Drones offer an eye in the sky

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a little of both?!

It’s actually a drone equipped with a camera, and it has been providing SaskEnergy with several benefits over the last two summers.

“Using a drone gives a bird’s eye view of our construction and reclamation work,” says Ashley Syrgiannis of our Environment & Sustainability team. “They are efficient from a time and cost perspective, and they allow us to make more informed environmental decisions.”

Prior to a construction project, Ashley and her team use a drone to assist in environmental field surveys.

“A drone can help get into areas that are more environmentally sensitive, which reduces our impact because we don’t have vehicles or personnel enter these areas,” says Ashley.

Drones are also used during our reclamation inspection program, where we assess the success of vegetation regrowth on land we’ve previously worked on, as they also allow us to reduce foot and vehicle traffic on the land.

As part of our reclamation inspection program, we are piloting a drone herbicide application program. If there are any issues on land where we’ve worked, we resolve them as quickly as possible. For example, if there was a weed infestation in a particular area, rather than sending a person to apply herbicides, there are instances where we are piloting a drone that is equipped to do the job!

Using a drone saves time because no personnel need to access the fields to manually spray the herbicide. In addition, drone use also reduces the biosecurity risk associated with transferring soil when walking in fields.

“Having that different point of view from using a drone in different scenarios has really had a positive impact especially as we have dealt with locations that are highly sensitive,” says Ashley.