Oil and gas contribution?

[cowman]

I started to think about this when I read Mortons policy statement about sharing some of the royalty income with the municipalities?
The county I live in has a lot of oil and gas development. A lot.
Now I'm not exactly sure what all the benifits are to the county but I do know they collect a "machinery tax" as well as some kind of pooled type of tax from the province for every well/pipeline/compressor station etc.?
My councillor told me it amounts to $1800/well but never got a figure for pipelines. On top of that the county gets $400 for every rig move and $200 for every entry off the road? If you've seen how fast these CBM rigs work...you can understand this isn't chicken feed! About 36 hours to drill the well!
The company is required to hire a grader, put down extra gravel, provide dust control etc.? These light CBM rigs do not beat up the roads...although the Frac trucks can!
In fact the real wreckers of the roads seem to be the silage trucks and the manure trucks!
It would be very interesting to know just how much the municipality collects in total from the oil companies? I suspect it would be in the millions! No wonder council is so gungho on keeping things going...while complaining loudly in public how the evil oil companies are beating up the roads! Maybe they shouldn't bite the hand that feeds them?

[coppertop]

Assessment is based on Machinery and Equipment plus linear which includes power and pipelines. The M E portion is on a sliding scale, eg: less assessment the older the well.

Any rig move costs are levied by the county, who has sole authority on local roads.

You must take into consideration the cost to the county to maintain and repair roads after extensive use by industry, so all the income isn't cash in the bank. PLUS, industry assessment offsets the cost of delivering services to the people that reside in the municipality. The cost per mile to maintain roads is very seldom recouped in the property tax.

Soft services such as libraries, recreation facilities, seniors housing is susidized from the industry assessment, this is why paying municipalities a rebate based on their resource assessment is very unfair to those with little or no such assessment.

The old Municipal Assistance Grants were based on a per capita formula which was much fairer, eg. the more people the municipality had to provide services for the more the grant. We need to remember that municipalities is not only rural, but towns, villages as well. The cities get a different funding formula.

[blackjack]

... when i lived out in the hanna area...there was four ocupations...farming-ranching,sherness mine,the patch and the special areas(govt)...the town was pretty much dying out until the patch reved up its engines the past three years...most ranchers don't necessary like all the oil and gas action but it is the only thing that keep the small business and services in their towns ...if there is no industry in the area that is making money...there nothing else that govt can do but subsidize that area...the reality is do calgary or edmonton really care what happens to that area......we know the city of red deer could give a damn about the area...why would they want to share the river's water when they think its theirs...have to agree with cowman again on this issue...other than the silage trucks beating up the roads...lol