Coal policy served a purpose

By Letter to the Editor on January 30, 2021.

Editor:
There is a new culture in our Alberta government. It’s one of secret decision-making, rather than transparency and consultation. It has caused a furor over coal exploration and mining in the mountains and foothills of southwestern Alberta. Most of us knew about the Grassy Mountain mine, a sacrifice of our Crowsnest River headwaters to a shaky venture by offshore speculators. Now we discover Alberta has granted additional coal leases for coal exploration throughout our Oldman River headwaters. The resulting backlash is not just from the ‘environmental left’, as our premier calls any citizen brave enough to speak up for nature conservation, but from a broad spectrum of Albertans, including the ‘conservative right.’ Ranchers, hunters, motorized recreationists, first nations, and tourism operators are all expressing anger at how they have been duped and betrayed by their own government. They are realizing their pristine headwaters have been sold, causing smothering of trout spawning grounds with silt, selenium poisoning, and displacement of wildlife.
The dishonest trickery is in our government’s pretense that their revoking of the 1976 Coal Policy was done because it was obsolete. This rescinding was done at closing time the last day before Easter Weekend in the peak of the spring wave of Covid. Most of us didn’t notice, nor did we understand the significance of it. Did our leaders explain what it meant? No.
The Coal Policy was not a perfect document, but it’s existence was, in lieu of anything better, serving a purpose. It could have been dusted off and revised following consultation, but did our government initiate such a process? No. Once the decision was made to rescind it, did our government turn to its other policies and strategies, such as its Integrated Resource Plans that were developed by experts and multiple stakeholders in the 1980s and 1990s? No! Did the government check its own Eastern Slopes Policy, that identifies protection of alpine areas and critical wildlife areas, and emphasizes headwater protection? No! Did the government refer to its own Water for Life Strategy (2003) and the resulting Watershed Management Plans that arose from it? No!
All these government policies and strategies provide guidance on land use and recommend against poorly regulated coal exploration and development in the southwestern Rockies and their Eastern Slope foothills. They were prepared after thousands of hours of consultation between resource professionals and public citizens who volunteered their time. All have been ignored while our government uses closed-door decision-making sessions to make their non-consulted decisions to sell off coal leases at bargain basement prices. Now there are over a thousand coal exploration sites being drilled, requiring hundreds of kilometres of new roads. And the latest insult is the announcement by the Energy Minister revoking a tiny proportion, less than 1%, of these coal leases, and portraying this deflective sidestep as a concession to try to quell the public backlash.
Was the old Coal Policy up to date and as specific as it needed to be? No. Did your Alberta Government initiate a consultation process to update it? No. What has the Government replaced it with, from their potpourri of policy and product choices? Nothing. Was this the way of Lougheed, Getty, Klein, Stelmach, or Notley? No! This is a sad demonstration of a new culture for an Alberta Government.

Richard Quinlan
retired wildlife biologist