Water For Food, a group headed up by former Lethbridge Mayor Chris Spearman, has submitted a petition to the Alberta Legislature. More than 6,800 people opposed to the Grassy Mountain Coal Project have signed it.
“Most of the people live in the Oldman River watershed downstream of the proposed mine. About 1,000 lived out of the area,” Spearman told TheRockies.Life in an interview.
The petition is a response to a Crowsnest Pass plebiscite held last November, in which 1,957 people voted in favor of the Grassy Mountain mine. Coal proponent Northback Holdings Corporation offered people free rides to the voting station.
Democracy Hasn’t Spoken
Following the vote, Energy and Minerals Minister Brian Jean told CBC in an emailed statement that the results showed strong support in the community for the mine.
However, Cowsnest citizens weren’t voting on a new skating rink or a new stoplight that would change their daily lives. They were voting in support of a mine that doesn’t lie within their boundaries, Spearman said.
“Brian Jean thought that democracy had spoken, but [the Municipal District of] Ranchland, where the proposed mine would be located, didn’t get to vote. Vacation property owners didn’t get to vote, and farmers and communities downstreams of the mine who could have their water contaminated with selenium didn’t get to vote,” Spearman said. “Our goal was to give those people a voice who didn’t get a voice before.”
Selenium is a mineral that coal mining operations often release. It’s toxic to aquatic life at high enough concentrations, and is now a major pollution issue for southeastern BC’s coal mines and residents.
Albertans Concerned About Water
Spearman admits to holding little hope that their petition will influence the two people who matter the most on this issue, namely, Danielle Smith and Brian Jean. He says the pair are determined to move Grassy Mountain forward, despite the objections of a majority of Albertans. In a recent survey of one thousand Albertans, more than 70 percent were concerned about selenium and coal dust contamination from Grassy Mountain.
Spearman predicts coal mining will be an election issue when Albertans go to the polls again in two years.
“This is not a left versus right issue, or a tree-hugger issue. This is about Albertans who are very concerned about watershed and water in southwestern Alberta,” he said.
Many opponents thought the mine proposal was dead after a federal Joint Review Panel (JRP) rejected it in 2021, saying that the company Benga Mining, a subsidiary of Hancock Prospecting, the same Australian company that owns Northback, had overstated economic benefits and understated environmental impacts.
Despite losing two appeals of the JRP decision, Hancock Prospecting was able to bring the mine proposal back into play under Northback Holdings, their new label.
Hard Work Tossed in the Garbage
Bill Trafford, president of Livingstone Landowners Group, sat on the provincially-appointed coal policy committee formed in 2021 by then-energy minister Sonya Savage. The committee was tasked with soliciting public and industry opinion on how best to shape the future of coal mining on the eastern slopes.
Land-use planning, consultation with First Nations, and reviewing coal royalties prior to opening up the eastern slopes to coal mining were among the eight recommendations the committee made to the provincial government in its final report submitted December 2021.
Trafford and many Albertans were blindsided by the government’s decision in January to ignore the report and reopen the eastern slopes to coal development.“The coal committee carried out one of the most comprehensive public engagement processes in Alberta history. Those weren’t our recommendations. They were the distillation of hundreds of conversations, feedback and input we got from Albertans and industry,” he told TheRockies.Life. “Then to have that work tossed in the garbage, that’s very frustrating.”
