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Loopholes Still Allow Mountaintop Mining, Law Prof Warns, after Alberta Reinstates 1976 Coal Policy

Doubts are being raised about the Alberta government’s decision to restore a policy that protects the Rocky Mountains from coal mining.

Energy Minister Sonya Savage on Monday brought back a 1976 policy that keeps open-pit coal mines out of most of the Rockies and foothills. University of Calgary resource law professor Nigel Bankes says the ban doesn’t apply everywhere, despite Savage’s assurances that mountaintop removal mines are prohibited, The Canadian Press reports.

That means Benga Mining’s proposal for such a mine, now before a review panel, could still go ahead.

Bankes also points out exploration already permitted can still go ahead, so hundreds of drill sites and kilometres of roads could still be built despite return of the policy.

Environmentalist Kevin van Tighem calls bringing back the coal policy a “bait and switch.”

He says the energy minister’s letter to the Alberta Energy Regulator still allows for the possibility of open-pit mines.

Last November, APTN News reported concern about the C$800-million project on the part of the Kainai First Nation south of Calgary, also known as the Blood Tribe, despite previous support it received from the mainly Blackfoot bands in southern Alberta that make up Treaty. “This Grassy Mountain Coal Project will cause irreversible damage to our traditional territories, including the mountains, rivers and natural landscapes,” said Kainai member Latasha Calf Robe. “These mountains that our people have occupied since time immemorial will be gone and will never be able to be replaced.”

Calf Robe added that “no community-level consultation has been done on the Blood Tribe, and as far as I know, has not been done with any of the communities in Treaty 7.” So letters of support from Treaty 7 “were issued without community-level consultation in any of these communities.”

Ian Urquhart, conservation director with the Alberta Wilderness Association, said the project “raises important questions about climate change—both for the globe, and also for the federal government to try to meet its commitments under the Paris Accord.”

Coal “is a huge carbon polluter,” he told APTN, and “the steel sector that’s going to use the coal that Benga wants to produce is the largest single industrial source of (carbon and greenhouse) emissions on the planet.”

Benga is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Australian coal developer Riversdale Resources, APTN says.

Published with permission from The Energy Mix.

Alberta’s 1976 coal policy reinstated

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Alberta Grants Third Deadline Extension to Struggling ‘Foreign-Funded Radicals’ Panel

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The Alberta government has given an inquiry into the funding of oil and gas industry critics a third deadline extension to complete its report.

The inquiry headed by Steve Allen was to have completed the report by Sunday.

Late last Friday, the United Conservative government released an order-in-council amending the inquiry’s deadline to May 31, The Canadian Press reports.

“Cabinet has granted the commissioner’s request for an extension to ensure he is able to complete a comprehensive investigation into a possible well-funded foreign campaign aimed at discrediting the province’s energy sector,” Peter Brodsky, press secretary for Alberta Energy Minister Sonya Savage, wrote in an email.

“Cabinet allowed the extension to ensure that potential participants have a fair opportunity to provide input.”

Brodsky said no additional funds will be provided to complete the inquiry.

Premier Jason Kenney and his government contend that foreign interests have long been bankrolling campaigns against Canadian fossil fuel development. But the province had previously dialled back expectations for the panel’s results, one of its most venerable charitable foundations had found its claims “undemocratic” and “unfounded”, and extensive research from within the Alberta oilpatch has already debunked the wild assumptions on which the inquiry was based.

Allan, a forensic accountant, was tapped in 2019 to lead the public inquiry with an initial budget of $2.5 million and a July 2020 deadline.

Last summer, Allan was given a four-month extension and a $1-million budget increase.

In October, the inquiry got another 90-day extension, but no new money.

Savage must publish the final report within 90 days of receiving it.

Earlier Friday, the Opposition NDP called on the government to immediately release the results of the “overdue, over-budget, scandal-tainted, not-so-public inquiry” once it’s received.

“Albertans have waited long enough to hear back from this kangaroo court,” energy critic Kathleen Ganley said in a statement.

She noted that thousands of energy sector workers are without a job, projects have been cancelled, investment has fled, and new U.S. President Joe Biden has cancelled the Alberta-to-Texas Keystone XL oil pipeline expansion.

Environmental law group Ecojustice filed a lawsuit in November 2019 that alleged the inquiry was politically motivated, biased, and outside provincial jurisdiction. Late last year, Ecojustice lost a court bid to have Allan’s work paused until there was a ruling in the lawsuit.

Eleven groups and individuals were granted standing to be a “participant for commentary” before the inquiry, but their identities are not being disclosed.

Participants were provided reading material, including links to reports commissioned by the inquiry that contained passages denying or downplaying the broad scientific consensus around human-caused climate change. Those materials no longer appear to be on the website.

One commissioned report, by University of Calgary political scientist Barry Cooper, argued that philanthropic foundations have been captured by ideological environmental activists. It mentioned “growing scientific skepticism regarding the so-called consensus view regarding anthropogenic climate change” and “apocalyptic” and “alarmist” “rhetoric” around the issue.

Another report the inquiry requested from T.L. Nemeth contended there was a “transnational global movement” afoot to replace the current capitalist world order with “a new global low-carbon, net-zero civilization.” In it, the author suggested climate change is not due to human activity, but natural phenomena, and that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant, but “a gas essential to all life on Earth.”

The inquiry said on its website that the reports were meant to “obtain perspectives” from participants and didn’t represent any findings or positions it has taken. Allan does not consider the science of climate change to be part of the inquiry’s mandate, the website originally said.

Those comments were part of the same section that appears to have been taken down.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published January 29, 2021.

This article was reprinted with permission from The Energy Mix.

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Alberta Coal Expansion Plan Raises Flags Over Past Toxic Contamination, Missed Monitoring

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EDMONTON — Critics are asking why Alberta Environment has been sitting on years’ worth of data about pollution from coal mines while the government considers a dramatic expansion of the industry.

“It raises some important questions about our ability to trust what’s going on,” said New Democrat environment critic Marlin Schmidt. “The fact (Alberta Environment) hasn’t reported publicly is extremely concerning.”

On Monday, The Canadian Press reported on analysis of coal mine contamination in the Gregg and McLeod Rivers and Luscar Creek near Jasper, Alberta, dating back to the 1990s. It found toxic levels of selenium many times over the amount considered safe for aquatic life, CP says.

The Gregg and Luscar Creek mines closed in the early 2000s. Selenium levels from both declined, at best, only gradually over more than 15 years of remediation.

In the case of the Cheviot mine on the McLeod River, levels gradually grew between 2005 and 2017. The operation closed last June.

The data also shows the provincial government knew about the levels for at least 15 years and did not report anything after 2006. The information was available in raw form, but Schmidt said it isn’t enough to simply collect information.

“There are numbers and then there are the numbers that the stories tell. That’s the piece that’s missing.”

The New Democrats were in power for four of those years. Schmidt said sitting on the information is worse now because Alberta is going through a wrenching debate over the present government’s plans to expand the industry by opening up the Rocky Mountains to open-pit, mountaintop coal mines—an option that did not exist under the NDP.

“This data’s relevance is more important now,” he said.

Alberta Environment has pointed out that the raw data has always been public. Spokesperson John Muir promised the province would soon release its own report on water downstream of coal mines.

Lack of action shows that monitoring often promised by industry and government as new projects are considered isn’t enough, said Katie Morrison of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society.

“On those rivers we’re seeing that monitoring hasn’t been enough to actually control selenium. We just continue to promise monitoring. We didn’t see action to bring those selenium numbers down.”

A 2006 provincial report found that selenium was already harming fish. As well, a 2005 published study co-authored by provincial scientists found rainbow trout were suffering facial and skeletal deformities from selenium.

The province has recently sold about 1.4 million hectares of coal exploration leases. Hundreds of drill sites and kilometres of new roads have already been permitted on previously unmined mountainsides. One new coal mine, Benga Mining’s Grassy Mountain project in the Crowsnest Pass in southwestern Alberta, is before a joint federal-provincial review.

The information on the old coal mines shows what’s at issue for new ones, said Morrison.

“Those stakes are really high,” she told CP. Selenium release “has been happening other places and they have not been able to get the selenium under control.”

Benga says a new method should allow the mine to treat 99% of its selenium. As well, the mine has been designed to minimize contact between water and selenium-bearing rocks, the company says.

Morrison said that treatment is still unproven. She said if its efficiency falls to even 90%, selenium levels in nearby streams will cross thresholds safe for aquatic life.

Morrison said her group produced expert testimony at the Benga hearings suggesting the company doesn’t have a convincing long-term plan for controlling selenium long into the future.

“We have not seen that technology work at the scale that we’ll need it to or with the amount of selenium we’re likely to see.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published January 26, 2021

Reprinted from The Energy Mix with permission

Steve MacLellan

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Tag Archives: alberta

Loopholes Still Allow Mountaintop Mining, Law Prof Warns, after Alberta Reinstates 1976 Coal Policy

Alberta’s 1976 coal policy reinstated

New Alberta coal policy coming next week, energy minister says

Alberta Grants Third Deadline Extension to Struggling ‘Foreign-Funded Radicals’ Panel

Alberta Coal Expansion Plan Raises Flags Over Past Toxic Contamination, Missed Monitoring

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