Albertans are saying yes to metallurgical coal
By Lethbridge Herald on November 13, 2025.
Editor,
This letter responds to Doreen Barrie’s Oct. 29 column, “Albertans need to step up and protect our water.”
Ms. Barrie’s article presents a narrow, one-sided view of this proposed project.
I live in the Crowsnest Pass and I voted yes—along with 72 per cent of our community—for developing metallurgical coal on Grassy Mountain. Does that mean my neighbours and I don’t care about our land, water, or wildlife? Absolutely not.
When our community was asked to vote on whether we wanted this project, we responded overwhelmingly with a “yes.” Seventy-two per cent of residents voted in favour, with turnout above 50 per cent. That’s a definitive measure of support for developing the Grassy Mountain project.
Ms. Barrie calls on Albertans to attempt to trigger a referendum on the project. I doubt she would celebrate the result.
Recent polling conducted by Janet Brown shows that six in ten Albertans believe Alberta should allow the mining of steelmaking coal. Support rises to 74 per cent when companies demonstrate they can protect waterways and the environment.
Albertans understand that we can develop our resources responsibly while protecting our environment – we’ve been doing it for generations. Our commitment to continuous improvement means we keep getting better at balancing development with impact.
Have there been issues at legacy developments? For sure. Coal mines in the Elk Valley have been in operation for over 100 years. That doesn’t mean those same issues will continue. Technology and processes improve.
Modern steelmaking-coal projects plan for water and selenium management from day one, utilizing engineered waste-rock storage, lined facilities, active treatment, and other advanced tools to manage this critical issue.
Comparing a modern project in the 2020s to a legacy mine is a false analogy. Lessons learned over the years have led to tighter rules, stricter regulations, and better designs. Somehow, Ms. Barrie’s article omits that context.
More than 80 per cent of the world’s steel is produced using metallurgical coal. The world will need steel for the foreseeable future, so that demand will be met somewhere, by someone. And “green steel”? Despite the headlines, it accounts for less than one per cent of global production—and that is unlikely to change soon.
We’ve allowed a small but deafening activist crowd to stall natural resource development in Canada by shouting “no.” If we want to get our country back on track and build a strong, growing economy that is less reliant on the United States, we need to start saying “yes.”
Ultimately, our community believes we can both protect water and create opportunities for our children and grandchildren.
We want them to build their futures here in the Pass. That future includes clean air, fresh water, and good, mortgage-paying jobs.
Carmen Linderman
Blairmore
18-17
Albertans in the CNP say yes to met coal but I suggest most Albertans would strongly disagree. We don’t want to see further contamination of the watershed and our major supply of freaky water. The Pass has been bought and paid by Northback Mining and wrongly think a coal mine would be an economic boom. Possibly in the short term but once met coal prices drop Northback will pack their bags and leave an environmental disaster for taxpayers to cleanup. Northback is just sitting back and waiting for a likely +$500 million taxpayer settlement from their lawsuit against Smiths irrational coal policies. Their proposal for an u/g coal mine is just a joke as an u/g mine is not economically freasible. Show me one u/g coal mine in Canada. They have all shutdown due to the large open operations being more profitable as long as the price of coal stays above $100/ton. The Pass’ future rests on expanding their fantastic recreational opportunities and not rely on a fly by nite Australian company.
Northback have not, and are not applying for an underground coal mine. Get your facts straight.
If the Pass has such a rosy recreational future, why hasn’t it already happened? Canmore and Fernie have taken off. Both ironically coal mining towns. If there why not here already? People like you are always taking about what ‘could happen in the future’ with no plan, no business model, and no evidence except hope.
Northback will present their business case during the regulatory process then you can pick it apart.
PS The only way that the government will have to settle with the company is if they deny their right to take their new plans to through the regulatory process.
Already been done: the Joint Review Panel said the project was not in the public interest – economically, socially, and environmentally.
What the writer fails to mention is that she and her husband are shills for a corporate lobby group called Energy United. She’s not simply a concerned member of the Crowsnest Pass community. In fact, it’s more likely that she’s being paid to make this campaign look like it has more individual support than it actually does. The fact that she didn’t disclose this connection calls into question her motives.
Can you make yourself look any dumber than you already have Carmen ? Why are you willing to ignore the fact that the industry has already been fined $60 million for polluting rivers and streams in B.C. and Montana ?
If all you are concerned about is jobs what’s wrong with creating the business of building Solar Panels which is where we are headed anyway?
It is sad to me that a group of people would defend their exploiters. There must be a psychology of the enslaved mind.
It seems that Carmen thinks that less than 2000 people on one municipality should speak for all of the downstream stakeholders who depend on clean water for drinking, industry and for agriculture.
We also know that the Janet Brown poll was paid for and directed by Northback Coal. The subsequent spin on the results fail to share the actual question posed to the Sample. It has been said that the question posed an As If scenario where tariffs with the U.S. were at issue and where the toxic water was (magically) cleaned before being reintroduced into our headwaters. So, no, 60 percent of Albertans are not ‘for’ mining metallurgical coal.
The plain fact is that there is no technology that will capture the selenium and other pollutants before entering our waterways. We cannot protect water except by preventing polluting industries from contaminating it.
The problem is that once these projects are approved, there is no going back. Surely, the documented health and environmental impacts caused by the many hundreds of coal mining operations worldwide is enough evidence that the Grassy Mountain Coal Project is a tragedy in waiting.
I hope, Carmen, that you and other enthusiasts for a short-term economic opportunity have the jobs guaranteed in writing. I would get more than a golf course paid up front before you unleash the consequences for us downstream folk.
Blairmore residents who voted for the mines bribed by receiving a nice golf course and fancy clubhouse are like frogs (in a soon to boil pot) doing a backstroke.