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Letter: Help stop an ill-conceived and incredibly dangerous initiative

Why would anyone consider tearing up our beautiful mountains and streams to turn them into ugly, polluted wastelands?
opinion

When I first learned that Premier Jason Kenney had opened up large swaths of our mountains for open pit coal mining by Australian corporations I was stunned. 

Why would anyone consider tearing up our beautiful mountains and streams to turn them into ugly, polluted wastelands? The hideousness of dirty holes in the mountains, mounds of waste filling the valleys and streams, and coal dust blowing in our west winds is repugnant.  

Scientists and those familiar with the areas have decried the devastating impact on the forests, wildlife, fish, water, and air quality.  

Strip mining operations will take our most valuable resource, water; wash coal with it, and release all kinds of toxic metals into our streams and rivers.  It will reduce the amount of water for irrigation, municipal, and other uses.  

Selenium, toxic in minute quantities, is a byproduct that defies all attempts to control or treat.  The plan is to dump it in tailing ponds at the top of our watersheds and hope it never leaches or gets out for thousands of years.  

Troubling steps taken by the Kenney government include: secretly talking to the coal industry with promises to clear any regulatory obstacles and taking steps to do so, announcing the repeal of the 1976 policy when no one was watching, and immediately granting leases over millions of acres of our mountains, including parks they had conveniently closed down. 

When there was a public outcry they falsely claimed that newer regulations adequately replaced the provisions of the 1976 policy.  They then announced a pause and rollback of the leases, but that was only for 0.2 per cent of the areas just leased.  

Most recently, they said they reinstated the 1976 policy and promised consultations.  However, intrusive and damaging exploration continues in 6 fragile areas and they continue to announce that their goal is to work out how the mining can take place.  

Will the public discussions have to accept that as the base line? They talk of modernizing our policies as if there is some difference in strip mining now from 40 years ago.  The only thing new is automation, reducing jobs.  The announced consultations are to be managed by the energy department, not an independent party. They continue to hide rather than lay our their entire plans as they require municipalities to do, discrediting the integrity of the consultations before they start.

Premier Kenney, from Ontario, says he has learned that Albertans want to treat coal differently than oil and gas.  No, Premier Kenney, the issue is our mountains and streams, not coal.

No case as to why this is a good idea, even economically, has been made. The royalty rate is miniscule. A court affidavit they filed estimated annual lease revenues at $2.3 million. This compared to a budget of $40 billion?  

What about the losses to tourism and other industries, and the possibility of catastrophic costs of selenium releases. The only benefit is to the billionaires who will create new subsidiaries, take the profits, and leave us with the mess. 

The shell companies will by then have no assets, only abandoned mines. Go to Protect Alberta’s Rockies website or Facebook page and to similar sites for further information, and then help stop this ill-conceived and incredibly dangerous initiative.

James Wilde,

Carstairs

 

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