Review process in Alberta needs to be revised
By Letter to the Editor on June 23, 2021.
Editor:
The Grassy Mountain Joint (federal/provincial) Review Panel, in response to a wealth of input from from Albertans and Canada’s multidisciplinary science community, has made a decision.
It rejected all the applications Benga Mining made for its Grassy Mountain Coal Project, determining the proposed project’s “… significant adverse environmental effects on surface water quality and westslope cutthroat trout and habitat outweigh the low to moderate positive economic impacts.”
The Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) went on to report this: ” … the project is not in the public interest.”
The decision noted, it was the people of Alberta, not the Government of Alberta, who, in what’s felt like a lifetime of uphill grassroots effort, exposed the proposed Grassy Mountain Coal Project for what the Joint Review Panel has now determined it is.
In the wake the AER’s decision, there’s this huge takeaway: The process of reviewing proposed industrial projects in Alberta needs to be revised to ensure that the people of Alberta don’t need to put their lives and livelihoods on hold to invest thousands of hours and their own hard-earned money to analyze and evaluate what-logic screams-an elected government is relied upon to do: assess, accurately and holistically, a proposed project’s true value before it’s imposed upon the land and its people.
Thanks to the people of Alberta and the AER’s review of their input, a black curtain has been lifted. Today, the sun shines down upon the people of Crowsnest Pass, on Grassy Mountain, and throughout Alberta’s Eastern Slopes.
Birds are singing, the future’s bright, and in the wind there’s a vision of hope. The streams, clear and cold, are beckoning.
The picture: Long-range health, wealth, and prosperity bask in the beauty of an intact Rocky Mountain landscape.
David McIntyre
Crowsnest Pass
-1
David: BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! You “NAILED IT” So well stated. Thank you. This fight with our so called “elected officials” should never, ever have happened with the people they were elected to serve.
It is always horrible to have to learn lessons pertaining to our health, safety and livelihood of our habitat too late. Please read todays news article; “UNESCO says industry, poor governance ‘likely’ endanger Wood Buffalo National Park” By Bob Weber The Canadian Press;
This article is another tragic reminder how ineffective our government was in protecting the environment .” Canada’s largest national park is now so threatened by upstream development and divided governance that it likely meets the criteria to be placed on the list of World Heritage sites in danger.”
“Meanwhile, Alberta has made no progress on a promised risk assessment of the ponds, says the report.
“It is of high concern that the risk assessment of the tailings ponds… has not started.”
Thankfully you have stated the issue so well “In the wake the AER’s decision, there’s this huge takeaway: The process of reviewing proposed industrial projects in Alberta needs to be revised to ensure that the people of Alberta don’t need to put their lives and livelihoods on hold to invest thousands of hours and their own hard-earned money to analyze and evaluate what-logic screams-an elected government is relied upon to do: assess, accurately and holistically, a proposed project’s true value before it’s imposed upon the land and its people.”
I hope all the people who invested their; lives, livelihoods and hard earned money can somehow be reimbursed, or rewarded for standing strong.
Thank you for your time and attention.
now, hopefully the ucp will listen to what the people want. they work for us not their party, which has become a common thread with all elected politicians. one elected they seem to have free reign to do as THEY want