An abomination : Sask. water expert warns of contamination following Alberta s coal policy changes
Alberta s plan to allow for open-pit coal mining in the Rocky Mountains could be a serious threat to Saskatchewan s water supply, says the director of the Global Water Futures Project at the University of Saskatchewan.
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Investor presentations signalled the Kenney government aimed to open protected lands to open-pit mining.
Tyee contributing editor Andrew Nikiforuk is an award-winning journalist whose books and articles focus on epidemics, the energy industry, nature and more. SHARES Documents show Australian firms seeking open-pit coal mining leases in Alberta got signals protections to sensitive lands would be lifted, clearing the way. The public only found out months later, the day the Coal Policy was rescinded.
Photo: Shutterstock.
Australian mining firms seeking to strip-mine metallurgical coal in Alberta’s eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains knew well ahead of Albertans that the government was planning to rescind a law that stood in the way.
How Alberta’s energy and environment ministers misled on open-pit mining plans.
Tyee contributing editor Andrew Nikiforuk is an award-winning journalist whose books and articles focus on epidemics, the energy industry, nature and more. SHARES Alberta Energy Minister Sonya Savage with Premier Jason Kenney at a 2019 press conference. Neither made a public appearance in the face of a public backlash against the government’s easing of coal mining.
Photo by Jason Franson, the Canadian Press.
Last week Alberta’s government tried to hide political reality by issuing statements implying the “passion” of citizens had convinced it to back off its efforts to bring open-pit coal mining to a vast, ecologically-vital portion of the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains.
Meanwhile, signatures on two petitions on Facebook opposing the UPC government’s pro-coal mining moves surged past 100,000.
Last March, at the beginning of the pandemic, the Jason Kenney government quietly revoked the province’s 44-year-old Coal Policy.
The visionary policy, created by former premier Peter Lougheed after extensive public consultation, said most of the eastern slopes of the Rockies should remain off limits to mountain-top removal in order to protect water security, wildlife and the area’s beauty.
Kenney’s axing of the policy immediately opened up 1.5 million hectares of the Rockies for coal development, including the headwaters of major rivers in the South and North Saskatchewan river basins.