Any Informed Albertan Would Ban Eastern Slopes Coal
Views of an artist, outdoor enthusiast, activist, retired lawyer, and informed Albertan.
Any Informed Albertan Would Ban Eastern Slopes Coal
by Neil Kathol - Director, Livingstone Landowners Group
Have you heard? The coal mines are very-much back. 800 square miles of Eastern Slopes land is under coal mine proposals. Here are some basic facts the coal companies and our government are keeping from you, using the Grassy/Blairmore mine as the example.
Falsely touted as a mere reworking of a legacy mine, Grassy would disturb 50 to 100 (or more) times the area left un-reclaimed. Caprock up to 450 meters deep would have to be blasted by dynamite to access coal. For 20 years. The fractured rock would be piled up in a tailings pond(s) of 9-10 square-miles, requiring a century of treatment and monitoring.
Selenium is necessary in trace amounts but animal and human health is very sensitive to exceedances. At coal mines it escapes down into groundwater and out of the pond effluent. High winds blow toxic coal particulate from coal extraction equipment, stockpiles, conveyors, and railway cars. One Alberta-government study found high Selenium levels in a lake 50 kilometers away. All of the so-called “Five Papers” once boasted-about by our pro-coal Environment Minister turned out – when obtained and read - to affirm coal mines are very bad for the environment.
Selenium is a major problem regardless of how coal is mined. Engineers confirmed even the latest and best technology for treatment of the toxic pond fluids releases dangerous amounts of the rock-leached selenium, nitrates, heavy metals. For 100 years. Enough Selenium to cause Alberta-based professional agrologists with PhD’s and 40 years of work experience to study and summarize the pertinent literature stating, we need to be very worried.
The Alberta and Federal authors of the 2021 Federal-Provincial 680-page Report on Grassy (easily accessed online) slammed the mine on all counts. They drew on the advice of experts from Health Canada, to Fisheries and Oceans, and everyone in between. They studied the continued failures in the Elk Valley where hundreds of millions haven’t stemmed the pollution in Elkford’s, Sparwood’s, or Fernie’s water. They expressly noted Selenium in the Oldman River will likely occur as far as into downstream irrigation and feedlot country. Intensive irrigation and feedlot operations are the two worst conditions experts across North America know of, for bio-accumulation of Selenium in fish, birds, plants and animals.
There is no system to remove Selenium from the rivers. Lethbridge’s water treatment systems do not have the means to even try.
What Lethbridge does have, is a $14 billion/year worldwide food industry. Built up for 70 years. Thousands of jobs. McCain just expanded its potato plant providing 250 new, permanent jobs. Even minor Selenium exceedances cause food shipments to be rejected. The Ag Industry was promised clean and sufficient water from the Oldman. Grassy alone would remove 900,000 m3 of water/year for 20 years (besides polluting what is left). Alberta has been in a drought cycle, while its population grew at double Canada’s growth rate.
Coal poker is being played out in a court case that our Premier said: “has to be taken seriously”. One Cabinet member said we either pay the Coal Plaintiffs $14 – 19 Billion or let them mine. “Contractual obligations”, quipped our Minister of Energy, who announced relaxed, “modernization” rules to accommodate industry are coming (industry applauded the move).
The pro-coal supporters have not tabled any pro-coal literature. Grassy would pay zero royalties. Pro-coal clichés like: “Alberta’s got to do its part and contribute met coal to the world! Steel is for solar panels!”, obviously ring hollow. Besides, doubtful anyone uttering such remarks asked their MLA to do Alberta’s part to reduce world carbon.
“Don't confuse me with facts, my mind is made up” doesn’t cut it anymore. Nor, talking out of both sides of the mouth: “No coal, no selenium …but …wait … we’ll just modernize it … anyway, Grassy is exempt!”.
If destroying fisheries and iconic pine trees, blowing up gobsmacking foothills scenery with Crowsnest Mountain views, blocking a critical wildlife corridor and killing a heritage-ranch economy isn’t a concern, surely an imminent, decades-long economic disaster is. Time to listen, read and think. Time to ban Eastern Slopes coal.
During coal scare 1.0 (after Kenney, et. al. rescinded Lougheed's coal policy) my wife and I heard a man with decades of coal industry experience question whether Grassy Mountain coal was of met quality. Even if it is, the demand fro met coal may be declining by the time these mines are producing. Steel companies are already switching to production processes that don't require met coal.
We need to stop this callous plan to wreck our water towers, poison our watersheds, and perhaps worst of all....pulverize the water towers that collect and release ground water into all the streams and rivers rising on those slopes. Given rising global temperatures, the glaciers will soon be gone. All we'll have left will be our intact eastern slopes...but coal mining destroys those ecospheres and leaves mounds of crushed rubble in its wake....
Even if we could survive the selenium poisoning, our children's children will not be able to live in an Alberta with depleted and poisoned water. This is an extinction project.....imagine blasting away our eastern slopes to create low hills of crushed rock rubble and possible profits for an Australian millionaire!
Albertans need to shut these projects down.