Proposed coal mine would be detrimental to water supply
By Lethbridge Herald on March 20, 2026.
Editor:
The CEO of Northback recently wrote to the Herald, extolling the wonderful things that might come from developing a coal mine in the East Slopes. As an executive earning at least six figures, he can be expected to be positive about his project.
As a retired rural physician, I can be excused for being skeptical about those claims. I spent 30 years listening to salesmen try to sell me things. I recognize a sales job when I see one.
Mr. Young listed numerous natural resources that Alberta has in abundance, and how they had been exploited to provide Albertans with a wonderful life. But, he failed to mention one resource that we do not have in abundance. And that resource, water, is absolutely essential to all the other wonderful things in Alberta.
If we do not have a reliable supply of clean water, we are done. And not only southern Alberta, but most of the population centres in Alberta, and Saskatchewan can not exist without ample clean water from our major rivers..
The water that has supported most of Alberta and Saskatchewan comes almost exclusively from the East Slopes of the Rocky Mountains. Collectively, we are dependent on that thin green stripe, effectively Mother Nature’s sponge, to collect, hold and slowly release the water that our ‘Water Tower’ mountains wring out of the clouds coming from British Columbia.
That truth was recognized by the Dominion Forester in far away Ottawa back in the 1880s when the Forest Reserve was created. It was designed to protect the water source that was vital to settlement on the Prairies.
It remains vital to this day. There is simply no substitute for water, and it must be jealously protected. We can not allow salesmen and politicians to endanger our most valuable and irreplaceable natural resource.
A coal mine will endanger the water supply that is critical to Lethbridge, and much of southern Alberta. A mine will use a lot of water directly, and it will contaminate even more water.
Every year, the mine will remove many hundreds of acre feet of water from the Crowsnest River basin, and thus from the Oldman River. It does not matter that (they say) they will not draw from the local creeks, they will draw their water from somewhere, and that water would have reached the Crowsnest River eventually.
Water will flow through the mine site, and it will pick up contaminants as it does so. Mr Young talks of treating the water to remove that material,. He does not mention that no company has ever managed to make the water safe, at any coal mine anywhere in the world. Miners can lower the levels of contaminants, but they can not make the water clean. It will remain hazardous to aquatic life downstream of the mine for at least many decades.
If we, collectively, allow the salesmen to seduce the politicians with promises of hundreds of jobs and untold dollars in taxes and such, we will be risking the entire southern Alberta economy. Northback’s mine, which will primarily benefit foreign owners, must not be allowed to proceed.
Please write your MLA, sign the Water not Coal petition, demonstrate: make your opposition widely known.
Allan Garbutt, PhD MD (retired),
Crowsnest Pass
16-15
Thank you, Allan, for pointing out the danger to our drinking water and agricultural industries. Folks can visit WaterNotCoal.ca to find out where they can sign the current petition to save our water.