Tag Archives: environment

Historic Alberta coal community wrestles with plans for new mining

Grassy Mountain

Selenium leaching has been linked to mass deaths of Westslope cutthroat trout and has sparked disputes with U.S. officials concerned about the pollution flowing over the border into Montana and Idaho.

Riversdale says Grassy Mountain will be different.

Gary Houston, the company’s vice-president of external affairs of Riversdale Resources, says the project north of Blairmore was “specifically designed from the ground up to effectively capture and treat selenium in water sources.”

As conservation director with the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Association’s southern Alberta branch, Katie Morrison worries about the water in particular.

For years, the B.C. mines leached selenium into streams and rivers, despite efforts by mining giant Teck to control the pollution. Selenium is an element that can be toxic in large amounts and it has been routinely detected at levels well above guidelines in waterways downstream of the B.C. mines.

She says the mitigations the company has proposed are “really new” and “fairly untested at the scale of a mine.”

“When we look at the history of coal mining, both just over the border in the Elk Valley, as well as other places in North America, there has actually never been a case where the mine has successfully been able to mitigate and control selenium release,” she said.

“So best laid-plans and intentions by the companies to mitigate, but I don’t really have any confidence that things won’t go wrong.”

Some residents of historic Crowsnest Pass, Alta., hope a new mining opportunity will lift up their town’s economy. But others fear negative consequences from open-pit mining in a postcard setting tucked at the foot of the Rocky Mountains.

Source: Historic Alberta coal community wrestles with plans for new mining | CBC News

Grassy Mountain Coal Project Public Hearings to begin on October 27, 2020
Saying no to a coal comeback: The Vista coal mine
Selenium’s coal mining impact on the environment
Mountaintop coal mine hearings to begin amidst fears of pollution, development rush

This entry was posted in General and tagged alberta, coal, environment, fish, Jonathan Wilkinson on October 27, 2020 by Steve.

Mountaintop coal mine hearings to begin amidst fears of pollution, development rush

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Grassy Mountain, Alberta — THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO-Riversdale

Lethbridge city council, which relies on the Oldman, has expressed concerns about the project.

And the Oldman Watershed Council has pointed out that the river is the water supply for 90 per cent of people downstream.

“Southern Alberta does not have alternative rivers or lakes to draw water from,” the council said in its submission to the hearing. “The Oldman River is the only option for us and so we are particularly vulnerable to upstream contamination.”

Selenium isn’t the only concern. Ian Urquhart of the Alberta Wilderness Association said the project would reduce habitat for one of the last pure populations of native westslope cutthroat trout, a threatened species.

“We already know the current level of habitat is insufficient. With this project, we’re talking about a permanent loss of in-stream habitat and a promise that somehow we’re going to compensate for this and make it better.”

Source: Mountaintop coal mine hearings to begin amidst fears of pollution, development rush | Kamloops This Week

Grassy Mountain Coal Project Public Hearings to begin on October 27, 2020
Saying no to a coal comeback: The Vista coal mine
Selenium’s coal mining impact on the environment

This entry was posted in General and tagged alberta, coal, environment, water on October 25, 2020 by Steve.

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RCMP spent more than $13M on policing Coastal GasLink conflict on Wet’suwet’en territory | CBC News

For
almost two years the RCMP have maintained a near constant presence on
the Morice Forest Service Road about 300 kilometres west of Prince
George, B.C. — a remote logging road through the heart of the
Wet’suwet’en Nation’s traditional territory — to uphold a B.C. Supreme
Court injunction first granted to Coastal GasLink in December 2018.

The
670-kilometre Coastal GasLink pipeline is part of an estimated $40
billion dollar natural gas project — touted as the largest private
sector investment in Canadian history.

October 23, 2020

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Alberta Government Lays Out Welcome Mat for Australian Coal Mining Interests – The Energy Mix

The Tyee adds that while ordinary Albertans were not
consulted, the Kenney government did meet with the Coal Association of
Canada’s Robin Campbell, a former Progressive Conservative MLA and
provincial environment minister who “actively lobbied for the Coal
Policy’s demise on behalf of his Australian clients.”

Further sweetening the pot, the province “has sent letters
of support to Australian mining speculators offering them less red tape
and lower corporate taxes,” along with an expedited permitting process.
The latter will be enabled by the fact that it “has staffed the Alberta
Energy Regulator, which will review each coal mining project, with
people whose pasts are aligned with resource extracting corporations.”

One such person is “self-described ‘political activist’
John Weissenberger, who worked on Jason Kenney’s election campaign,”
adds The Tyee.

October 23, 2020

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IEEFA Foresees ‘Stranded Assets, Depleted Finance’ in British Columbia’s LNG Strategy

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The Conference Board of Canada stands accused of “doubling down on a bad hand” after the Cleveland-based Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) reviewed its latest assessment of British Columbia’s prospects for a successful liquefied natural gas (LNG) boom.

A Conference Board report issued in late July “claims an expansion of the British Columbian LNG industry could add almost 100,000 jobs annually and more than $158 billion in revenue for provincial and federal governments,” IEEFA writes in a release.

But “the most important fact is that the fundamentals of British Columbia’s LNG export cost structure are not competitive enough to keep private capital interested,” said Melissa Brown, IEEFA’s director of Asian energy finance studies. “Although many pundits cite political and regulatory issues, Canadian LNG’s biggest problem is profitability.”

She added that the Conference Board’s “exaggerated demand assumptions and disregard for China’s manifest price sensitivity are the fatal misunderstandings of its argument.” That means the Ottawa-based think tank is ultimately calling on provincial and governments to buy in to “sustained subsidies that may only yield stranded assets, depleted finances, and delayed retraining obligations.”

Source: IEEFA Foresees ‘Stranded Assets, Depleted Finance’ in British Columbia’s LNG Strategy – The Energy Mix

This entry was posted in General and tagged British Columbia, environment, natural gas, pipelines on October 23, 2020 by Steve.

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Tag Archives: environment

Historic Alberta coal community wrestles with plans for new mining

Mountaintop coal mine hearings to begin amidst fears of pollution, development rush

IEEFA Foresees ‘Stranded Assets, Depleted Finance’ in British Columbia’s LNG Strategy

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