Only alfalfa will grow
By Lethbridge Herald on January 29, 2021.
Editor:
Up by Hinton, you can find the reclaimed Cardinal River mine site which was operated by TECK Coal, the same company currently operating in the Elk Valley. Check out Perry Hayward’s Facebook post from Jan 23 “Protect Alberta’s Rockies and Headwaters.” You will see a photo of this reclaimed site and it looks pretty great. Grass as green and smooth as a golf course! Except, it’s not grass…it’s alfalfa because that’s about the only thing which will grow there now. So far, there are no trees and there may never be trees. This site used to be a pristine mountain valley, now filled in with waste from taking down the nearby mountain for open pit mining. This waste is steadily leaching selenium into the watershed. Let’s hope our provincial government decides not to force southern Alberta down this path of environmental degradation.
Leslie Lavers
Lethbridge
-1
It’s obvious you dislike coal mining but let’s try to stick to facts if you want to publish an objection. Only Alfalfa will grow? Are you sure? Alfalfa is s good choice for reclaiming land because it is hardy, doesn’t need re-seeding, and may have a commercial value in selling it as hay or as grazing land (unless of course you don’t like the beef industry either). There are no trees on the site, but have they tried re-planting trees? You claim the land is leaching selenium into the groundwater; well is it? Or is this your theory.
Nobody likes a sewage plant but we all want indoor plumbing. Nobody likes a coal mine but we don’t mind driving a car made of steel.
I’m not certain if I do or don’t support the coal mine proposed for Alberta. I’m still trying to find the truth about it’s real affect on the environment. But listening to theories not based on any facts is not a helpful way to make decisions.
The world is finally clear of the worst liar we have ever seen in politics (albeit maybe only for a short time). The damage done by misinformation will be felt for a long while. Let’s not repeat the process in Canada.
Search for truth and facts, then make an informed decision.
So are you saying Bill that you don’t think that Lougheed was smart enough to determine what a disaster it would be if he didn’t put regulations in place to make certain it never happened?
Have you bothered to look what other things these phoney conservatives have destroyed of Lougheed’s over the years.
Slashed Royalties $575 billion lost and still growing.
Slashed taxes $150 billion lost and still growing.
Slashed rules and regulations creating a $260 billion orphan well mess for farmers and ranchers.
Tried to drive out doctors from rural Alberta so they could close down their health care system. Which retired doctors tell us would definitely cost some Albertans their lives.
Has destroyed Lougheed’s protection for our mountains and water supply .
It doesn’t surprise any of the true conservatives in my world that 73% of Albertans have seen enough of this phoney conservative , Liberal turned Reformer in Jason Kenney and you should also. As former MLAs from the Lougheed era taught me you can’t trust a Reformer, and they have proven it.
Had a brief moment of elation”clear of biggest liar we have ever seen in politics” Thought (hoped) the blackface turd was gone!No such luck.
Perhaps, this might be a pertinent read:
“Selenium In The Elk Valley: Are We Locking In Centuries Of Water Pollution?”
http://www.wildsight.ca2017/11/20/selenium-crisis/
It’s not as if we haven’t been warned. Many of us want our Premier Peter Lougheed’s “Coal Policy” back. We want our mountains, waters, environment, wildlife habitat, agriculture, and, our enjoyment of the vistas let alone our $multilbillion tourist industry, protected.
What these Australian coal mining companies want are: cheap land, low royalty rates, politicians/governments who cater to them and lax regulations. Is this what the Kenney UCP will give them? We cannot let this happen! Come on, everybody….connect with your MLAs and MPs and voice your concerns and opposition to open-pit coal mining in Alberta. It is being said that if coal is needed to make steel (despite more modern, cleaner steel-making methods in the works) there are many more less impactful places in this world to extract this type of coal. These Australian companies are just trying to cash in on Kenney UCP ‘low-hanging fruit.’
Already, many Alberta folks are rethinking voting for the UCP. No wonder they are way down in approval ratings. As Mayor Craig Snodgrass of High River, AB has aptly stated re: open-pit coal mining, Kenney is full of ****. He and many of the rest of us in the Livingston-Macleod riding voted for Cam Gardner, the NDP candidate in 2019 who would have been the better representative for us. He is a rancher in the area who has served as reeve and councillor for the Municipal District of Ranchland. What the Kenney UCP, et al, need to be told, either you give us our “Coal Policy” back or, you’re out. If they haven’t, by now, realized that a 2nd term for them is in jeopardy, they should.
You maybe interested in this . In the 1980s two women came to work for me in Edmonton . They had moved with their families from Elk Valley to get away from the obvious coal pollution problem that was happening there. Their husbands had worked in the coal industry for years and had accepted new jobs in the open pit mines at lake Wabamun west of Edmonton where the pollution was contained in pits and was being used in the area for the three power plants.
The problem they ran into at Wabamun was when they got down below the lake level the lake began seeping into the pits and the lake level dropped five feet and the residents were furious. A brother in-law was selling water pumps at the time and TransAlta became his best customer. They had to pump water out of the pits. A pipeline was built from the North Saskatchewan River to bring the water levels in the lake back up and keep them there and .these power plants are now being converted to Natural gas and one has been scraped.
Thanks to the pollution created by these power plants you can no longer eat the fish from the lake. As my late Power Plant Engineer father used to say “You can’t win with Coal”.