If Trout Could Talk: Coal and the Eastern Slopes
By Lethbridge Herald on January 21, 2025.
LORNE FITCH, P. Biol. –
In the coal saga there’s more to mine than the mountain. Despite protestations of due diligence and highest engineering standards, every coal mine in the Eastern Slopes has had spectacular environmental failures and most of them on a regular basis. This is a function of topography, engineering failures and an inability to incorporate the effects of weather events into mine design. If ever there was a lesson about future mines, all one has to do is review past mines.
Pit wall collapses, settling pond failures, conveyance system upsets and mine road washouts are the most visible evidence of problems. But it is the liberation of a witches brew of toxic chemicals that creates legacy issues. Selenium, antimony, cobalt, lithium, manganese, molybdenum, nickel, strontium, thallium, uranium and many others are released for decades by the weathering of the shattered caprock overburden.
Hidden in the labyrinth of the Benga environmental impact assessment report for the proposed Grassy Mountain mine is a cryptic note on the analysis of selenium in the flesh of trout from Gold and Blairmore creeks. Selenium concentrations in the trout were significantly higher than those adopted by both B.C. and Alberta to protect fish populations from collapse. This is despite the fact selenium concentrations in these streams was lower than guidelines. This never came up in the Joint Review Panel hearing although there was evidence enough to damn the project.
Contamination of fish isn’t restricted to the Crowsnest watershed. Evidence from other watersheds with coal strip mines show similar results for elevated selenium concentrations in fish, including the coal industry’s much promoted reclaimed mine pit lakes.
This isn’t restricted to fish. Bighorn sheep living on reclaimed coal mines in the Coal Branch of Alberta have selenium concentrations in their tissue higher than any other place in North America.
Native cutthroat trout used to exist in East Crowsnest Creek and the headwaters of Crowsnest Creek, beneath the Tent Mountain coal mine. Very high selenium concentrations from the mine spoil, coupled with excessive sediment loadings to these streams is implicated in trout disappearance.
The selenium guideline values adopted by past B.C. and Alberta governments were not proposed by armchair eco-terrorists. They were developed after multiple fish populations collapsed after exceeding these values. They are a warning – there is a limit to the amount of selenium pollution fish populations can absorb before they disappear.
Trout aren’t just the quarry for a few anglers. They speak to us on the impacts of coal mining. Trout form our distant early warning indicators and are the bellwethers of danger. To ignore their message is to ignore our peril.
A fundamental message from the selenium contamination of trout is we need to look beyond what is found in the water, to how it bioaccumulates up the food chain, to levels of significant health concern. It wouldn’t hurt to remember that we are at the top of the food chain.
Yes, these are some of the things to mine in our deliberations over coal mining in the Eastern Slopes. We might also reflect on the misinformation and distortion from congenital corporate liars. There are municipal councillors with their eyes firmly fixed in the rear view mirror of time and coated in the fairy dust of illusionary economic benefits. Overseeing this is an “arms length” regulator manipulated by political puppet masters.
Arrayed against this are the clearly articulated wishes of the majority of Albertans who are passionate about a mine-free Eastern Slopes. Alberta recently went through a review of coal policy by an independent panel. This panel was responsible for the largest public engagement process in Alberta‘s history to define a path forward for coal. Their recommendations have yet to be implemented.
Lastly, we have recently witnessed, from the Minister of Energy, Brian Jean, a muddled, barely coherent “clarification” of coal policy to the Alberta Energy Regulator. The letter was issued in the midst of an ongoing AER hearing into a coal exploration application and it opens a question of whether Jean was trying to fetter that process.
Jean’s retreat from the wishes of Albertans effectivity winds the clock back, reinstates exploration permits, opens up new exploration, including construction of new roads that will erode for years. Nothing else has changed, including the continual leaching of selenium into East Slope rivers, no timely, effective reclamation of coal exploration roads and Albertan’s frustration with the intransigence and lack of spine of the UCP government.
Utah Phillips was a folk singer and philosopher who once said, “The Earth is not dying—it is being killed. And the people who are killing it have names and addresses.” If it isn’t evident by now, the names with the UCP government are writ large on this public policy failure to protect the Eastern Slopes.
Lorne Fitch is a Professional Biologist, a retired Fish and Wildlife Biologist and a past Adjunct Professor with the University of Calgary. He is the author of Streams of Consequence: Dispatches From the Conservation World and Travels Up the Creek: A Biologist’s Search for a Paddle.
17-16
“When pigs fly” Oh my gosh, listen to the rhetoric of this supposed “learned” professional biologist!
Best that he slap on head phones and hum away at the likes of Utah Phillips and other “kum bi yah” melodies.
Selenium and heavy metals in fish, animals and the exposed environment, as Mr. Fitch undoubtibly knows, is not unique to the instant area of discussion, but universal. The planet is engrossed with minerals, heavy metals and toxins…surprise surprise.
For decades we have been warned not to consume too many fish due to possible toxins/contamination therein.
Advanced, monitored and controlled mining of coal will not be the end of us all! To quote a “woke” individual, “gone are the days of the garden of eden” we live in an industrialized era. Farming, using chemicals and fertilizers, sprays and insecticides leach into the soil, water ways through run off and erosion, in sunny southern Alberta, feedlots with hundreds of thousands of cattle spew “what evers” into the surrounding communities, forest fires, wow, they too are bad!
Your rational, perhaps, “shutter everything” no more cows, no farming, no road construction (deadly ashphalt), no vehicles, definetly no jets in the sky, don’t flush treated sewage into the river!
Come on now, get “woke” use common sense, limit your consumption of fish, and possibly “big horn sheep” get yourself a “britta” and get on with your life.
Let us pray that this is read by the misguided:
theglobeandmail.com Alberta ignoring advice it sought from citizens on Rocky Mountain coal policy, former committee member saysEmma Graney
?auth=99b17870dd007d2635311ff81dbad2a749abf191583fa611aa6dabf8095b443c&width=600&quality=80
6–7 minutes
Open this photo in gallery:
Protesters rally against coal mining exploration outside the Alberta Energy Regulator’s office in Calgary, on Jan. 14. They expressed concerns over water contamination, ecosystem disruption, and the impact on Indigenous lands and local communities.Amir Salehi/The Globe and Mail
A member of Alberta’s coal policy committee says the provincial government is ignoring the will of tens of thousands of Albertans as it develops new rules around mining and is instead leaning on industry to guide its hand.
Bill Trafford was appointed to the coal policy engagement committee when it was established by then-Energy Minister Sonya Savage in 2021. Mr. Trafford is also the president of the Livingstone Landowners Group and worked alongside the four other committee members to gather feedback from across the province to help in the development of a modern coal policy.
The committee spent months consulting with individual Albertans, Indigenous people, communities and organizations to inform its final report and a series of recommendations, which included articulating land-use guidance for coal exploration, reviewing Alberta’s coal-royalty regimes and assessing proposed new projects “with rigorous net benefit tests that include extensive public consultation.”
The committee received 27,000 responses, Mr. Trafford said in an interview Tuesday, the majority of which expressed concerns about coal exploration and development.
But that feedback has been ignored by the government, despite the fact the province commissioned the committee’s work and accepted its recommendations, he said.
“You spend nine months of your life travelling around Alberta, talking to every Albertan you can get your hands on, and what you came up with was fully endorsed by the Premier of the province, the Minister of Energy, the Minister of Environment, every other minister and all the members of the caucus,’” Mr. Trafford said.
“And then to have [Energy Minister] Brian Jean … coming back and saying, ‘Well, I’m here sitting with my coal buddies, and we’re going to decide now how to mine coal on eastern slopes – and we’re going to ignore everything that’s happened in the past.’”
The Alberta government has spent years developing new coal-mining rules after a 2020 decision to scrap a 1976 policy drew a fierce backlash. The public anger led Ms. Savage to set up the policy committee and introduce a series of ministerial orders banning coal development in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.
Last month, the government announced more changes to coal-mining rules. They are not yet set in stone but would require any new mine to be underground or use technologies that move minimal amounts of overburden – surface materials such as rocks and soil – to prevent selenium leaching into waterways and poisoning fish, wildlife and downstream communities. The new rules would not apply to so-called “advanced” projects such as the controversial Grassy Mountain mine in the Crowsnest Pass, which is being developed by Australian company Northback Holdings Corp.
Last week, Mr. Jean quietly scrapped the ban issued by Ms. Savage and ordered the Alberta Energy Regulator to return to the 1976 policy.
Mr. Trafford said he and the landowners’ group he leads have always believed in Alberta’s regulatory system and laws. But now, he said, the rules around coal mining “have entered a state of lawlessness.”
He cited land-use planning as one example.
At hearings into Alberta’s most contentious coal mine, pleas, tears – and a song
The committee urged the province to undertake thorough regional planning reviews to understand what exactly land can be used for, in order to protect water and the environment. But the government has done little of that work when developing new coal policy, he said.
“We have the legislation that says how to deal with this stuff – they’re just not using it.”
Mr. Jean’s office said in an e-mail Tuesday that the government is taking direct action on seven of the eight recommendations from the coal policy committee.
“Other governments have avoided this issue time after time since the early 1990s. We’re doing the heavy lifting others have avoided,” it said.
As for the move to scrap the mining and exploration bans instituted by Ms. Savage, Premier Danielle Smith told reporters Tuesday that the change was made because her government “is bringing through a better, more robust policy.”
She also cited the fact Alberta is facing $16-billion in lawsuits from coal companies, which are suing the province over the government’s flip-flop on coal policy.
“We have to take that seriously,” she said.
Although the government expects some exploration applications to be filed as a result of the change, Mr. Jean’s office said rescinding the ban “does not open the door for coal development projects hoping to get approval” before new rules come into force.
The government will soon engage with the coal industry to finalize the rules it proposed in December and figure out how to significantly boost royalty rates. It hopes to have a draft for government approval later this year.
But that consultation is solely with industry – not Albertans more broadly, which Mr. Trafford thinks will once again draw people’s ire.
“There’s going to be an outcry of Albertans again. These slopes are just far too important to the province – the water supply, the air, all of those things – to risk it for some Australian coal mining companies.”
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“…. listen to the rethoric of this supposid “learned” professional biologist!””
Look at the grammar from this deluded old guy!
Perhaps HP, who calls himself a Christian, needs a wee fireside chat with Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde! A chat and a prayer where she could share with him her position on the environment:
“As we are called by God to care for creation, The Episcopal Church supports policies that protect the natural resources that sustain all life on Earth. The Church calls for policies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, promote sustainable energy, encourage the safe and just use of natural resources, and support communities impacted by a lack of environmental stewardship and environmental racism.”
https://www.episcopalchurch.org/ministries/office-government-relations/creation-care/
Oh, of course, the same Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde who disgraced herself and her Church during her sermon at President Donald J. Trump’s inaguration….and is now back peddling and apolozing for her presentation. President Trump has as well reprimanded her.
You have no shame, do you. Moreover, I don’t know where you source your information but Bishop Budde has no intention of apologizing.
https://time.com/7209222/bishop-mariann-budde-trump/?linkId=722086931
Head line news, NBC, ABC, CNN and Fox News, take your pick! Regardless, your “bunny trail” is not relevant in this discussion, unless you are trying to pick on me directly, and I suggest that would be a bad/wrong move. I do very well know who you are.
When backed into a corner your are going to play the victim card and threaten me at the same time?
Shame! Shame! Shame!
spoken much like the donald. meds won’t help – seek professional support.
Pick on you??!
No one has to when you make a complete ass of yourself.
yup, given the consistency, one may conclude harold is an utter fool.
“Disgraced herself”? Just about the most ill-informed statement uttered by yourself and that is saying something. If anyone has disgraced their church it is yourself with your self righteous preaching and showing by your written words that you care little about the true meaning of embracing (and living) a Christian life.
wow, so sorry to say your entry reads as though it were concocted by an utter fool.
“All things are interconnected. Everything goes somewhere. There is no such thing as a free lunch. Nature bats last.” Ernest Callenbach
Indeed, Mr. Fitch! The names with the UCP government are writ large in this monumental dereliction of duty to all Albertans and to everyone and every creature downstream who rely on the integrity of the watersheds of the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains. Water is life!
Shame UCP government! Shame!
There are almost no words left re: this disastrous UCP government who is literally taking a wrecking ball to this province. What’s next?
While we may have days where we feel our words fail us, I hope we continue to support each other and those among us who continue to find the words to speak TRUTH to power.
https://abpolecon.ca/2025/01/10/pinocchios-aplenty-fact-checking-albertas-coal-industry-modernization-initiative/
and yet another smashing, brilliant sharing by lorne – thank you!
besides good common sense and decency, there are likely laws that allow the people of a land to determine what is safe and what is not; what is in the best interest of the land and the peoples of the land relative to the interests merely of the self serving corporate “citizen.”
thus, defending the many, and that which the many depend upon for healthy survival, should be utmost the place of our elected tools.
might we be able to show up, in the many thousands, in the pass, traffic and all, to say we will no longer accept greed and corruption trumping the health of the greater good?
Sent this as a reply to HP’s entry below. Worthwhile repeating at the top of the column , in case the man himself has not scrolled down far enough. :
“Disgraced herself”? Just about the most ill-informed statement uttered by yourself and that is saying something. If anyone has disgraced their church it is yourself with your self righteous preaching and showing by your written words that you care little about the true meaning of embracing (and living) a Christian life.