During Monday's City Council meeting, a tender was accepted for dust control measures in the city. The tender was awarded to Fort Distribution from Manitoba for $0.30 per litre of the product for a budget of $125,000. This means that crews will be out soon to apply the product.

"Our dust control program starts Thursday morning and will be running all day Thursday and Friday," explained Roads and Drainage Manager, Norm Mack. "Weather permitting, we hope our dust control will be complete by Friday evening. We do that twice a year in most cases to control dust. Application is in the spring time or early summer and an application in late summer."

He explained that there are quite a few gravel roads in the city and surrounding areas which can cause a lot of dust.

"The product we currently use, and it's a joint project with the RM of Estevan, we both use liquid magnesium. It's supplied by a supplier from Manitoba. It proves to be working very well for us and has good residuals from year to year. And we have a good supplier that applies the product for us." 

The magnesium chloride mixture is sprayed as a liquid over the gravel roads. This is an environmentally safe product that is even used in sensitive wetland areas. It is recognized across Canada as a safe dust control measure.

He added that drivers should avoid driving over the freshly sprayed areas. 

"Go an alternate route or delay your drive through that area for just a couple hours."