Please join us alongside our Piikani brothers and sisters next Saturday, May 9th for our 2nd sharing of a prayer ceremony which will begin at 10:00 AM at Napi’s Playground. The location is spectacular, as is the sacred ceremony provided by the Piikani Elders. Being the day before Mother’s Day it seems quite appropriate that we celebrate and offer prayers for the Eastern Slopes of our Mother Earth.

Below is a Google Earth shot of the location and the route to get there which is quite easy from Hwy 22.

We hope you are able to attend.

Napi’s Playground: For using a maps app - 49º 52’ 07.1” N. / 114º 22’ 42.5” W.

From Hwy 22 head west on the Maycroft Rd. (south side of river) and just keep going (approx. 15 minutes) until you come to the T at the forestry trunk road #40. Turn right (north) and shortly after, turn right again onto the flat. This is just south of the gathering corrals which are very visible between the road and the river.

Lorne Fitch, P. Biol.

Like many, I grew up with the notion the Alberta forestry rangers were the guardians and gatekeepers of our forests, protecting them from the avarice of the timber industry. It turns out, in today’s world, the timber industry and Alberta Forestry and Parks are best buddies.

I’ve tracked logging over many years. To no avail, I have reported issues of insufficient stream buffers, poor road layout, inadequate sediment controls, massive erosion into trout streams, and reduced trout spawning. Nothing changes and given a recent 30 per cent increase in logging, gotten even worse.

The Alberta Wilderness Association undertook a review of logging practices in 2025.

Observations at 496 sites in selected watersheds of the Oldman River headwaters showed 667 failures to follow the province’s timber harvest operating ground rules, the federal Fisheries Act, and the Species At Risk Act.

Vegetated riparian buffers, to separate streams from logging effects, were either cut over and missing, or were not wide enough to meet guidelines for stream protection. Erosion controls to minimize sediment reaching critical trout habitat were either missing, ineffective, or lacked even basic maintenance—this affected 87 per cent of the stream crossings.

The sheer number of infractions suggests this is beyond a few lapses. Instead, this is abject carelessness and disregard for other forest values, especially related to trout species that are imperilled and designated “threatened”.

Those figures might tell you all you need to know about how the province and the federal government fail to apply regulatory oversight and enforcement to logging operations on public land.

The inability of industry to meet even the minimal provisions of provincial guidelines is strikingly problematic. It strongly suggests the timber industry is incapable of self-regulation.

One can endlessly parse these results in terms of impacts on water quality, native trout, wildlife, aesthetics, recreation, and hydrologic alterations to the headwaters forest sponge that captures, stores, and slowly releases water for downstream users. Research documenting logging impacts is unequivocal. It is not a question of a lack of evidence-based understanding. Instead it is industry economic self- interest, aided and abetted by government acquiescence and connivance.

The timber industry and Forestry and Parks will tell you there is a tightly scripted set of operational rules for logging. If there is any science, any empirical information from research and monitoring behind these claims the “rules” protect other forest values, Forestry and Parks is unable to provide it for an objective review.

In reality, the timber harvest operating ground rules are a set of weak administrative guidelines subject to substantial interpretation, tinkering by the industry the rules are supposed to guide, allowance of deviations to accommodate logging, no effectiveness monitoring, and unclear legislative penalties for failure to adhere to them.

This has created a culture of complacency and permissiveness. Failures of adherence to the operating ground rules are seen as “non-penalty” items, where there is a reluctance to enforce, possibly because the timber industry and the government regulators think the infractions are too trivial to deal with.

Meanwhile, what we thought was being protected— trout habitat, water quality, and watershed hydrological stability— all diminish under their not-very-watchful eyes. It starts and continues with the insidious lobbying effort by the timber industry.

From October 2020 to January 2024 the Alberta Forest Products Association (AFPA), the industry lobby group, met with federal government officials 83 times; 42 (51%) of those meetings have included the topic “Fisheries” and 35 of those meetings were with Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO). Over that time, meetings included 40 different DFO staff, ranging from deputy ministers to fish habitat biologists.

While it is normal for an industry association to lobby government on behalf of its members, it is striking how such a large proportion of the AFPA lobbying effort is focused on fisheries and Species at Risk Act topics. What’s more, the number of meetings the AFPA has requested, and received, with DFO has notably increased recently as protection mechanisms for species at risk trout have been implemented.

Lobbying efforts by the AFPA must be paying off. Instead of DFO requiring the industry to follow the strict provisions in federal legislation, they are now issuing permits to allow the destruction of critical trout habitat. In a perverse effort to avoid the provisions of the legislation DFO directs industry to undertake some perfunctory compensatory actions.

Worse yet, the mitigation features observed are cosmetic, unsuitable, and incapable of any meaningful compensation for lost habitat. Mitigation is used as an administrative panacea, not an effective ecological solution to the issues of habitat loss for species at risk trout. It’s treated as a “get-out-of-jail-free” card.

For the trout the reality is the rules are weak suggestions, creating the most minimal of impediments to logging. Forestry and Parks uses “deviations” from the operating ground rules as stepping stones to avoiding getting wet in the river of responsibility to protect both biodiversity and watershed values. DFO offers up some cosmetic mitigative suggestions to permit destruction of critical habitats. Logging interests lobby regulators to ensure “if the minimum is set low enough we cannot fail.”

Forestry and Parks cannot effectively provide oversight since they are part of the problem. It is impossible to simultaneously allocate timber, promote logging, and provide effective management and enforcement. Even as policy and regulations are touted as strong, accountability is a loose thread that unravels the contention that the forests are subject to effective environmental protection and oversight.

A forest industry representative claimed, “We follow all the guidelines, maintain buffer zones, carefully engineer roads, and logging isn’t a problem for species.” Mostly, they work all the angles to ensure there are few impediments to logging.

Forestry is corrupt in Alberta because logging practices are set largely by industry to maximize short-term profits at the expense of forests owned by the people of Alberta.

Industry spokespeople, provincially and nationally, say they act as “proud stewards” of forests and wild critters by cloaking themselves in a faux-green mantle of sustainability. The evidence tells another story, that they are emperors without clothes, naked and greedy.

See, our sediment barriers work just fine. (Lorne Fitch)

To counter the relatively fact-resistant response of the industry and Forestry and Parks, here are some take home messages on the eight deadly sins of industrial-scale forestry:

• Clear-cut logging increases downstream flood risk and exacerbates drought.

• Many fish and wildlife species and their habitats are harmed.

• Water quality deteriorates.

• Logging does not stop wildfires.

• Sustainable logging is a fairy tale.

• Despite the scale of logging no environmental impact assessments are required.

• Environmental rules are watered down to benefit the timber industry.

• There is little or no regulatory oversight or enforcement.

There may be a pattern of psychological factors at play that lead to these persistent environmental issues with logging. These factors are generally described by Dr Julia Shaw, a criminal psychologist, in her book Green Crime. They are: ease, impunity, greed, rationalization, and conformity. There is a tendency to follow a path of least resistance ignoring obvious compliance issues. With no penalty for compliance failures, there is no incentive to change. Breaking rules saves industry money. If there is a sense non-compliance isn’t harmful, it will persist. Lastly, if political and corporate pressure is applied to maximize economic returns over environmental protection, staff will fall in line and either not follow the rules or not uphold them.

What is required, and in little evidence, is avoidance of issues through better harvest layout, reductions in clear-cut sizes, and improved oversight. This is unlikely to happen until effective and probably punitive enforcement efforts create a pathway for change.

A parking ticket isn’t a crime—it’s an administrative fine. That’s also how serious environmental infractions are viewed—a parking ticket with a few more zeros added. In our forests a stream might run brown like gas station coffee and perhaps as deadly with mud from a poorly constructed logging road. Trout might have their essential habitats smothered by the sediment, or wiped out by floods from too much logging. Administrative penalties for these issues nets even less than the overdue book fines from a library.

Even if a financial penalty is assessed it’s an insignificant portion of the company’s earnings. Malefactors treat this as a business expense, cheaper in the long run than following the rules. There’s little reputational downside, perhaps some fleeting public disparagement, but no deterrent for repeat offences.

There is a virtual vacuum of enforcement. Until these offences are viewed and treated as environmental crimes, little is likely to change except a progressive diminishment of our environment. The regulatory system is currently more third world than world-class.

Forests of the Eastern Slopes are part of our heritage, a legacy, and a public good. They require responsible use and protection—not capture by special economic interests.

If the fault lies in an outdated policy that treats forests as fiber, then the solution must be one of managing for forest values—all forest values. New policy would be informed by science, the precautionary principle, and not solely by economic drivers. It would ask for more stringent regulations that focus on ecological health and restoration—not minimal standards to facilitate logging.

From the Alberta Wilderness Association review of logging it must be clear, to most except the ecologically blind and economically powerful, that we cannot continue into the future with an outdated policy apparatus for our Eastern Slopes forests.

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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View full video report . . .

We thank you for supporting Piikani member Trevor Bastien’s constitutional right to clean water and healthy fish, which benefits all of us.

We invite you to donate directly to Trevor’s retainer account by Interac eTransfer to info@ackroydlaw.com (no security word is required) with a separate email to afryk@ackroydlaw.com and funding@crowsnestheadwaters.ca specifying that the donation is for the Trevor Bastien trust account #162345.

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Kathy Le, CTV National News

A recently published scientific study is raising fresh concerns about the long-term environmental impacts of coal mining in Western Canada, finding that pollution from a mine closed decades ago continues to contaminate fish in an Alberta lake and could threaten its future.

The peer-reviewed research, released this month by the American Chemical Society, found elevated levels of selenium in fish from Crowsnest Lake in southern Alberta, tracing the contamination to runoff from the Tent Mountain coal mine, which ceased operations in the 1980s.

“This becomes a human health issue,” said Lorne Fitch, a retired fish and wildlife biologist.

“The results were quite striking in terms of levels in fish flesh that are higher than recommended for human consumption.”

The findings come as a legal demand letter, filed by a member of the Piikani First Nation, has been sent to provincial and federal governments, as well as the mine’s current owner, calling for immediate action to stop ongoing pollution and begin cleanup efforts.

The study, led by provincial aquatic scientist Colin Cooke, found selenium concentrations in multiple fish species that exceeded federal and provincial guidelines for safe consumption. Researchers warned that additional coal development in the region could push the fishery beyond sustainability.

Read the full CTV web report by Kathy Le . . .

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Hi all.

Time is passing by quickly and there are still many opportunities to get your signature on this petition. This must go to referendum. We want and need your help. If you have not yet had an opportunity to sign the Water Not Coal petition, please do so asap. If you know of others who would like to sign but don’t know where, below is a link to help with that effort. Ask others where they have signed so you have some direction. Every signature matters…..it REALLY does.

You can find signing locations here.

Northback’s owner, the rapacious and litigious Gina Rinehart, is following the well-known Australian playbook of suing foreign governments over denied mine schemes.

Canada’s mainstream media has persistently ignored this scandal since it was first revealed by Andrew Nikiforuk in The Tyee on March 20. And the federal government has broken its own transparency rules by keeping the public in the dark, perhaps because of its foolishness in signing the Trans-Pacific Partnership in 2018 and not renouncing it since.

All Canadian taxpayers, not just Albertans, may be on the hook for $2 billion in compensation for the 2021 regulatory rejection of her scheme to re-mine Grassy Mountain.

Here is the devastating conclusion of the analysis by University of Calgary Professor Emeritus Nigel Bankes and Queen’s University Associate Professor Kyla Tienhaara:

Nobody should be surprised that Northback’s Australian investors have taken advantage of the CPTPP (Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership) to seek compensation for its failed Grassy Mountain project, Northback having exhausted its legal options to overturn the decision of the JRP (Joint Review Panel) in domestic courts. While we don’t believe that the claimants have a strong case on the merits, perhaps that was not the principal purpose for filing the claim, especially when one looks at the timing of the filing of the NOI (Notice of Intent to Submit a Claim) and RFA (Request for Arbitration). Instead, the companies may have aimed to foster a climate of regulatory chill, a climate that favoured the lifting of the coal moratorium (a month after the RFA was filed) and a climate that favoured consideration of Northback’s proposal for additional exploratory drilling on the Grassy Mountain property. In short, this claim is part of a broader campaign of intimidation and influence.

This kind of bullying is much easier to carry out if the public is unaware that it is happening. This is why it is particularly concerning that there has been so little information provided by the government about this case. Furthermore, given the facts identified by the JRP—that the Grassy Mountain project presents significant risks to water, fish, and therefore human health—it is completely inappropriate that impacted communities in Alberta will have very limited opportunities to intervene in the case if it proceeds.

The case raises the broader question of why Canada continues to agree to ISDS (Investor-State Dispute Settlement) in trade and investment agreements, despite previous above-described acknowledgements by Liberal governments that participation in the system is costly and impedes the right to regulate. This question is particularly pertinent in the context of the climate crisis and the need for countries to rapidly phase-out fossil fuels. European governments and the UK have withdrawn from the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT), an investment treaty that has generated more ISDS cases than any other, because it is incompatible with the Paris climate agreement and the EU Green Deal. Colombia has also recently announced that it will withdraw from investment agreements in the lead up to the Santa Marta conference on the transition away from fossil fuels, which identifies ISDS as an “legal barrier” to the transition that will be discussed by governments. Canada is sending a delegation to Santa Marta. We hope that the delegates will be open to a productive exchange on ISDS, in line with Prime Minister Carney’s desire for a new global order that “embodies our values”.

Read the full analysis in ABLAWG . . .

Crowsnest Headwaters appreciates your donations to help fund our projects. We do engage politically when appropriate and thus do not qualify for charitable status. Your donations help pay for equipment and communications services. Nobody benefits personally. You may make a donation via Interac eTransfer to “funding@crowsnestheadwaters.ca”

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Good on y’a, Erin and Graham Ruttan.

(By the way, there’s a typo in the closing credits: “Brain Jean” should read “Brainless Jean”.

Watch the video on YouTube.

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Background:

I would suggest some contradictory positions of power in this fellows career.

• elected in 2008 and 2012 as MLA for West Yellowhead and prior to becoming a Cabinet Minister, served as Chief Government Whip and Deputy Government Whip.

• chaired the Northern Alberta Development Council.

• Minister of Environment and Sustainable Resource Development (???)

• Minister of Finance

• President of Treasury Board

• Minister of Aboriginal Relations

• Deputy House Leader

• Government House Leader

• Environmental Protection Advisory Committee for Alberta Labour Relations Board (again, ???)

• also a key participant in the Cheviot hearings, representing the Hinton and District Chamber of Commerce, Alberta Council for Sustainable Communities and the Environment and the United Mine Workers.

Okay. Here’s the kicker:

• “I currently reside in Jasper where I have worked as a fishing guide for over 30 years.” (Robin Campbell)

I, Bob Costa (not Robin Campbell), am an avid fly fisher and have worked as a fishing guide in my past. As such, one of the most obvious things in a fisherman’s mind is being conscious of water conditions not only for the purposes of finding fish but more importantly, for the fishes well being.

I have spent decades observing water conditions simply for the concerns around stream or lake health (which includes the fish and invertebrates) whether it be flow rates and levels, clarity, general habitat both in-water and riparian, spawning beds (redds), temperatures, overfishing, and now…..potential contaminants.

For anyone who cares about the fish, the water must be equally if not more so, a very important concern. This should go without saying given that the ecosystem below the water’s surface in incredibly fragile. Sure, the streambed rocks and boulders are tough but the creatures they are housing have a distinct vulnerability, especially with contaminated water that finds its way into every nook and cranny.

So I ask you…..how can a seasoned fishing guide living in a National Park, not understand the difference between a healthy environment protected as a park and the direct opposite with water environments outside of a National Park? Further to that, how can he hide within the protection of that park while allowing the poisonous resource extraction which he condones to occur elsewhere.

The following is a piece submitted by one of our dedicated “team” volunteers.

SHAME ON ROBIN CAMPBELL

A former environment minister and now president of the Canadian Coal Association, Robin Campbell, has recently pontificated about the merits of coal development from the 49^th parallel extending beyond his ol’ stomping grounds in West Yellowhead.

Sixty nine percent (69%) of metallurgical coal comes from British Columbia and is exported to Japan, South Korea and China wholly owned by offshore investors. Aussie investors are relentlessly courting the powers that be to allow coal mining in the headwaters of all our major rivers here in Alberta.

The montane belt of the Eastern Slopes and Rocky Mountains collects and stores 90% of our water. The asset value of clean water far outweighs coal mining. Thinking needs to be re-jigged. We can capitalize on the economic benefits from tourism, agriculture production and recreational opportunities, all of which are renewable and sustainable. Foreign coal investors are intent on destroying this narrow belt of montane for minimal limited economic return.

A witch’s brew of toxic chemicals and heavy metals are released from coal mining. Selenium from Tent Mountain (1948 to 1983) has contaminated Crowsnest Lake and River, with levels too high for all life. The Piikani Nation can no longer depend on it for a healthy source of sustainable food. Quite a legacy rearing its ugly head 40+ years after shutting down. There is no technology anywhere in the world to remove selenium to reach health standards.

Where was the Alberta Regulator when Grassy and Tent Mountain needed to be reclaimed? On an aside, why haven’t all the orphan wells been cleaned up, and recently an additional 4000 wells were added to the inventory? Despite greenwashing there is actually little to no enforcement. The buzz word is “monitoring” which is like closing the gate after the horse bolts…an exercise in futility.

To quote Mr. Campbell, he recently said “Albertans deserve strong environmental protection…” The time is now, sir, to walk the talk! Do you remember from your days as Minister of Aboriginal Relations about long term visionary planning and decisions reflecting the Indigenous philosophy of planning for seven generations ahead? This kind of thinking trumps destruction of our watershed and contamination or our primary source of water.

Robin Campbell, as Finance Minister under Premier Jim Prentice supported the “phase-out of coal”. He’s obviously a turncoat supporting the annihilation of our only significant source of water. Mr. Campbell’s opinion editorial in the Calgary Herald on April 11^th is fraught with embellishment and inaccuracies. Shame on him.

Jacqueline L. Chalmers

Claresholm

This article in today’s Calgary Herald challenges Robin Campbell and cronies who continue to deliver misinformation which not only is old news but a lot of BS.

Read it here.

Australians’ dirty designs on Rocky Mountain water are attracting national attention. This time from CTV National News. Are you watching Ms. Dabrusin? How about your boss, Mr. Carney? How does destruction in the Crowsnest Watershed fit within your new Nature Policy’s focus on protecting critical sources of fresh water?

Link to CTV National package on coal, Corb, and Laura.

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Looking west towards the Livingstone Range and into the headwaters of Rock Creek.

Painting the Picture

If you’ve driven west on Highway 3 past Lundbreck Falls, you may have stopped at the Burmis Tree (the skeletal remains of an ancient limber pine, Canada’s most photographed tree). Farther west, highway travellers are exposed to the arresting sight of Turtle Mountain’s fractured eastern face and the 1903 Frank Slide (North America’s most deadly rock avalanche). If you’ve seen these landmarks, you’ve also looked north to catch a glimpse of the serrated, cutting edge crest of the Livingstone Range.

Striking in profile, the Livingstone Range slices north into a cerulean sky. It’s heaven on earth for sailplane pilots who ride a river of wind with a chance to soar into the stratosphere. This same raging river, surging east across the crest of the range, is the migration-defining flyway for the world’s greatest concentration of golden eagles—more than 1,000 have been counted here in a single day.

Timberline on the ramparts of the Livingstone Range is cloaked in endangered limber and whitebark pines. Beneath them, there’s archaeological treasure including a 5,000 year-old chert mine and vision quest sites featuring revered power peaks: Chief Mountain (far to the south) and Crowsnest Mountain (towering above nearby Grassy Mountain).

Amid the magic of knife-edged rock and sweeping views, bighorn sheep grace the high country, grizzlies traverse the valleys, and native cutthroat trout cling to a small remnant of their former range in a handful of streams that flow south to feed the Crowsnest River.

Our home, overlooking Rock Creek on the eastern flanks of the Livingstone Range, is surrounded by an internationally marketed Crown of the Continent landscape and world-class beauty. But, overnight, the trout seen yesterday at our doorstep appear to have vanished. Dark clouds surround us.

Beauty and the Beast

Within this land of internationally recognized beauty lies a beast that lusts for ill-considered industrial projects. When highway planners say there’s a need to create a twinned superhighway through the doubly-designated, legislatively-protected cemetery known as the Frank Slide, there are people who embrace this vision and its willful destruction of Alberta’s once-proud heritage. When speculators want to remove mountains to mine the underlying coal, there are those who cheer. When overhead transmission lines and pipelines target this land of internationally acclaimed cultural and natural wonder, the promise of jobs draws support. Only a relative few, with tears in their eyes, stand in the shadows to watch as bulldozers and feller-bunchers level ancient forests.

Regulations are the best they claim

But that’s just how you play the game

On the ground it’s all the same

We’re losing

But I won’t play, I’ll show what’s lost

You’ll see the truth, you’ll learn the cost

Of the trade-offs that we’re choosing

(From I Won’t Play, a song by Monica Field)

We’ve long fought the brand of perceived progress that degrades and sometimes destroys priceless cultural and natural history features on the land we call home. We view these treasures as irreplaceable long-range assets that, if saved and protected, increase forever in value and sustain quality-of-life living.

The Stealth of a Cryptic Ad

We almost missed it. What we saw was a bland newspaper ad. A thin dark line on a pale and lifeless map accompanied a handful of archaic place names. It was only when we applied a virtual magnifying lens that we realized we were looking at a TC Energy ad for a monstrous, over-the-Livingstone-Range pipeline expansion, seven kilometres of buried pipe measuring 48 inches in diameter.

Our happenstance discovery of the ad six years ago, coupled with the realization that the forecast project, paralleling the creek on which we live, was to be built in 2023, prompted us, wide-eyed, to pursue TC Energy’s promised engagement with the impacted community. We had many concerns, but our primary concern was for the already threatened SARA-protected cutthroat trout that swam at our doorstep. We wrote to TC Energy, then contacted the company again when it failed to respond within its own, self-stipulated deadline.

We were ultimately assured, via a TC Energy videoconference, regular and ongoing meetings. The picture, initially promising, failed to take shape. Net result: no interaction occurred. We, in the dark, were forced to, again and again, recontact TC Energy to re-request promised meetings. Our requests were never honoured—this, throughout three long years.

Pipeline construction begins

There was never an open house for the project within the Municipal District (MD) of Pincher Creek, i.e., within the area surrounding TC Energy’s colossal Rock Creek worksite. As a result, pipeline construction began (2023) without, as far as we know, meaningful opportunity for public feedback or recommendations from area residents, including ourselves. (There was, after construction had started, a TC Energy open house in the Municipality of Crowsnest Pass, an event we were unable to attend. People who did attend told us the meeting was used to recruit pipeline workers.)

Today, among our many lingering concerns, we fail to understand how apparent Canada Energy Regulator (CER) approvals of TC Energy’s actions and/or non-actions allowed for what we believe was a complete failure by TC Energy to meet its stipulated requirement to consult with area residents most impacted by the project.

The view looks down on the TC Energy Rock Creek worksite at the eastern end of its 2023 pipeline construction traversing the Livingstone Range between Rock Creek and Gold Creek. The pictured pipeline, the dominant scar on the land, is paralleled by a heavily used TC Energy pipeline construction road. Located to the immediate left of this road is Rock Creek and its “critical habitat” (as defined by its ability to support cutthroat trout). Rock Creek, while not seen here, is defined by the serpentine stream-hugging forest that’s seen below—and then crossing—the TC Energy access road and pipeline.

Once the pipeline project was underway (spring into summer into autumn of 2023), area residents—particularly those living on the MD of Pincher Creek’s North Burmis Road—who were impacted by construction noise, clouds of dust, and road safety issues, voiced strong concerns. With trucks, work busses, and other intense industrial traffic dominating their daily lives, broader concerns took a back seat.

Missing from the discussion table once construction began: the pipeline’s route through rare and endangered forests; the fate of other rare plants; the loss of habitat for threatened wildlife species; and the impact of a ragged seven-kilometre clearcut bulldozed through iconic, world-class vistas and viewscapes.

There was no longer an opportunity—and for us one never existed—to address construction practices and their potential to impact the federally-designated critical habitat of Rock Creek’s threatened pure-strain cutthroats. We’d watched these trout for decades, always thrilled to see them emerge from crystal clear depths to grab tossed grasshoppers. During winter, after auguring a hole through creek ice, we’d lie face-down and watch as cutthroats congregated in spinning whorls of constant motion.

Intense truck traffic associated with construction of the TC Energy pipeline created colossal clouds of dust that obscured views and forced other users of the North Burmis Road to pull over and stop.

The “trout issue” was addressed during a pre-pipeline construction hearing, but it’s our understanding that fisheries biologists’ concerns addressing the likelihood of damage to the trout and their spawning beds were ignored. Regardless, the picture today looks bleak. Rock Creek’s native cutthroats appear to have been sacrificed. We haven’t seen, since mid-August of 2023, the trout we, for decades, saw daily.

Our observations suggest the SARA-protected native trout that have been a cherished part of our lives for more than thirty years may no longer exist, that SARA protection was meaningless. We don’t know this with scientific rigour, but we feel it in our hearts, and what we see is heartbreaking. We continue to look longingly into Rock Creek, but all we see is a blanket of life-choking sediment.

When TC Energy took de facto ownership of the pipeline’s over-the-Livingstone corridor, its workforce became, in effect, the only regular observer of actual on-the-land outcomes. The concerned public, effectively sidelined, knew only that the expanded right-of-way forest was being removed, that endangered whitebark pines and limber pines were among the dead.

Unknown to society today is the pipeline’s impact on ancient archaeological sites (including 5,000 year-old chert quarries), or on an internationally marketed National Geographic Geotourism raptor viewing site. Unknown, too, is the full extent of the post-construction impact on Rock Creek’s threatened cutthroats, their spawning beds and designated “critical habitat,” all supposedly protected, nurtured, and safeguarded throughout construction due to SARA guarantees.

It was more than three years ago when we, writing to the Municipal District (MD) of Pincher Creek Chief Administrative Officer (CAO), began to detail concerns and provide picture-supplemented photos of the North Burmis Road’s existing dust problem and its profound—into Rock Creek and into the Crowsnest River—downwind dust depositions. We had discovered windrows of shin-high road grit along Rock Creek hundreds of meters east of the North Burmis Road and felt action needed to be taken to protect the stream from wholesale, wind-deposited road dust sedimentation. Our messages contained shocking, stark, documentary images of windblown road grit.

Our multiple “dust” messages to the MD of Pincher Creek were sent long before and during construction in an effort—it failed!—to ensure work didn’t generate downwind dust to further degrade and diminish Rock Creek’s ability to support its already threatened trout. We also believed the MD of Pincher Creek could save money in road-surfacing costs by controlling the problem.

Fast-forward to the spring of 2023 when, at the onset of pipeline construction, dense clouds of road dust blew east from North Burmis Road to become an immediate health and safety issue as seen by area residents. The road surface failed to hold up under the intense industrial traffic and soon deteriorated to become rough, potholed, and dangerous.

These issues raised alarms and voices of concern. During this time, and while TC Energy denied there was a dust problem, we took pictures of intense, nearly horizontal dust storms as they, for hours on some days, raged west-to-east along the TC Energy pipeline right-of-way within, and across, critical habitat for the on-paper-protected cutthroats.

The TC Energy pipeline scar is seen here as it cuts through the headwaters of Rock Creek and crosses the Livingstone Range divide into the headwaters of Gold Creek to the west. Beyond the pipeline, the 1903 fractured face of Turtle Mountain reveals the scar left by North America’s deadliest rockslide, an event that claimed an estimated 100 lives.

When clouds of road dust engulfed and entered area homes, impacted hay crops, and threatened human health and safety, dust concerns commanded centre stage. Residents, upset, expressed their concerns to the MD of Pincher Creek, and spoke out against the colossal impact of pipeline construction work on their daily lives.

There was, without any acknowledgement of a dust problem, a sudden, overnight change in the application of dust-control measures. It occurred after local media coverage exposed the North Burmis Road situation (with issue-defining pictures) and residents’ health and safety concerns. But the late-July application of dust control measures was never, in our opinion, adequate and it was soon, seemingly, abandoned.

We felt the North Burmis Road, since that time, continued to worsen under intense truck traffic, that during October it was potholed, rutted, and dangerous to drive. Then rain turned it into a mud bath before cold weather returned to encase residents’ vehicles in frozen muck.

TC Energy’s mid-summer incident report—it was issued during a protracted multi-year drought—appears to suggest sediment barriers installed along the native trout stream’s critical habitat failed in a wholesale way, and did this when precipitation was far below normal.

The TC Energy over-the-Livingstone Range pipeline as seen during its 2023 construction. The view looks down on the crest of the Livingstone Range into the sunlit headwaters of Gold Creek. Rock Creek, to the east, lies in shadow. The turquoise sections of pipe in the foreground are 48” in diameter and measure up to 24 metres in length.

Our assessments of presumed-dead-and-missing cutthroats rely on visual observations. We’re aware, too, of ongoing concerns expressed by fisheries biologists, and an assertion the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) issued its SARA section 73 permit unlawfully. The claimants further assert that, regardless, the section 73 permit conditions have since been breached; the illegal issuance and/or breach renders the CER’s permit to NGTL (TC Energy) null and void; and the CER should have issued an immediate stop work order with a demand that TC Energy initiate remediation of the damaged habitat.

A burning question: Why did the CER allow TC Energy to excavate deep trenches across Rock Creek’s fragile headwaters despite the fact that fisheries biologists identified tunnelling under this designated critical habitat as the only safe way to proceed?

Did this deep trenching, coupled with the subsequent failure of sediment traps, enable copious quantities of waterborne sediment to enter Rock Creek? We don’t know.

Whatever happened during TC Energy’s mid-summer pipeline construction work on Rock Creek remains a mystery that appears to be wrapped in dark bureaucratic tape or hidden in work desks.

We know TC Energy has filed an “incident report.” What we comprehend on a much deeper and visceral level is that our current views of the once-sparkling, vibrant creek don’t reveal darting trout. Instead, they expose a stream bed choked in sediment.

We’ve spent a big part of the past four years in attempts to save Rock Creek from being subjected to the muddy mess that, today, would appear to imperil the lives of any remaining trout, a mess that continues to smother the stream’s once rich aquatic invertebrate life, food for these trout.

We look out at apparent death water as Rock Creek flows downstream to its confluence with the drought-degraded meagre flow of the Crowsnest River, an internationally renowned trout fishery.

The cumulative impacts of a pipeline traversing the headwaters of Rock Creek and, to the west, Gold Creek, coupled with a vast and undocumented network of unauthorized OHV “trails,” bleed sediment into both streams.

“Don’t worry,” industry proponents said. “Alberta and Canada have the best regulatory standards in the world.”

Do we? Don’t we have numerous glaring examples that illustrate, graphically, we don’t? Don’t we have examples that reveal how the monitoring of industrial activity, while documenting the accelerating diminishment of life or the ultimate death of monitored species, failed to result in any deviation in industrial activity?

We believe our effort to protect threatened cutthroat trout in the creek at our doorstep mirrors similar outcomes across Canada, and suggests there’s widespread failure of Canada’s Species at Risk Act to protect endangered species.

If government-stipulated worksite practices are deemed adequate, even if they don’t meet the rigour of obvious need, and SARA-protected cutthroat trout die in muddy trenches as a result, are these deaths newsworthy?

Humans do what humans can, but finite is the life of man

We can’t see beyond the span of our years

Don’t tell me we can have it all

While our children take the fall

They’ll tell us that we dropped the ball through their tears

(I Won’t Play)

Backstory

It’s our understanding that, following months of meetings in 2020, there were CER and DFO approvals that gave TC Energy permission to proceed with its over-the-Livingstone pipeline upgrade pending the Minister of Environment and Climate Change Canada’s endorsement.

This endorsement, with cabinet’s approval, allowed TC Energy to trench across the identified critical habitat for Rock Creek’s native cutthroats. In other words, Canada invested substantial time and colossal sums of money to achieve the results we see today a stone’s throw from our front door.

The picture today

As winter turns to spring, Rock Creek, at our doorstep, looks pristine and sparkling clear. But the cutthroats that swam here for 10,000 years—trout that revealed their presence through highly visible and active abundance for treasured decades—appear to have been extirpated by one pipeline’s expedited construction.

TC Energy has denied the validity of the pipeline construction concerns we have expressed. Countering this, we report that all our concerns are valid. We feel we’ve failed to accomplish anything that would benefit Canadians or mitigate the project’s impact on a priceless, world-class, internationally marketed (by National Geographic and others) Crown of the Continent landscape.

What is needed to create positive change? Effective project oversight by federal and provincial governments; rock-solid assurances that science-based, government-defined standards are adhered to by contractors; and meaningful public involvement in land-use planning.

Government and industry together with Society

In the end we all agree, pretending

What we want we want right now

Doesn’t really matter how

There’s no other value worth defending

(I Won’t Play)

The bottom line

Canada’s diverse population of caring and knowledgeable people expects—and deserves!—to have its voice heard and acted upon. This is especially true when massive industrial projects target world-class, internationally revered and tourism-marketed lands.

The Livingstone Range, despite recent damage to its aesthetic and ecological health, remains internationally significant, showcases striking beauty, and a rich and diverse wealth of cultural and natural history resources. The Livingstone Range is vintage, cutting-edge Alberta.

The world is on edge. It’s watching Alberta.

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Fatal to fish. Fine for the children of Lethbridge.

See full CTV report.

We thank you for donating directly to Trevor’s retainer account by Interac eTransfer to info@ackroydlaw.com (no security word is required) with a separate email to afryk@ackroydlaw.com and funding@crowsnestheadwaters.ca specifying that the donation is for the Trevor Bastien trust account #162345.

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Investigative reporter Andrew Nikiforuk’s earlier reporting provided evidence of Australian’s bad faith in dealing with Alberta Energy Regulator plea that he cease selenium poisoning at his Tent Mountain coal mine. The Piikani member’s legal action specifically targets the AER for feckless enforcement.

Crowsnest Headwaters is supporting Trevor’s action by raising funds to cover legal fees.

Read Andrew’s full story in The Tyee.

We thank you for donating directly to Trevor’s retainer account by Interac eTransfer to info@ackroydlaw.com (no security word is required) with a separate email to afryk@ackroydlaw.com and funding@crowsnestheadwaters.ca specifying that the donation is for the Trevor Bastien trust account #162345.

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Piikani Prayer Ceremony Saturday April 4 to ask Creator’s blessing of the Crowsnest River watershed and its creatures. Photo David McIntyre.

This case is about unambiguous rights and responsibilities. Section 35 of the 1982 Constitution Act guarantees indigenous people the unambiguous right to conduct ancestral practices on public lands and waters, including hunting and fishing.

Unambiguous archaeological evidence proves 8,000 years of indigenous fishing on Crowsnest Lake. The Alberta Government last year advised that all fish from Crowsnest Lake are contaminated with coal-mine selenium to the extent that they are unfit to eat, thus denying Piikani First Nation its right to a constitutionally guaranteed ancestral practice.

The same unambiguous science shows that the source of selenium poisoning is the derelict Tent Mountain coal mine owned by the Australian company Evolve Power, which has an unambiguous legal duty to halt the runoff of selenium from its waste rock dumps.

The Alberta Energy Regulator has an unambiguous legal duty to force Evolve Power to cease selenium runoff into Crowsnest Creek — a duty it has neglected for years.

The Alberta Environment has an unambiguous legal duty to ensure that the Alberta Energy Regulator enforces provincial environmental law in the oversight of coal mines, active or derelict.

Environment and Climate Change Canada has an unambiguous legal duty to ensure that Alberta Environment is properly executing its delegated powers to enforce the federal Fisheries Act.

Each of these parties has unambiguously failed in enforcing their own water quality laws protecting the Crowsnest fishery and in protecting the constitutional rights of Piikani People.

By knowingly allowing the poisoning of Crowsnest fish with coal-mine selenium, all four parties are violating Trevor’s unambiguous aboriginal rights.

The cease-and-desist letters were delivered to the offending parties at the beginning of April demanding that they immediately halt the selenium runoff from Tent Mountain and begin to remove contaminated sediment from the bottom of Crowsnest Lake.

The parties have been given until April 30 to respond, failing which Trevor will seek legally binding injunctions against them in the Alberta Court of King’s Bench.

Crowsnest Headwaters is supporting Trevor Bastien’s legal action by raising funds for his legal fees. This support aligns with our vision to ensure our creeks and rivers will be passed on to our children in better condition than they are today.

This initiative is a true partnership between Piikani and non-indigenous people. We appreciate whatever contribution you can manage to keep this case moving forward.

We thank you for donating directly to Trevor’s retainer account by Interac eTransfer to info@ackroydlaw.com (no security word is required) with a separate email to afryk@ackroydlaw.com and funding@crowsnestheadwaters.ca specifying that the donation is for the Trevor Bastien trust account #162345.

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West Fraser offers to offset clear-cut devastation with grave markers

Lorne Fitch, P. Biol

Say, for the sake of argument that someone, a neighbour, trashes your front yard. In the aftermath are vehicle ruts, exposed soil, torn up shrubs, and a tree so severely damaged it will probably die. Reluctantly the cause of this destruction offers to compensate you through a strange convention called “off-setting.”

They will, they say, plant a new, bigger lawn on a patch of ground in another neighbourhood. The shrubs, well, they will be replaced, in full, on a lot in an adjacent town. And as for the dying tree, two, heck, three, will be planted in a city park, just not in your city. This should be viewed as appropriate compensation for your ruined front yard, and it will be advertised in a sign, to be erected on what remains of your yard to show the good will and progress of off-setting by the neighbour. This sign will be included as compensation.

Sound plausible? Well, this is essentially what West Fraser, a logging company, has proposed, to allow them a get-out-of-jail-free-card from Department of Fisheries and Oceans over the destruction of critical habitat for species at risk trout in proposed logging plans in the Highwood watershed.

To compensate for loss of critical habitat (if this is even possible) in the Highwood watershed, West Fraser proposes to fix off-highway vehicle crossings, as “off-sets,” in the Livingstone (Oldman watershed) and Waiparous (Ghost watershed) drainages. This work isn’t even in the same ball park, let alone within the bases. It‘s also evident their math of equitable compensation doesn’t add up. In addition, if this wasn’t goofy enough, they propose to claim compensatory benefits for erecting signs. It is highly doubtful that native trout use signs for critical spawning habitat, but that is what is bound to go missing with this sleight of hand to avoid the provisions of the Species At Risk Act.

The forests, the streams, and the trout of the Eastern Slopes may not be our front yards but they are front and centre in the thoughts of the majority of Albertans. To permit the destruction of habitats critical to the survival and recovery of native trout and assume a wand called off-setting can fully compensate defies logic and is, like the scenario above, ludicrous.

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.

Crowsnest Headwaters appreciates your donations to help fund our projects. We do engage politically when appropriate and thus do not qualify for charitable status. Your donations help pay for equipment and communications services. Nobody benefits personally. You may make a donation via Interac eTransfer to “funding@crowsnestheadwaters.ca”

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Crowsnest River and Flathead Range from bridge at end of Willow Drive, Crowsnest Pass

Crowsnest Headwaters is blessed with skills in geomatics and digital cartography. Now, that expertise is being applied to the development of an open spatial model that will identify critical natural and cultural assets that must be excluded from mining, clear-cut logging and transportation infrastructure.

We thank Yellowstone to Yukon and the Woodcock Foundation for the award of a $5000 grant for the acquisition of science-grade global positioning equipment that will enable geolocations with sub-metre accuracy.

Such accuracy will enable site location with the accuracy needed to protect indigenous sites under treaty and constitutional law. It will also provide scientific evidence for protection of species-at-risk habitat, included the remaining pods of West Slope Cutthroat Trout in the creeks flowing into the Crowsnest River.

Geolocation teams under the direction of retired geomatics engineer Jon Carter will deploy across the watershed to collect coordinates and images of critical sites. Piikani Elders, for example, will be invited to guide teams to the many Blackfoot cultural and sacred sites and trails that are ignored by conventional government mapping.

Retired engineer and digital mapping enthusiast Jim Lucas will apply the geolocated data to the master model.

Another major asset is fresh, high-resolution LiDAR data collected last year by Alberta Environment under a federal-provincial initiative to map flood hazards. This data, harvested from laser-equipped aircraft, shows ground profiles with half-meter horizontal and vertical accuracy. It can even see through trees and virtually remove structures to reveal the underlying surface elevations and contours.

The first demonstration model, with a single layer identifying Piikani Places, can be viewed now as a GIS map at: https://crowsnestspatialmap.ca/.

The layer can also be viewed in pseudo-3d in Google Earth.

For both maps, pop-out labels do not work reliably using touch screens on phones or tablets. Please use a mouse view on desktop or tablet for best results.

We invite you to contribute the geolocation of any of the many important but little-known natural and cultural sites that deserve preservation. You can mark such sites on Google Maps and email the link to us, or just describe the site and its general location.

Crowsnest Headwaters appreciates your donations to help fund our projects. We do engage politically when appropriate and thus do not qualify for charitable status. Your donations help pay for equipment and communications services. Nobody benefits personally. You may make a donation via Interac eTransfer to funding@crowsnestheadwaters.ca.

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Lorne Fitch, P. Biol.

When I first read how the Indian state of Tamil Nadu made a stream disappear I thought it was an elaborate joke by author Robert Macfarlane in Is a River Alive? Instead it was a carefully contrived and orchestrated mapping exercise to eliminate the existence of Ennore Creek. Why the cartographic ruse?

A national directive from the Indian government compelled state governments to plan for management of coastlines to protect mangrove forests and other sensitive ecological features. The problem faced by planners was the watershed of Ennore Creek, a backwater of the Kosasthalaiyar River, was already the site of the area’s heaviest industries—petrochemical refineries, coal-fired power stations, and chemical factories. The stream provided a conduit for the discharge of waste heat and toxic by-products from these industries.

This was very inconvenient, and was contrary to the directives. State authorities came up with a bold, simple plan. Erase the stream’s existence. The new Coastal Zone Management Plan, at least what appeared on the map had none of the mangrove forest, none of the sensitive ecological features and most of the stream wiped out by the map makers art.

Without its existence on a planning map, the stream had no legislative protection—well, how can you protect something that doesn’t exist? Without protection, the stream, the mangrove forests, salt pans, and sand dunes have become a sump and a dump for all the industries’ wastes.

Only in India you ask? Hardly! Such conjuring acts of making landscape pieces disappear are also a phenomena of Alberta and likely the envy of David Copperfield.

Every Alberta city, and many towns have ghost streams, creeks that have been channelized, diverted, piped, and otherwise buried. They have lost their names, their identities, and their functions. Even the memory of them has evaporated. In erasing them from the landscape it allowed urban development to proceed unhindered.

Even outside of urban boundaries small streams, once the source of fish for settlers, have disappeared through straightening, cultivation, and drainage of their wetland sources. If they once had a name this is long forgotten and these intermittent channels are not even thought of again as streams.

We have a history of making landscape pieces disappear. In their disappearance is the liberation from the nagging of conscience. Major portions of the grassland, the aspen parkland, and the boreal fringe disappeared with a grub hoe, the caterpillar dozer blade, and the steel plow. To transform them into the crop fields of today took an immense physical effort and a mental one, to ignore and forget what once existed.

Along with streams and wetlands and native grasses what also disappeared were the creatures that made the landscape whole—bison, sage-grouse, pinnated grouse, and swift fox. More recently a legion of others are trending the same way. Like ignoring the homeless or Aboriginal Peoples, who then seem to fade, one by one into the background, out of sight, out of mind, beyond caring and compassion, once gone this opens up opportunities for unfettered and guilt-free economic development. This requires some pre-emptive strategy like that employed by the planners in Tamil Nadu.

We can see this at play in recent coal mining proposals, continuing tar sands development, and existing petroleum footprints. If the toxic runoff kills the fish, the poisonous emissions impact a few downwind people, and make our climate every so more erratic and dangerous, then a little more can’t really do any greater harm. Rather than deal with the issues, up front, some illusionist fog is necessary. This is reminiscent of the Dead Parrot sketch, a Monty Python classic, where the argument goes the parrot isn’t dead, it is merely resting, or stunned.

Once the impacts are evident and probably irreversible why apply all the now unnecessary and redundant protective legislation? Let’s tinker with and fudge the numbers for environmental limits. Even if the river is dead, the air redolent with fumes and green house gases, and missing are a mountain or two, muskegs, forests, and wetlands, we’ll still be fully compliant. Who will ever notice, or care?

Creatures like caribou, Athabasca rainbow trout, arctic grayling, and bull trout are really inconvenient in a planning process where resource extraction is prioritized. If they are made to disappear through the chicanery of corporate-driven land-use planning, as has been attempted in the Upper Smoky, it simplifies the process. If they no longer exist because they’ve been painted out of the picture, well, the species recovery plans, the federal legislation, the elaborate charade of caring are all moot, are they not? Corporations can then concentrate on logging, drilling, mining, and the other ways to make a landscape pay dividends to shareholders.

Even without being perceived, the economic illusionists can change things. This process moves with stealth and is initially invisible, dissolving the usual ways of seeing and allows distortions to creep in, quietly, surreptitiously, like fog draping a forest. And then the forest isn’t there.

There is magic in this sleight of hand version of land-use planning, a skillful deception that might fool some. But like Ennore Creek in India it only works if you only look at the plan, not the reality of what happens on the ground.

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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In our post of March 12, biologist and author Lorne Fitch raised the alarm on the consequences of the federal proposal to provide a single-wicket process for environmental approvals of large projects.

While the logic of a one-stop environmental review is appealing to investors, it depends on the good-faith and honesty of the provincial partners. On that score, Alberta does not qualify.

The Alberta Energy Regulator is systemically conflicted: It’s mandate is to enable large energy projects, while at the same time protecting the environment from the consequences. If that were not bad enough, the AER has shown itself to be corrupt and incompetent, as recent revelations have demonstrated.

Here’s Canada’s invitation to comment, by this Friday, March 27.

“The Impact Assessment Agency of Canada (IAAC) is seeking feedback on a draft co-operation agreement with Alberta.

When a proposed project requires an assessment by both the federal and provincial governments, Canada is committed to working with provinces to achieve “one project, one review.” Under this approach, federal and provincial governments work together to meet shared and respective responsibilities to protect the environment and respect Indigenous rights with the goal of a single assessment for a project.”

The Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society is sharing its own considered response, along with a suggested comment template for those of us in a hurry.

CPAWS Response and comment template

Please submit your objection to:

intergovernmentalaffairs-affairesintergouvernementales@iaac-aeic.gc.ca

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The Alberta Energy Regulator yesterday recklessly and dishonestly revealed the email addresses of 194 persons and organizations who commented on the proposed terms of reference for Northback’s environment assessment of its scheme to reopen the Grassy Mountain coal mine.

These commenters had been promised that their email addresses would not be disclosed. This is, at the very least, administrative malfeasance.

One of the commenters was quick to call out the AER and his or her email to all of the addresses exposed by the AER explains this travesty better than we could (email address withheld to protect privacy):

I am writing regarding your recent email distributing the Final Terms of Reference for the Northback Grassy Mountain Project.

First and foremost, the manner in which this email was sent constitutes a serious privacy failure.

By using the CC field to distribute this message, the AER disclosed the email addresses of a large number of individuals who participated in this process. Participants were explicitly informed in the Public Notice that while their names and comments may be made public, personal contact information, such as email addresses, would be removed prior to disclosure wherever practicable.

This was not a marginal oversight. It represents a clear contradiction of the stated privacy conditions under which individuals engaged in this process. Many participants would not reasonably expect their contact information to be shared in this way.

All Commenters (BCC’d) expect a clear explanation of:

• How this occurred

• Whether this disclosure is being treated as a reportable privacy breach

• What corrective actions will be taken to prevent this from happening again

With respect to the Final Terms of Reference:

While the document introduces additional technical requirements, it does not address the central issue.

The ToR:

• Increases the level of technical scrutiny

• Requires further analysis of known risks

• Reflects aspects of the 2021 Joint Review Panel findings

However, these changes do not resolve the fundamental problem: This is still a process document that re-opens a project already determined to be not in the public interest.

The Joint Review Panel did not reject the Grassy Mountain project due to insufficient information or minor design issues. It rejected the project because of inherent, unavoidable risks, particularly to water quality and aquatic ecosystems, arising from the nature and location of open-pit metallurgical coal mining.

The current Terms of Reference:

• Do not require Northback to demonstrate that these core risks have been eliminated

• Do not establish any threshold that would prevent approval if those risks persist

• Allow the project to advance on the basis that impacts can be described and “managed,” even where those impacts are long-term or irreversible

Requiring more detailed analysis of the same risks does not change the underlying conclusion that those risks may be unacceptable.

In effect, this process appears to re-litigate a settled decision without materially addressing the reasons for that decision.

This raises a broader concern about the integrity of the process itself.

If a project that has already been rejected on fundamental grounds can be reintroduced without demonstrating that those grounds have been resolved, then it is unclear what role the previous review, and the extensive public participation within it, actually serves.

This privacy failure, alongside the decision to advance a project already rejected due to inherent and unacceptable risks, underscores the extent to which the AER appears to be operating as an industry-captured regulator rather than an independent body acting in the public interest.

I expect a response addressing both the privacy breach and the concerns outlined above.

(Name withheld to respect privacy)

Here’s a link to the contentious Terms of Reference.

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