Vegetation management part of safety and being a good neighbour!

Vegetation management may sound like a fancy way to describe mowing your lawn and pulling weeds. But, at SaskEnergy, it’s an important part of maintaining safety at our facilities across Saskatchewan!

“Overgrown vegetation can create a safety issue if left unaddressed,” says Sheena Nabozniak, Manager of Damage Prevention. “It can impact the accessibility of our facilities. This can cause challenges during regular maintenance work as well as in the event of an emergency.”

Keeping vegetation neat and tidy also helps reduce fire hazards, improve site security, and meet regulatory and environmental requirements.

Work varies across the sites but can include targeted herbicide spraying and manual removal of vegetation. The Damage Prevention team works with SaskEnergy’s Environment group to assess the needs of each location.

“Information sharing between our teams is important,” says Ashley Syrgiannis, Manager of Environmental Assessment. “The plan for each location needs to factor in the surrounding land use and any environmental sensitivities.”

“With facilities across Saskatchewan, each has different types of weather, soil and vegetation,” adds Damage Prevention team member Jesus Giraldo. “This information helps determine the type of work that’s needed.”

Employees from SaskEnergy Operations also provide critical support for the program. They help to track conditions and identify locations where growth may create concerns for safety, access, visibility or operations.

“We routinely visit and work at these sites, so we are often the first to recognize when vegetation management is required,” says Operations Lead Mike Kronberger. “We also have firsthand knowledge of the facilities. This includes how they operate, access requirements, landowner concerns, and ongoing work in the area.”

Collaboration across the company, and across the province, ensures the work is completed safely, efficiently and without impacting operations. Working together also helps to improve the program design, as well as the quality of the work.

“At the end of the day, these sites are in communities across Saskatchewan. So we want to be a good neighbour,” says Sheena. “That means keeping our sites visually appealing. Well, as attractive as you can make a meter station, that is!”