Sherritt-Plant-Fort-Saskatchewan-Alberta-Canada-02A

Alberta's Industrial Heartland (also known as Upgrader Alley or the Heartland) is the largest industrial area in

Western Canada Western Canada, also referred to as the Western provinces, Canadian West or the Western provinces of Canada, and commonly known within Canada as the West, is a Canadian region that includes the four western provinces just north of the Canada� ...

and a joint land-use planning and development initiative between five

municipalities A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the go ...

in the

Edmonton Capital Region The Edmonton Metropolitan Region (EMR), also commonly referred to as Greater Edmonton or Metro Edmonton, is a conglomeration of municipalities centred on Alberta's provincial capital of Edmonton. The EMR's commonly known boundaries are coincide ...

to attract investment in the chemical, petrochemical, oil, and gas industries to the region. It is "home to more than 40 petrochemical companies" and is one of Canada's largest petrochemical processing regions." By July 2015 there was $13 billion invested in new industrial projects providing employment for 25,000 in the Alberta's Industrial Heartland.

Geography

Alberta's Industrial Heartland (AIH) comprises of land split between the City of

Fort Saskatchewan Fort Saskatchewan is a city along the North Saskatchewan River in Alberta, Canada. It is northeast of Edmonton, the provincial capital. It is part of the Edmonton census metropolitan area and one of 24 municipalities that constitute the Edmo ...

Lamont County Lamont County is a municipal district in central Alberta, Canada, located in Census Division No. 10, northeast of Edmonton. The county contains 27 Townships. Its municipal office is located in the Town of Lamont. History In March 1944, th ...

Strathcona County Strathcona County is a specialized municipality in the Edmonton Metropolitan Region within Alberta, Canada between Edmonton and Elk Island National Park. It forms part of Census Division No. 11. Strathcona County is both urban and rural in ...

, and

Sturgeon County Sturgeon County is a municipal district the Edmonton Metropolitan Region of Alberta, Canada. It is north of Edmonton and west of the North Saskatchewan River. Sturgeon County is located in Division No. 11 and was named for the Sturgeon River ...

, as well as the Edmonton Energy and Technology Park in northeast

Edmonton Edmonton ( ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Alberta. Edmonton is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Alberta's central region. The city ancho ...

. At a total size of , AIH is the largest geographic area in Canada dedicated to hydrocarbon processing. The largest completed project to date is the Scotford Complex, which includes an upgrader, a refinery, and a railyard.

Membership

Alberta's Industrial Heartland Association (AIHA) was founded in 1998 by the City of Fort Saskatchewan, Lamont County, Strathcona County, and Sturgeon County. The City of Edmonton became a member of AIHA in 2010. The nearby towns of

Bruderheim Bruderheim is a town in the Edmonton Metropolitan Region of Alberta, Canada. It is located just north of the junction of Highway 15 and Highway 45, approximately northeast of Edmonton. The town's name is derived from two German words: "Br ...

, Gibbons and Redwater are associate members of AIHA.

Refinery Row (Edmonton)

Refinery Row refers to the concentration of

oil refineries An oil refinery or petroleum refinery is an industrial process plant where petroleum (crude oil) is transformed and refined into useful products such as gasoline (petrol), diesel fuel, asphalt base, fuel oils, heating oil, kerosene, lique ...

in west Sherwood Park,

, Alberta, just east of the city of

. The two main refineries in Refinery Row are the Strathcona Refinery ( Imperial Oil), and the Suncor Edmonton Refinery (

Suncor Energy Suncor Energy (french: Suncor Énergie) is a Canadian integrated energy company based in Calgary, Alberta. It specializes in production of synthetic crude from oil sands. In the 2020 Forbes Global 2000, Suncor Energy was ranked as the 48th-lar ...

)Suncor - Refining and Marketing
/ref> The other main refineries in the Edmonton area are also located in Strathcona County, in a separate concentration around Scotford, Alberta.

Air quality

In response to a request from to the Canadian Press, researchers from the

University of California, Irvine The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a public land-grant research university in Irvine, California. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, UCI offers 87 undergraduate degrees and 129 graduate and p ...

released results of new air-quality tests in 2015 from Alberta's Industrial Heartland. The team visited the AIH on July 8 to 12, 2012, their third visit. The peer-reviewed 2013 publication based on samples taken during their 2008 and 2010 visits, "found smog-causing chemicals at levels comparable to — and occasionally many times higher than — some of the world's largest cities and industrial complexes." Although the new tests revealed that the spikes of concentrated toxic plumes were short-lived, Donald Blake, remarked that, "These are the kinds of numbers we don't see in Los Angeles... If this is something that is blowing at somebody's house, and they're getting five to 20 parts per billion of benzene at them all the time ... that starts to worry me."

References

External links

* {{Edmonton 1998 establishments in Alberta Economy of Edmonton Edmonton Metropolitan Region Geography of Edmonton Fort Saskatchewan Industrial parks in Canada Lamont County Strathcona County Sturgeon County