For the past two years, an irrepressible and community-minded organization of producers, hunters, and supportive public members have been pursuing a project which would see a cooperative abattoir and custom-cutting plant opened in the community of Wawota.
With a total dollar figure of setting up the facility, starting operations, and covering the first six-months of operating expenses hanging close to the half-million mark, the committee committed to not moving ahead with the project until all of these initial expenses could be covered.
Funding was made available to cover approximately half of the start-up costs, however this meant the committee needed to raise more than $200,000 from individuals and private investors to make the project a go.
Offering shares in the fledgling project at $1,000 per share, the organization managed to raise a considerable amount of money, but it still fell far short of the total amount needed.
Now, thanks to the support of the RM #93, Wawken, the committee is just over $10,000 from their target, and the ground breaking of the new facility.
"We wanted to do something to support further economic development in the RM as well as the town of Wawota," said Wawken reeve Dale Easton. "We felt that the abattoir project, which will bring in jobs and offer a service that producers around here will take advantage of, was a good place to help out."
Therefore Wawken moved ahead and offered $80,000 towards the abattoir project.
However, with concern about value-added returns an important part of municipal sponsorship, the RM offered the support with a caveat of terms that abattoir will have to fulfill.
"The abattoir was offered three lots of land for use to build on," Easton said. "So we offered the money with it earmarked to provide services like sewer, water, gas, and power to the site."
"In return for the financial support, the committee committed to providing these services on all three lots they are in possession of," Easton said. "And once they have everything together, the two lots they are not building on will be transferred back to the RM to sell as serviced commercial lots, hopefully attracting more businesses, and bring more tax revenue into the RM."
While the deal seems relatively straightforward, the situation is slightly more complicated, with the municipality of Wawota being one of the stakeholders in the agreement.
The lots in question are all located on property under the control of the RM, however any water or sewer services run to the lots would be hooked into Wawota's municipal infrastructure.
"Discussions at this time are just in the preliminary stages," said Wawota administrator Diane Smith. "We were approached about feasibility and so forth, but nothing concrete has been hammered out yet."
With abattoirs being heavy users of water, and therefore sewers, Smith was asked if there was spare capacity to support such a venture.
"There were some upgrades to the system a few years ago, before my time," Smith said. "From what I understand we have sufficient capacity at both ends of the system to handle it should the abattoir come online."
Smith also said that the site where the abattoir is expected to be built had housed another business some time ago, and it was her understanding that there were still infrastructure items and connections existing on the property.
"I was told there used to be another business there that had made use of services from the town," Smith said. "From the side of getting the services out to the lots, that means it will be a lot easier then if they had to run them under the highway."
While nothing concrete has come from the council chamber yet in regards to the proposed abattoir, Smith said the council has so far been, 'very receptive,' to the project plan.
"Anything built on that site will help the community of Wawota too," Smith said. "The land is just across the highway, so we would definitely benefit from a business being located there."
With many of these producers now members of the cooperative, it is guaranteed that at least some demand for services will begin immediately after the facility opens its doors.
