Alberta could be the second province to officially apologize to Indigenous people who were part of the “Sixties Scoop”, removed from their family homes, over a number of decades last century. The federal government is yet to apologize, but will have to come up with a payment to survivors.

There’s now free admission to the Art Gallery of Alberta for children and all students (even adult students). So, get to art-ing, Edmonton. It’s likely going to help with attendance numbers at the AGA too.

The Art Gallery of Alberta