Corb Lund has called for an immediate freeze on all coal-related decisions pending a judicial review of Elections Alberta’s suspect verification of signatures on his rejected Coal Not Water petition.

Link to Water Not Coal news release

Elections Alberta previously conducted an extensive, intrusive and unlawful investigation of Crowsnest Headwaters funding and spending in the 2024 referendum on Grassy Mountain. No financial violations were found, and Elections Alberta refused to apologize for its very clearly illegal investigation of a small citizens group, which included a threat of jail time.

It is curious that the accusations against Elections Alberta specifically involve pro-water initiatives. Its incompetence is fully established. Now in question is its political autonomy from the separatist Smith government’s coal agenda which weirdly puts the interests of far-right foreign speculators ahead of Alberta water consumers.

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Some bugs for their ears

Unless you’re a vetted card carrying, deep-pocketed UCP member you have little to no opportunity to be heard by our current government. Subsequent to the finagling of the Water Not Coal petition, after diligently gathering 3,114 signatures by members of the Chinook Water*Shed Crew, a delegation of three Crew members requested a meeting with our MLA.

Our mission was simply stated: “Receiving information directly from our MLA rather than speculative opinions that surround several initiatives and plans of your government would be appreciated.” We offered to provide her with a short list of questions prior to the meeting.

The request was emailed and hand-delivered. Five weeks later, a succinct response was received: “MLA Petrovic is unable to accommodate your request for a meeting. Thank you for your understanding.”

Yup, understood! Now it’s time that they understand. The UCP is not the only game in town. If we want to be heard we must seek out any and all politicians and gain their ear. Attending a rally, talking with someone from the Progressive Tories, the Liberals or the NDP does not mean we subscribe or support all their beliefs and initiatives. It simply opens a door to another point of entry for protecting Our Water.

Unacceptable levels of selenium in fish, detrimental to human health, have been scientifically proven in Crownest Lake. Contaminants are also both upstream and downstream of the Old Man dam. This flows from the decommissioned, 40 plus years ago, of the Tent coal mine.

Trevor Bastien, son of the late respected Piikani Elder and environmentalist Harley Bastien, has taken up the torch to protect Our Water, our mountains and their fish, a sustainable food source, guaranteed by Treaty Seven and the Canadian Constitution. This legacy project is named “Harley’s Vision”.

Taking advantage of any and all opportunities generating political relationship is an important building block to the success for definitive and legislated protection of Our Water.

All are welcome to mix and mingle at an NDP Rally in Amundsen Park, Claresholm on Saturday, September 19 th , 1-3 pm. Leader of the Opposition Naheed Nenshi, MLA Kathleen Ganley, municipal politicians and media will be in attendance.

Donations to Trevor Bastien’s legal fund can be made by Interac eTransfer to trevorstrust@thewatershedcrew.org. Donated funds will be transferred to Trevor Bastien’s retainer account with Ackroyd LLP.

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The government of Australia today announced the failure to revive Whyalla’s last blast furnace. Some 500 jobs are being lost, not counting workforce reductions in associated coal mining, coke making, and transportation.

Australia now has just one conventional blast furnace as coal and ore country accelerates transition to green steel production. This is yet more evidence that claims about future global demand for second-rate metallurgical coal are mere fabulations.

The Whyalla blast furnace once produced 1,200,000 of iron annually, requiring 2 million tonnes of coking coal. The Whyalla plant provided 75 percent of Australia’s structural steel consumption, primarily for rail replacement and construction products.

Sources:

The Guardian

Australian government intention to transition Whyalla to green steel

Global Energy Monitor current report on Whyalla steel plant

World Steel Association

Wikipedia

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Crowsnest Headwaters is a purely volunteer group of citizens committed to the protection and recovery of the Crowsnest/Oldman watershed from decades of coal mining and clear cutting. We rely on your donations to continue our work in the field, in the laboratory and in the courts. Please donate what you can by Interac eTransfer to funding@crowsnestheadwaters.ca

I’m not an economist and I suspect those making decisions on development proposals with broader implications aren’t either. One can question whether the proponents of development avail themselves of objective economic advice, but maybe they have other ulterior motives. However, it doesn’t take much of an understanding of economic theory to develop a highly tuned BS detector on some of the promotional hype for coal mines.

There are reasonable assumptions to be made on royalties, taxes, employment, spinoff benefits, and the like that are necessary metrics to assess the benefits to the public. But there are also costs—social, health, and environmental— that are just as real and often more lingering. Unfortunately current economic analyses do an imperfect and poor job of helping us understand the balance between development benefits and costs.

Northback, the Australian company with designs on a coal mine on Grassy Mountain, has just released some economic assessments of their mine proposal to Crowsnest Pass council. A synopsis of this presentation included a rosy projection for direct, full time jobs, indirect employment, startup spending and over 10 billion dollars in gross domestic product, including federal, provincial, and municipal revenues.

Before you go rushing off to buy company stock it would be good to recognize these are projections, not employment commitments, or realized economic activity.

The study was prepared by Ernst & Young LLP for Northback and the company says its modelling relied on unaudited financial information supplied by Northback, public data, and its own economic model. The report apparently did not factor in environmental effects and costs. Like dating sites where people portray themselves as taller, thinner, more attractive, and richer than they are, one should entertain some skepticism about coal company economics.

This is a typical one-sided story, tarted up with enthusiastic assumptions, self- affirming figures, and back-of-the-envelope calculations. It is a technique used to put a thumb on the scales of decision-making, to over-emphasize economic benefits and influence how a regulator would weigh a project in the public interest. Like in math class, if you can’t show how you got to an answer, you can’t get full marks.

If history is a guide, the answers provided by mining proponents create more questions and less certainty about the economic benefits of their developments in the public interest. Just because it appears good for a corporate entity does not necessarily hold relevance to Albertans .

Several scholarly articles provide clarity and a dose of reality to the promotional hype of the economic projections of mining companies.

In a 2024 FACETS article, the authors audited 27 BC mines (Does regulation delay mines? A timeline and economic benefit audit of British Columbia mines). For many mines there was a lack of data and transparency to compare forecasted versus actual economic benefits (production, employment, and taxes).

Mines for which data was available were underperforming across production (only 23 per cent of predictions), employment (only 18 per cent of predictions), and tax revenue (zero per cent of predictions).

Similarly, in the journal Environmental Impact Assessment (Volume 100, 2023) an article, Years Late and millions short: A predictive audit of economic impacts for coal mines in British Columbia, Canada, related economic impacts were significantly overestimated. Only 59 per cent of forecasted employment and 34 percent of forecasted tax revenue materialized.

A paper written by Cornelis Kolijn, an independent mining engineer, (Crowsnest Coal Area Reserves’ Inflated Value and Unlikely Economic Benefits- July, 2025) provides insights on coal quality and market values for the proposed Grassy Mountain mine. Crowsnest Pass coal mines (including Grassy Mountain) ceased operations due to inadequate coal quality and low market value of coal produced. Coal quality requirements for steel making have since increased and his assessment was it is unlikely any proposed mines will be economically feasible due to their low quality coal compared to BC’s Elk Valley, with the added issues of thin coal seams and challenging geological conditions.

Kolijn warns that if approved, Alberta could be faced with failing mines, mine closures, and inadequate funds for reclamation and selenium management.

From the Report of the Joint Panel: Benga Mining Limited Grassy Mountain Coal Project (2021 ABAER 010, CEAA Reference no. 80101), the panel found that Benga’s socioeconomic impact assessment did not include the reliability of its project benefit estimates, and had insufficient details about the methodology used. The company overstated the economic impacts including royalties generated and understated the potential for economic risks.

The School of Public Policy at University of Calgary published A Multiple Account Benefit-Cost Analysis of Coal Mining in Alberta (Publication 14:32, 2021). This method was developed to retain many of the strengths of traditional benefit-cost analysis while recognizing that not all costs and consequences can be monetized and that assessing the public interest cannot be reduced to a single monetary value. This provides a transparent distribution of costs and benefits, allowing the public and policy makers to better determine if the trade-offs are in the public interest.

When this was applied to the Benga Grassy Mountain coal mine proposed to start in 2019 the authors concluded there was no scenario where the mine developer earns a positive return on investment in present value terms and there are more costs than benefits to the development scenario. Furthermore, the analysis suggested the mine would not break even, exclusive of payments to government, until 2039, at or near the anticipated mine’s life span.

Added to this is the acknowledgement of reclamation liability. The authors note that coal mining results in substantial changes to topography, soils, vegetation, and water courses, and can leave behind pit lakes, waste rock dumps, and sources of water quality contamination that have proven challenging to remediate. The review suggested post-operation reclamation may not be fully covered for the costs of addressing liabilities at the mine site. Or, in other words, there is a risk of additional cost to Albertans from a new mine.

The study suggested the qualitative evidence was sufficient to conclude that adverse effects are likely to be large and negative. Overall, the authors concluded the minor economic benefits were insufficient to justify large and potentially irreversible harms.

The analysis by the School of Public Policy comes close to a full or true cost accounting approach. This approach allocates all costs, including direct, fixed, and variable overhead, to the production of goods or services. This measures and values the hidden and rarely assessed impacts of economic activities on the environment (natural capital), society (human capital), health, and produced capital. This moves beyond narrow economic thinking with the aim of improving decision-making in commercial organizations and in public policy.

In the spirit of engaging in due diligence and governance accountability, all levels of government should undertake full cost accounting for project reviews instead of simply drinking the purple economic Kool-Aid of a proponent. Part of full cost accounting might well include the following for the proposed Grassy Mountain mine:

• What if Albertans, fed up with seeing pollution, biodiversity loss, health impacts, and failure of reclamation, especially if they are expected to backstop the costs, demand punitive financial penalties that have a real economic bite?

• What if the life span of the mine is shorter than anticipated, like the Gregg River and Cheviot mines have exhibited? What then are the economic implications?

• How would the displacement of other economic activity by coal mining be dealt with in an economic analysis?

• What happens when an industrial pall falls over the Crowsnest Pass, as it did when the tipple in Coleman was processing coal from Tent Mountain? Will blind community support for a coal mine remain with fugitive coal dust?

• What if pollution abatement lasts for a 100 years, or more? How is that cost factored into economic projections?

• What if downstream water users suffer economic impacts from mine-related pollution and water shortages and they sue for compensation?

The other historical perspective is that environmental costs are consistently understated by proponents yet the reality of mining includes significant pollution, human health impacts, and biodiversity losses. A 2016 report by the BC Auditor General (An Audit of Compliance and Enforcement of the Mining Sector) concluded that”…the lifespan of mines and mining companies is finite, creating a risk that taxpayers may bear the costs. So, while the benefit from mining occurs for a limited time, the costs, including government’s obligation to monitor these sites, may continue for a very long time.”

One might only look at the unresolved reclamation deficit created by the oil and gas industry in Alberta for reference. Mitigation has been proven to be ineffectual at compensating, even moderating the impacts, even when monitoring is rigorous (which it often isn’t).

Independent, objective, and evidence-based reviews raise questions about the accuracy, reliability, scope, and uncertainty of economic predictions from the coal mining sector. Yet, decision makers often reason that the (often inflated) economic benefits outweigh the potential adverse effects to environmental and societally valued components. The result leads to project approvals in the “public interest.”

Northback’s economic promises may well be a castle built on sand, not coal. Let’s not be fooled by self-serving and empty promises! The Alberta government needs to step away from tacit support for coal mining in the Eastern Slopes. In particular, this government needs to accept evidence that coal mining isn’t in the interests of Albertans, or, at least, undertake the necessary homework to weigh the benefits versus the costs of coal mining using transparent, full cost accounting.

Lorne Fitch is a Professional Biologist, a retired Fish and Wildlife Biologist and a former Adjunct Professor with the University of Calgary. He is the author of Streams of Consequence, Travels Up the Creek, and Conservation Confidential.

Letters have been sent to six Alberta ministries responsible for public health, water quality, irrigation requesting immediate action to advise Albertans, including Piikani First Nation, against consuming selenium-poisoned fish from the Crowsnest and Oldman River systems.

The alarming degree of selenium toxicity among trout and whitefish was revealed in the report Analysis of Selenium Tissue Concentrations in Multiple Fish Species of the Oldman River by aquatic biologist Lorne Fitch and Mount Royal University Biology Chair Jon Mee.

This report published in August follows the Alberta government’s own 2025 analysis showing all tested fish from Crowsnest Lake were unfit for human consumption. The cause was specifically identified as the continuing selenium runoff from the Tent Mountain coal mine owned by the Australian company Evolve Power.

Following is the full text of the letter delivered September 8 2026.

From Crowsnest Headwaters

To:

Hon. Grant Hunter, Minister of Environment, Epa.minister@gov.ab.ca

Hon. Todd Loewen, Minister of Forestry and Parks, Fp.minister@gov.ab.ca

Hon. Brian Jean, Minister of Energy and Minerals, Minister.energy@gov.ab.ca

Hon. Tara Sawyer, Minister of Agriculture and Irrigation, AGRIC.minister@gov.ab.ca

CC:

Hon. Justin Wright, Minister of Primary and Preventative Health Services, PPHS.minister@gov.ab.ca

Hon. Rajan Sawhney, Minister of Indigenous Relations, ir.ministeroffice@gov.ab.ca

Hon. Mandy Gull-Masty, Minister of Indigenous Services, mandy.gull-masty@parl.gc.ca

Hon. Joanne Thompson, Minister of Fisheries, DFO.Minister-Ministre.MPO@dfo-mpo.gc.ca

Crowsnest Headwaters is taking the opportunity to collectively contact you and your Ministries since all share responsibility and accountability on the issue of selenium in the Oldman watershed from legacy coal mines.

Crowsnest Headwaters unites forward-looking local residents in defending the source waters of the Saskatchewan River System, which nourishes the Canadian Prairies with a resource vital to families, farms, and food processors from the Rocky Mountains to Hudson Bay.

Crowsnest Headwaters has undertaken to identify the movement of selenium from legacy coal mines in the Crowsnest Pass downstream through the Oldman River and below the Oldman Dam. The results are documented in the attached report, Analysis of Selenium Tissue Concentrations In Multiple Fish Species of the Oldman River.

A brief summary of the report contents is that:

Thirty-eight fish, from five species and representative of the fish assemblage of the Oldman River downstream of the Oldman dam, were analyzed for selenium concentrations in muscle tissue. Of the sport fish species (rainbow trout, brown trout, and mountain whitefish), 33 per cent of the fish exceeded Alberta’s threshold for the protection of aquatic life. This also has implications for people who consume these fish. Compared with fish in Alberta waterbodies not impacted by coal mining, the mean selenium species concentrations for Oldman River fish suggests a broader selenium problem for the Oldman ecosystem, both upstream and downstream of the Oldman dam.

We trust you all agree that this information is concerning. Therefore, here are questions to each of your respective Ministries:

Environment and Protected Areas

It is obvious from your own department’s research that selenium from the Tent Mountain legacy coal mine has compromised trout in Crowsnest Lake. In addition, information contained in the Grassy Mountain environmental impact assessment tendered by Benga identifies similar problems in Gold and Blairmore creeks from the Grassy Mountain legacy coal mine.

In the light of that science, why hasn’t your department undertaken a comprehensive selenium sampling program for the entire watershed? When can we see some timely movement on this urgent matter of health and indigenous rights?

When will your department undertake comprehensive, systematic monitoring of selenium concentrations in fish through the length of the Crowsnest River, the Oldman Reservoir, and the Oldman River downstream of the dam, with appropriate natural baseline sampling of the Castle and Upper Oldman rivers?

Forestry and Parks

Why hasn’t there been an appropriate warning in the “Alberta Guide to Sportfishing Regulations” on the risks of selenium in fish and appropriate advice on consumption. Clearly, this is a human health issue and also one that affects residents of the Piikani Nation who routinely harvest food from this ancestral source of nutrition.

For people resident of the Piikani Nation what efforts has your department taken, or could take, to advise them of the health risks of consuming fish from Crowsnest Lake and the Oldman River downstream of the dam, both now scientifically showing levels of toxic selenium to fish and humans?

Energy and Minerals

We would hope these alarming results of selenium contamination that now extend into the Oldman River from upstream legacy coal mines would provide a pause on the enthusiasm for new coal mines, especially in the Crowsnest Pass. Crowsnest Headwaters makes note that there are no triggers or limits in the South Saskatchewan Regional Plan for contaminants related to coal mining. In addition your department’s Coal Mine Wastewater Guidelines make no mention of selenium. When will your department introduce a discharge standard, a binding regulation for selenium that matches the empirically derived limits for the protection of aquatic life? Lastly, when will your department, in concert with other responsible agencies begin to deal with selenium pollution from legacy coal mines in the Crowsnest Pass?

Agriculture and Irrigation

Now that your department recognizes the movement of selenium from legacy coal mines into the Oldman River and Lethbridge Northern Irrigation District diversion, what is your perspective on the risks to food production and the impacts to southern Alberta’s food processing industry? Does the prospect of new coal mines in the Crowsnest Pass, coupled with selenium pollution from legacy mines indicate that these risks are too great for new developments to be endorsed by your department?

Crowsnest Headwaters looks forward to a timely, fulsome response to our concerns and questions.

Sincerely yours,

David Thomas

Crowsnest Headwaters

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Who asked you?

Does a mountain miss its creeks? The question just hung there as Carl Hunt and I, retired provincial biologists, toured coal mines in the Coal Branch. Carl, the former regional fisheries biologist based in Edson, has seen most of the era of coal strip mining, the blasting apart of mountains, and the loss of streams from mining since the early 1970s in the McLeod River watershed.

Creaky of joints but clear of memory, he was initially reluctant to view the ravaged landscapes. It’s like the title from one of Thomas Wolfe’s novels, “You Can’t Go Home Again.” You cannot physically or emotionally return to the past, how things used to be, because time moves on and everything changes. Returning to view what has become of intact watersheds is emotionally challenging. It is one of many scars biologists bear, based on long histories of watching landscapes and watersheds unravel with industrial brutality.

Very little of the workings of the Luscar/Gregg River mines and the Cheviot Mine are visible from either Highway 40 or the Grave Flats Road. Liberal use of no trespassing signs under the provisions of the mineral surface leases means you cannot access and see much of what they have done to your land.

It takes a flight on Goggle Earth, or maybe the use of a chartered helicopter, or a drone to see the extent of these mines. Even the tiny glimpses one gets from the road is enough to form questions about the scale and impacts of coal mining.

Breathtaking is the best neutral expression of the scale of these mines and their disturbance footprint. The combined Gregg River and Luscar mines extend over 20 kilometres of extreme topography where coal has been blasted and clawed out of at least 18 pits of variable size. Steep topography is typical over the ten kilometers of the Cheviot Mine, with at least eight discernible mine pits. For both mines, some of the excavations have been partially or fully backfilled with overburden, but many of the bigger, deeper pits will remain as a visible legacy of coal extraction.

Every tonne of recoverable coal took the removal of eight to ten tonnes of overburden. It was estimated that around ten million tonnes of rock overburden were blasted, excavated, and moved for every year of mine operations. Only a fraction found its eventual way back to the original excavations.

As a result, drainage courses, streams, and rivers were either diverted, truncated, channelized, or buried beneath overburden, irrevocably changing the drainage patterns of the watershed.

Based on the hydrographic layer of the Alberta Energy Regulator’s coal mine map viewer, the Luscar/Gregg River mines impacted an estimated 40 streams, stream tributaries, and seasonal drainages. For the Cheviot Mine at least 20 watercourses were similarly affected. As Carl observed, many of the named streams have ceased to exist, in part or in whole, as ecologically functional systems, capable of sustaining aquatic life and fish.

Eventually, often sooner than later, the coal runs out, or the price drops, and it becomes uneconomical to mine. But first comes the hype, the breathless enthusiasm for economic development, and the venal sin of over-promotion. Then, swirling Coriolis forces lead to mine approvals.

When reality sinks in, after the mountains have been razed, the valleys filled with overburden, and the streams, the ones left, are devoid of fish, it’s too late to reassess the decision. The bold prospects, the inflated returns, and the exaggerated claims of environmental protection are seen in the clear light of lost landscapes and watersheds.

The unseen, although measurable legacy of these mines is the toxic stew of chemicals that contaminate the waters pouring off the mine slopes. Heavy sediment loads are often the carriers of other contaminants. Extensive monitoring of the McLeod River and its tributaries provide unequivocal evidence that aquatic life is being negatively impacted by selenium of mine origins. All that shattered rock, thousands of tonnes, will continue to leach selenium and other pollutants into the watershed for the foreseeable and perhaps the unforeseeable future.

These mines are now in the “reclamation” phase. For all the promises of mitigation, returning the land to an “equivalent, productive” state, the work has most of the hubris of attempting to glue a smashed egg back together. It’s prohibitively expensive to move overburden more than once, so reclamation is smoothing out some of the bumps, turning rubble green with imported agronomic species, and adding some cosmetic erosion control features.

Reclamation will never, in human time, restore the wild to a mined landscape. At best it might, sometime, resemble something trying to remember what it once was before the brutal removal of the essential system of ecological and hydrological pieces.

Weighing the future costs and liabilities against 15 to 20 years of production with minimal royalties to the province seems an uneven bargain. At the Mountain Park cemetery is a one-way rotary phone which supposedly connects the living with the dead through the wind. Using the phone to get answers to why turning mountains upside down for such a fleeting economic return provided the same response as trying to communicate with the dead.

Even the provincial regulators sometimes see the light. Carl recalled a field trip of the Energy Resources Conservation Board (the precursor to the Alberta Energy Regulator) to the Luscar mine. One board member who had fished in the Coal Branch as a child, was emotionally overwhelmed upon seeing the destruction of Cabin Creek, a trout stream tributary to the Gregg River. He left the group and sat in the truck the rest of the tour. I wonder what the result would be if trout sat on some of these regulatory bodies, or at least people who spoke for trout instead of the glittering economic tinsel of development.

Our Coal Branch drive had us see-sawing from seemingly intact landscapes and streams to the Mordor-like mine sites. It was sobering to try and reconcile these irreconcilable differences. It was a reminder that mined mountains cannot be glued back together, impacted watersheds cannot be reconnected, pollution cannot be stemmed, and lost native trout populations cannot be revived. All we could do was mourn for the mountains.

For those without conscience, without a stewardship ethic, who would turn mountains upside down, hack down forests with trees older than Canada, plus bury and contaminate streams under waste rock and mud, the sentiment of asking whether a mountain misses its creeks has no currency.

Lorne Fitch is a Professional Biologist, a retired Fish and Wildlife Biologist and a former Adjunct Professor with the University of Calgary. He is the author of Streams of Consequence, Travels Up the Creek, and Conservation Confidential.

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Crowsnest Headwaters is a purely volunteer group of citizens committed to the protection and recovery of the Crowsnest/Oldman watershed from decades of coal mining and clear cutting. We rely on your donations to continue our work in the field, in the laboratory and in the courts. Please donate what you can by Interac eTransfer to funding@crowsnestheadwaters.ca

Kennedy Halvorson

Northback says 2.5 million tonnes of steelmaking coal will be produced each year by reopening operations at old mines on Grassy Mountain. This would be a technical miracle, not observed in five decades of coal mining data from the Alberta Energy Regulator.

So far, Grassy Mountain has produced only crap coal and Australian bullshit

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Luscar, the largest metallurgical coal mine in size and production in Alberta’s history, produced on average 500,000 tonnes less annually than Northback publicly claims Grassy will yield, at a mine nearly three times the size of what Northback proposes.

Of course, the surface area mined doesn’t tell the full story — mines can dig deeper and go underground. Alberta’s largest subsurface venture was a room-and-pillar style operation near Grande Cache, but even with 2.6 times the mining footprint of Grassy, it averaged less than a million tonnes of raw, unprocessed coal per year. If Northback’s improbable production figures don’t make you skeptical, consider the next miracle; it will extract and process more coal with less water than any other coal mine in Alberta.

Before it was rejected, the first proposal to mine Grassy Mountain needed just under 560 million litres annually. Northback has reportedly since negotiated access to the Municipality of Crowsnest’s allocations, and recently — controversially — applied for its own water licence. Controversial, because where Grassy is located hasn’t been allowed to issue new water licences for almost two decades, as existing allocations exceeded levels safe and sustainable for the Oldman River’s health and function.

While the application is under review, in sum, Northback needs at least more than 300 million litres per year, with total requirements likely higher considering the first application. Compared to other mines that have operated or are operating in the province, this volume is peanuts.

To run Alberta’s only active metallurgical mine, CST Canada Coal consumes 10 times more water to produce one-fifth of what Northback projects. The old owners of the Tent Mountain and Vicary Creek mines nearby Grassy needed 15 times more water to achieve a third of Grassy’s planned output. Collectively, Cheviot, Gregg and Luscar had more than 11.3 billion litres for their operations, two-thirds of which is still used for reclaiming the sites.

How Northback will outperform all these mines with a fraction of the land and water seems improbable — impossible even.

But why does it matter if Northback’s projections are off? Well, less coal to sell means lower revenues. It means reduced budgets to employ people and run the mine, less money available to eventually clean up the site, increasing the risk Grassy becomes even more of a liability in the Oldman’s headwaters.

Overestimating marketable coal production now means less royalties and taxes later, decreasing all those socioeconomic benefits Northback purports. It’s fewer dollars back to the public purse, and less in return for polluting the atmosphere, destroying the landscape and degrading the watersheds we rely on.

Coal companies promising more but failing to deliver is not uncommon. Studies in B.C. have found coal mines significantly underperforming in terms of the production, employment and tax revenue originally promised.

It seems evident that Northback is overestimating and even inflating the worth of the Grassy Mountain mine, and that’s problematic, because those projections will ultimately factor into whether the Alberta Energy Regulator decides to approve the mine and risk our air, land, water and wildlife to its downwind and downstream effects.

Alberta has been audience and victim to this story many times before — resource development companies make big promises to get approvals and permits, extract their profits and then leave when expenses mount. The polluters fail to pay and the public is left in the wake of their wreckage.

The only miracle evident is we allow this to happen, time and time again.

Kennedy Halvorson is a conservation specialist with Alberta Wilderness Association.

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Crowsnest Headwaters is a purely volunteer group of citizens committed to the protection and recovery of the Crowsnest/Oldman watershed from decades of coal mining and clear cutting. We rely on your donations to continue our work in the field, in the laboratory and in the courts. Please donate what you can by Interac eTransfer to funding@crowsnestheadwaters.ca

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Link to Carly’s GoFundMe page

Hi, my name is Carly Bastien-Wells. I am fundraising to purchase a stone memorial in honor of my dad the late Harley Jack Bastien. My dad passed away on September 28, 2025 from cancer. His battle was short, the cancer was aggressive and it all happened so fast. Harley was a true steward of the land, especially Southern Alberta and the Old Man River.

We would like to put this memorial near his beloved camp “Buffalo Rock Tipi Camp” which is also the location he and the crew have saved fish from. The Flume Bridge. We would like to honor him this October and place a memorial in honor of his dedication to not only the fish but the Old Man River as a whole.

I have copied the presentation of the Fish Rescue that I did shortly after his passing. I was invited by the Lethbridge and Northern Irrigation District to present this at their annual conference in Lethbridge Alberta.

As a proud Piikani Nation member, my dad dedicated his life to protecting the land, sharing knowledge, and preserving culture. Raised in the Oldman River valley, he spent decades restoring Southern Alberta’s ecosystems and bridging Indigenous teachings with Western science. He founded the annual Peigan Friends Along the River fish rescue in 1990 in hopes of helping a species in need, a species critical to the ecosystem of the Old Man.

The fish rescue began 35 years ago with my parents, my 2 siblings and I, my dads 2 best friends and a handful of cousins. At the time we really had no clue what we were doing and we definitely did not come prepared. My dad just came inside one Saturday morning and said “Get ready and put your rubber boots on, we’re going to rescue some fish”.

This may have sounded like a crazy request to a lot of people, but it was like a shrug and OK cool for us. You see, we grew up in the Old Man River Valley where we were taught from a very young age to protect it. We spent weekends wrapping cotton wood trees with chicken wire to prevent the beavers from chewing them down, but you know, beavers will be beavers. We spent an equal amount of time planting trees. Creating picnic spaces for our community to enjoy. Learning at a young age what trees grow in the valley, what animals live there, what birds live year around and which ones migrate. Did you know that when all of the birds come back after winter, when they sing and begin building their homes that they wake up the trees. It’s their way of knowing that its time to wake up.

This was what it was like growing up with an environmental conservationist for a dad. Trained to notice the world around us which includes everything from humans, animals, birds, water, plants and all living things. Understanding at a young age that well preserved forests and rivers are the arteries for the grasslands. They are the lifelines that make the ecosystems livable.

Seeing first hand the negative impacts, habitat loss and fragmentation resulting in the loss of biodiversity and highly compromised watersheds. The ever growing pressure from agriculture, oil and gas drilling, residential and commercial development, water use and recreational activities has greatly affected these ecosystems. My dad saw a need to preserve the fish as a crucial part of this ecosystem.

So we begin the annual task of saving the fish trapped in the flume bridge and irrigation canal. Peigan Friends Along the River was already a non profit organization dedicated to preserving the Old Man River valley. We then included saving the fish. We started off with fish nets and rubber boots. Then we opted for hip waders and head band flashlights and a net. We would slide our feet on the floor of the interior of the bridge both because we didn’t want to step on a fish and we didn’t want to slip. We call this a sweep. When the sweepers arrive at the North opening of the bridge the rest of the crew is prepared with fish nets and buckets in hand, we begin the actually really fun task of capturing them into buckets that are then lifted up and dumped into our holding tanks. The fish sit for a bit in the oxygenated tanks until there is enough to do a river dump. We did for a very long time measure, weigh and identify the species, gender and record this information which was shared with the Provincial Government. To date I feel like we have rescued over 300,000 fish. Which I think is pretty cool. Its a great feeling at the end of the day. This happens every single Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend rain, shine, wind or blizzard (sometimes all 4 in the same day) you can bet that we will be there. However over time and with the sneer of politics somewhere along the line this information sharing stopped. However today, with the generous heart and open mind of Gary Burke we are once again working on creating a bridge of communication and collaboration.

We have built the PFAR Fish Rescue into an event that brings like minded people together for the common goal of saving the fish. Thus allowing them to continue to reproduce and thrive as a very important species that inhabits the Old Man River. Our life saving initiative has gained the attention of of many organizations and people including the;

Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society

Indigenous Vision

Crown of the Continent Geo Tourism Map

Won The Queen Elizabeth 11’s Platinum Jubilee Medal - in recognition of his valuable contribution to the province. On February 8, 2023

Nominated for an Emerald Award

Mother Earth is my Religion and the Forest is my Church. This is what my dad so often said. So I leave you all today with a message from my family to yours. Water is truly life. As we all know the water that the LNID directs to farmers, ranchers and businesses alike provides us with the necessary nutrients and sustenance to sustain our life. Thus, we must walk in harmony and balance on this journey of life being mindful of water and all it provides for us and with a common goal of ensuring the next 7 generations and those beyond that, still have access to water.

Thank you.

A cult of ignorance has been cultivated on selenium released from coal mining, with the false notion that if you don’t monitor it in water or in fish, the problem doesn’t exist.

Enjoy the fishing — but don’t eat the fish

Fish contaminated by selenium were first recognized in tributaries of the Crowsnest River affected by runoff from the legacy Grassy Mountain coal mine. Subsequent research on fish in Crowsnest Lake indicated high levels of contamination from the legacy Tent Mountain coal mine. This should have warranted immediate advisories for people consuming fish. Instead the UCP dragged their collective feet, seemingly unwilling to advise people of the health risks, and only did so a year after the knowledge was evident.

Finding the public notification of health risks is difficult and even the provincial sportfishing regulations provide no warning. Instead, in true political spin, the angling advisory reads more like an advertisement than a warning: “Fish is an excellent source of lean protein, and provides essential nutrients like omega-3 fatty acids, zinc, iron, selenium and vitamins A, C and D.”

There has been a complete failure to complete the monitoring of selenium in fish for the remainder of the Crowsnest River and further downstream in the Oldman River.

There is speculation that the UCP is unwilling to undertake comprehensive selenium research before their Coal Industry Modernization Initiative is released. This is purported to provide new guidelines for coal development in Alberta. The only participant has been the coal industry, and they have been actively lobbying for an increase in selenium releases from coal mines.

It is evident the UCP has not proceeded with further watershed-scale selenium research and monitoring that might upset an Australian company intent on gaining approval for a coal mine.

As a result, an independent study of selenium contamination of fish was recently undertaken by Crowsnest Headwaters, a small conservation group (Analysis of Selenium Tissue Concentrations in Multiple Fish Species of the Oldman River).

This work was done downstream of the Oldman Dam, to assess the waterborne movement of selenium downstream from legacy mine sources and how that has affected contamination levels in fish lower in the watershed.

A summary of this research included this:

“Thirty-eight fish, from five species and representative of the fish assemblage of the Oldman River downstream of the Oldman dam, were analyzed for selenium concentrations in muscle tissue. Of the sportfish species (rainbow trout, brown trout, and mountain whitefish), 33 per cent of the fish exceeded Alberta’s threshold for the protection of aquatic life. This also has implications for people who consume these fish. Compared with fish in Alberta waterbodies not impacted by coal mining, the mean selenium species concentrations for Oldman River fish suggests a broader selenium problem for the Oldman ecosystem, both upstream and downstream of the Oldman dam.”

The results of the reconnaissance study by Crowsnest Headwaters points out that waterborne selenium has moved from upstream sources downstream to contaminate fish below the Oldman Dam. “There’s a one in three chance of eating a fish that has higher selenium levels than are good for you,” remarks Bob Costa, an angler and member of Crowsnest Headwaters.

This indicates a more systematic and comprehensive examination of selenium is urgently required to connect the dots between legacy coal mines and contamination of fish and aquatic invertebrates for the larger watershed. This should include, at a minimum, fish tissue analysis for selenium over the length of the Crowsnest River, the Oldman Reservoir, and the Oldman River downstream to Lethbridge. Sampling of fish populations in the Castle and upper Oldman rivers is necessary to provide baselines for comparison.

It should be evident to the UCP this information is necessary to understand the ecological and toxicological implications of selenium contamination from coal mining, past and proposed. It is equally important to provide robust notification to anglers, consumers of fish (including those on the Piikani Nation), and other water users in the watershed of the risks of legacy and proposed coal mines.

To do nothing is a flagrant disregard for human and ecosystem health, and a failure of governance. It is an indictment of this government when a small, unfunded conservation group has to shoulder essential monitoring in the public interest.

Lorne Fitch is a Professional Biologist, a retired Fish and Wildlife Biologist and a former Adjunct Professor with the University of Calgary. He is the author of Streams of Consequence, Travels Up the Creek, and Conservation Confidential.

Crowsnest Headwaters is a purely volunteer group of citizens committed to the protection and recovery of the Crowsnest/Oldman watershed from decades of coal mining and clear cutting. We rely on your donations to continue our work in the field, in the laboratory and in the courts. Please donate what you can by Interac eTransfer to funding@crowsnestheadwaters.ca

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That disturbing finding comes from a Mount Royal University analysis of fish sampled from an irrigation canal downstream of the Piikani Nation. Piikani citizens regularly catch and consume fish caught below the dam and in reserve waters.

The fish showed selenium tissue concentrations “greater than the Alberta threshold for protection of aquatic life of 4.0 µg/g (micrograms per gram), as well as the guideline for fish consumption.”

The fish samples were collected by retired Alberta aquatic biologist Lorne Fitch who co-authored the report with Dr. Jon Mee, chair of the Mount Royal University biology department. The analysis was conducted in the university’s biology lab.

Titled “Analysis of Selenium Tissue Concentrations in Multiple Fish Species of the Oldman River”, the report urges comprehensive examinations of water and fish quality in the Crowsnest/Oldman River system which is the source of water for Lethbridge residents and southern Alberta’s farm and food industries. (Selenium accumulates in agricultural soil and farm animals. As as an elementary heavy metal, selenium does not decompose and there is no known way to remove selenium from municipal water supplies.)

“This reconnaissance level study assessed selenium concentrations in fish tissue of species found in the Oldman River, downstream of the Oldman Reservoir and a reach through the Piikani Nation. The data form a partial benchmark of selenium concentrations in fish lower in the watershed and an indication of the need for a greater scope of study to evaluate the issue.”

Motivation for the study originated with the late Piikani elder and conservationist Harley Bastien who for 30 years led the Piikani community’s rescue of fish trapped by the seasonal closing of the main canal of the Lethbridge Northern Irrigation District.

Harley, shortly before his unexpected death in the fall of 2025, had initiated legal proceedings against Evolve Power’s Tent Mountain and the governments of Alberta and Canada for depriving the Piikani People of their constitutional right to the healthful harvest of fish from ancestral waters. Harley’s demand letters were limited by scientific evidence to Crowsnest Lake, for which the Alberta government’s own science proved the resident trout were unfit for human consumption.

It was Harley's wish that a comparable analysis be completed for fish caught within the Piikani reserve. To that end, Crowsnest Headwaters secured the donated services of Lorne Fitch and Mount Royal University to carry out the study in Harley’s honour.

The study fish were taken during an irrigation canal rescue operation by Freshwater Conservation Canada in October 2025. Significantly, these fish were likely life-long residents of waters downstream of the Oldman Reservoir.

“It seems likely that the Oldman dam is a barrier to downstream fish movement and the fish collected were resident in the reach of the river downstream of the dam.”

Crowsnest Headwaters calls upon provincial and municipal authorities to urgently undertake their own comprehensive analyses of water and fish throughout the Crowsnest/Oldman watershed.

The full report is available here for download in PDF format.

Link to CPAWS Facebook post

Crowsnest Headwaters is a purely volunteer group of citizens committed to the protection and recovery of the Crowsnest/Oldman watershed from decades of coal mining and clear cutting. We rely on your donations to continue our work in the field, in the laboratory and in the courts. Please donate what you can by Interac eTransfer to funding@crowsnestheadwaters.ca

Leadership of Harley’s legal action has been taken up by his son Trevor. The case is a crowd-funded effort, managed by a partnership of Crowsnest Headwaters and Chinook Water*Shed Crew. To donate directly to Trevor Bastien’s legal action, please address your Interac eTransfer to trevorstrust@thewatershedcrew.org

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Open to all, the Piikani annual Pow Wow blends ancestral dress, drumming and dancing with cowboy rodeo and Indian Relay racing. Food trucks offered bannock and poutine, a fusion cuisine unique to Canadian First Nations.

Crowsnest Headwaters partners with members of Piikani Nation and Chinook Water*Shed Crew to reverse the toxic selenium poisoning of the Crowsnest/Headwaters River System caused by years of coal mining and regulatory neglect by both levels of government.

Crowsnest Headwaters is working hard, on the ground, in the laboratory, and through the legal system, to restore the health of the Crowsnest/Oldman river system.

Donations are welcomed by Interac eTransfer to funding@crownestheadwaters.ca.

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The video opens with Dad flying in with a fresh fish in his talons. Mom proceeds to tear a few pieces from the fish for her chick, and then carries the remainder off into the trees for a quiet breakfast on her own.

Dad guards the nest until Mom returns. Then a young osprey flies in for a look and quickly departs once he sees Dad ready to defend his family.

This is followed by a small songbird intent on annoying Dad with a couple of low passes.

The video ends with Dad surveying the landscape while Mom tidies the nest as a train approaches from the west.

Osprey are at the top of the aquatic food chain and, unfortunately, bio-accumulate selenium from a river poisoned by decades of coal mining and government neglect.

Crowsnest Headwaters is working hard, on the ground, in the laboratory, and through the legal system, to restore the health of the Crowsnest/Oldman river system.

Donations are welcomed by Interac eTransfer to funding@crownestheadwaters.ca.

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Twenty Reasons for Conservation Concerns

Lorne Fitch, P. Biol.

How many reasons are there to be concerned about the pathway of conservation in Alberta? Let us count some of them.

• The questionable axing of many long-standing conservation initiatives in Alberta (e.g. Alberta Water Council, Alberta Clean Air Strategic Alliance) and the drying up of operational funding for other non-government initiatives by the UCP government.

• The failure of the UCP to fund internal departmental environmental monitoring and research, especially on critical issues related to water quality, species at risk recovery, and work on climate change.

• The chicanery of the UCP related to decisions about coal mining in the Eastern Slopes, especially to allow the zombie Grassy Mountain mine to be revived with new coal exploration. This despite the opposition of the majority of Albertans to coal mining.

• Since 2022 five independently reviewed scientific papers have demonstrated the extensive, pervasive, lingering, and damaging negative impacts of coal mining in Alberta.

• A decision by the CEO of the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) to forgo a scheduled public hearing on Mine 14 near Grande Cache and to provide regulatory approvals for the mine after an apparent political intervention by the mine owner. Similarly, the AER has approved expansion of the Vista coal mine near Hinton, again without a regulatory hearing or an environmental impact assessment.

• Another “unfettered” decision by the AER to secretly change the rules to limit who is “directly affected” by developments and preclude public participation in hearings.

• The “failure” of the Water Not Coal petition to make it through the impossible and suspect hurdles of the Elections Alberta statistics labyrinth. Over 200,000 Albertans signed the petition in good faith.

• To counter the federal government’s “A Force of Nature,” a strategy to extend landscape protection nationally, the UCP erroneously contend 60 per cent of Alberta is already “protected.”

• Regional planning efforts for entire watersheds have stalled in Alberta, with no broad-based, long-term perspective to define land use outcomes, in the public interest. Instead, subregional planning for the Upper Smoky, Red Earth, and the Caribou Mountains follows the dictates of industry to maximize short-term economic activity at the expense of watershed protection, biodiversity concerns, cumulative effects, ecological thresholds, and recreation.

• Building commercial resort developments in provincial parks is now permitted, despite impacts on water, biodiversity, and other recreational pursuits. It is doubtful most Albertans will be able to afford to stay in such upscale developments.

• The inability of regulatory agencies in Alberta to exert even minimal enforcement of guidelines for logging in Eastern Slopes forest watersheds which harbour species at risk trout and are the water supply for most Albertans. Sustainable forest management has been perverted to maximum timber harvest.

• An obviously illegal logging bridge constructed over the Highwood River in critical habitat for bull trout was ordered removed by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), yet no charges were laid under the Species At Risk Act. DFO has subsequently permitted the construction of another bridge at the same location.

• Instead of following the “avoidance” principle, provided in DFO guidelines for species at risk trout protection, the department is instead issuing permits to the logging industry to destroy critical trout habitat, as long as there are “offsets” to compensate for the loss. No evidence or monitoring is provided to validate the effectiveness of such decisions.

• There is a rollback of federal legislation and weakening of the Fisheries Act, the Species at Risk Act, and other environmental guardrails to facilitate “accelerated economic development.”

• Wildlife management changes are more to benefit commercial interests than to provide recreational benefits to Albertans or for conservation objectives.

• Irrigation expansion fever dreams, including multiple proposed new onstream dams (5) and several off stream reservoirs (4) at mind-blowing financial and environmental costs. This is leading us, inexorably to “water bankruptcy.”

• Several AI data centres proceeding with essentially no environmental oversight despite real concerns over water availability, power consumption, cumulative effects, and effluent releases.

• A complete antipathy on the part of the UCP government to renewable energy, a clear pathway to coping with climate change.

• Despite the evidence linking burning fossil fuels and climate change, leading to greater incidences of wicked weather, wildfires, drought, flooding, heat domes, and health risks, Alberta continues to push for more oil and gas extraction. Connecting the evident dots seems insurmountably difficult.

• There is the wildly improbable fig leaf of carbon capture and underground storage, a politician’s wet dream to evade the reality of exacerbating climate change from expanding petroleum extraction and combustion.

One doesn’t need much insight or analysis to conclude conservation, the protection of our natural environment, is not a priority in Alberta. You don’t even need to be much of a conspiracy theorist. In fact, the evidence points to a concerted effort to thwart conservation efforts, even to contend they are unnecessary and impede economic development.

Evidence to the contrary, that we are quickly sacrificing our wild heritage and the ecosystem attributes contributing to our well-being, is dismissed out of hand. A resource extraction and development mantra is deafening. Subsidies, perks, incentives, and political support for economic development are running rampant, while conservation efforts, environmental protection, research, and monitoring are starved of funding.

Failure to protect, conserve, and steward our natural assets is like running blindly with scissors. It is racing to an obvious hurtful fall for all of us, which is completely avoidable.

Lorne Fitch is a Professional Biologist, a retired Fish and Wildlife Biologist and a past Adjunct Professor with the University of Calgary. He is the author of Streams of Consequence, Travels Up the Creek, and Conservation Confidential

When looking at the above photo it’s not hard to see why First Nations people saw the power and the beauty of this once pristine part of the world.

The late Barney Reeves is the archeologist who discovered the Indigenous fish camp on the shore of this lake which dates 6,000 to 8,000 years ago. Back then and at first glance it would be hard to not think that this gorgeous body of water lying under the watchful eye of Crowsnest Mountain wasn’t special and worthy of investigation. To establish an actual fish camp speaks to the bounty that these First Peoples were able to realise, which made a significant contribution to their ongoing way of life.

But sadly, what lies below that surface film of water is tragic. The beautiful but highly contaminated Crowsnest Lake is the heart of this effort in launching a court challenge. The intention is to hold entities accountable and to take responsibility for restoring this headwater lake of the Crowsnest and Oldman river systems back to its healthy origins, and being able to provide First Nations with an unquestionably acceptable food source once again.

To view the report provided by Environment Alberta’s own scientists please click here.

The effects of high levels of selenium on fish, in this case trout, are grotesquely upsetting. Alevin, or newly hatched trout, will show spinal curvature, yolk sac edema and hemorrhage, missing fins and severe facial deformities.

This next one is particularly upsetting.

Below are 2 rainbow trout with missing gill plate covers caught in the Crowsnest River. That gill plate is integral to the protection of the gills themselves where the highest concentration of blood is for the purpose of dissolved oxygen / carbon dioxide exchange. The gills are extremely vulnerable and damage to them often results in severe blood loss causing death.

Premier Smith is gifting Albertans $100.00 of our own taxpayer money under the guise of an energy rebate. This has been referred to colloquially as Dani-dollars, but they are your dollars. We invite you to reinvest them with the possibility of guaranteed long-term dividends for water quantity and quality.

Trevor Bastien, son of Harley Bastien, the late, highly respected Piikani Elder and environmental steward, has taken up a legal action started by his father. “Harley’s Vision”, the name Trevor chose for his commitment to restore to clean water and healthy fish, honours his father’s legacy.

Government of Alberta scientists have proven all tested fish in Crowsnest Lake were and continue to be poisoned by coal mine selenium and other contaminants to the point they are unfit for human consumption. This is a result of effluent originating from a mine located on Tent Mountain which was decommissioned 40 years ago but continues to pollute. Despite full disclosure of research documents to the appropriate government ministers and departments, nothing has been done to mitigate this travesty.

This is a direct denial of First Nations Treaty and Constitutional Rights to catch and consume wild fish from public waters.

In early May, appropriately on Mother’s Day, a small group of Piikani Elders, Piikani Nation citizens and others gathered on the shores of Crowsnest Lake. We joined together in a ceremonial prayer circle, gifted with tobacco and smudge. The Elders, wise and dignified, quietly shared a message of sadness but also, hope. Trevor and his daughter attended. Trevor’s message, from the heart, spoke of his father’s commitment to righting the wrongs against Mother Earth, and shared examples of the Bastien family’s efforts to do so.

We invite you to join Trevor in helping to fulfill Harley’s Vision. Ackroyd LLP, Edmonton, with a reputation of many successes with environmental issues, has been retained to represent Trevor and his Nation as they move forward demanding their Treaty Rights be honoured. We anticipate this action may reach the Supreme Court of Canada.

Ackroyd LLP has served Demand Letters to Australia based Evolve Power (owner of the Tent Mountain coal mine), Environment Alberta, Alberta Energy Regulator and Environment Canada (collectively, these Entities). The cease-and-desist letter demands that these Entities immediately stop, or require Evolve Power to immediately stop releasing selenium effluent into the Crowsnest Lake and river system and that they undertake a complete removal of accumulated selenium sediment in the lake bottom. None of them has voluntarily agreed to this reasonable demand.

Because none of the named Entities are prepared to meet the required demand, as they ironically continue to monitor, the next step is to secure an Order from the Court of Appeal forcing them to restore Trevor’s First Nation rights to a healthy source of fish from Crowsnest Lake. If the Entities fail and/or deny compliance of this Order we anticipate this constitutional case may eventually end up at the Supreme Court.

We invite you to invest in Trevor’s Trust for the protection of the quality and quantity of our waters. This is a lofty goal, but doable and attainable. Your financial support using your energy rebate or simply donating to this important action is sincerely appreciated and integral to the success of this initiative. Crowsnest Headwaters has partnered with the Chinook Water*Shed Crew Society in order to make this happen.

Harley’s Vision was all encompassing. He emphasized the importance of honouring relationship, as the strands of interconnectedness impact everybody and everything. As well, reciprocity is essential for mutual benefit. By offering financial support we will honour his vision and get Trevor closer to his goal.

Working together we will meet the goal of clean water in perpetuity.

If you would like to be kept apprised of the progress to meet Harley’s Vision, legally and financially, we will send out periodic updates. Please provide us with your email by replying to: harleysvision@thewatershedcrew.org

All donations big or small are welcome and appreciated.

E-transfer to: trevorstrust@thewatershedcrew.org

Cheques may be issued to Trevor’s Trust and sent to:

Trevor’s Trust - The Chinook Water*Shed Society

PO Box 3226 Claresholm, Alberta T0L 0T0

If you choose, there are several ways to donate your ENERGY REBATE to Harley’s Vision.

If you are already receiving the Alberta Seniors Benefit, your Energy Rebate will be automatically deposited to your bank account.

If you do not receive the Alberta Seniors Benefit, you need to create or use your existing Alberta.ca account to apply.

The link to the Energy Rebate application is here:

Any and all donations can be e-transferred to: trevorstrust@thewatershedcrew.org

Donated funds will be transferred to Trevor Bastien’s retainer account with Ackroyd LLP. The Chinook Water*Shed Society will collect and administer all monies.

We at Crowsnest Headwaters are deep in the throes of very busy and demanding times, like so many of our “sister” organizations. The workload is big right now, but that’s not mentioned for sympathy or high acknowledgement. It’s simply a statement of fact as we try, now in conjunction with our partner organization, Chinook Water*Shed Crew, to try and close the file on the coal mining of our headwaters in the East Slopes of the Rockies.

The above photo is where I spent my day which is the first time I’ve fished flowing water this year. I was by myself, encountered no other people on the water, and it was absolutely grand. Just me and the bugs….and I can live with that.

There were people in the valley, several of which were on side-by-side vehicles and we waved at each other in a friendly exchange while they stayed on the gravel road with their speed low as well as their noise level pretty darn quiet in my opinion. I thought, we’re all here in our own way to enjoy this beautiful backcountry. There was no animosity nor was there any attitude.

These are not easy times and I know that some will question my acceptance of what I encountered but, it’s the way it is and I make no apologies for it.

My need to be there was to take necessary time to clear my head and in doing that I chose to be okay with all that was there. Was I happy to see the logging? No, and I vacated that area quickly. But was I willing to confront motorized vehicle enthusiasts with either attitude or ignorance? No. I needed to benefit myself and I wasn’t about to sacrifice that for what I’m normally fighting for on a daily basis.

Sometimes we have to take the bigger picture into consideration, recognize what we can and can’t engage with for whatever reason, and look after oneself. Yep. I can see certain faces and hear disparaging comments from them but again, I make no apologies.

Today I needed to commune with Westslope Cutthroat trout. I had the luxury of being alone on two creeks with no other fishers about. Like I said, just me and the bugs.

I have been fishing these waters for the better part of 50 years and the population decline is more than just noticeable. To be expected with the amount of activity in these sacred places both with recreation and industry. At 75 I know my time is running out and I just want to be able to enjoy what’s left for awhile longer. It gets my head right and I am so thankful to still have some semblance of it still intact, (the environment and my head).

But we need to do more. I need to do more, (albeit the energy level is getting pretty skinny on my end). Please stand with me and Crowsnest Headwaters, Chinook Water*Shed Crew, Defenders of the Eastern Slopes, CPAWS, AWA, and all of the individuals and organizations that are are doing our/their best to preserve, protect, and defend this historic and legacy environment from further destruction, not to mention our source of water.

Thanks for reading.

Thank you Lorne and congratulations!

Read the article here.

Read Andrew’s article in The Tyee article here.

That’s the consensus after successive archaelogical digs in the 1970s by Bea Loveseth and Barney Reeves and, in the 1980s, by Margaret Kennedy.

For 8,000 years, indigenous miners extracted blocks of chert from the surrounding limestone and chipped it into tradable chunks.

Chert is a glass-like mineral that can be shaped in any direction and was prized for the making of knives and points.

A TransAlta high-tension power line cuts across the site. There is no historical marker but the pits, back-filled with limestone, are clearly visible. Bits of discarded chert are easily spotted, but please leave them in place.

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If you would like to support our work protecting the Crowsnest Watershed, please donate by Interac eTransfer to: funding@crowsnestheadwaters.ca