*Note for U.S. readers. In Canada the Canadian Dollar is also called a Loonie,
which is the equivalent of calling the U.S. Dollar a Buck

With over 400 kilometers of a rural road system being heavily impacted by fleets of trucks servicing oil and gas production wells, a public agency in the Province of Saskatchewan set a high bar for responsible use of public funds. While the Rural Municipality of Wilton (RM of Wilton #472) is blessed with the economic benefits of having over 6,000 producing oil and gas wells in their jurisdiction, which is more than four times the number of people living in the area, they were cursed with the excessively high costs to maintain these roads for reliable all-weather access to the oil and gas wells by the fleets of service trucks. For some added perspective from another public agency that has experience in regard to the impact of oil and gas development on road systems, the State of Texas reports that the volume of truck traffic required to bring a single gas well into production is equivalent to the loading of approximately eight million cars. Truck traffic required to maintain a single gas well’s production is equivalent to up to an additional two million cars per year.

The Rural Municipality (RM) decided to make an investment in permanent improvements rather than...