Watershed coal mining focus of SACPA talk

By Lethbridge Herald on February 12, 2021.

Dale Woodard
Lethbridge Herald

The long-term impacts on coal mining in the Oldman River Watershed was the topic as the Southern Alberta Council on Public Affairs met Thursday morning.

Onhand as this week’s guest speaker was Shannon Frank, executive director of the Oldman Watershed Council, who delved into what’s is currently happening in the Oldman Watershed with regards to coal mines and what the long-term impacts of coal mining are likely to be.

There has been significant interest in establishing metallurgical coal mining operations throughout the eastern slopes of Alberta and the areas residing within the Oldman Watershed are no exception. Currently, there are four companies exploring potential mining operations in the region. All the currently proposed coal mines are open-pit “mountain top removal” mines and are located in the Crowsnest Pass area. Coal mining exploration is also happening along the Livingstone Range and in the Bighorn area west of Red Deer.

Of the four companies currently exploring the Oldman watershed, the Riversdale/Benga Grassy Mountain Coal Project is furthest along in the approval process.

Benga’s Environmental Impact Assessment and Joint Review Panel public hearings are complete.

The Oldman Watershed Council participated in the public hearings last fall and has been sharing information publicly and with elected officials to support informed decision making.

“Obviously, this is a critical headwaters area,” said Frank. “It’s a source of our water and it’s important for wildlife and fish and it’s every important to us as local residents. We would like to spend time there. It provides about 90 per cent of our water, but it is a busy landscape and it’s already facing quite a few challenges with the many land uses that are already happening there. So adding coal mines would add another type of pressure.”

Selenium levels are a concern, said Frank.

“There are basically three different concentrations of selenium that really matter,” said Frank. “In water, selenium is not dangerous at low concentrations, but as it increases it can be. For the aquatic environment, we don’t like to see more than two micrograms per litre and we know the baseline that’s already in the ecosystem is around .5. So it’s not a big jump from .5 to two and that is a concern for fish.

Frank said selenium can be removed, but it’s a complicated process.

“There are various treatment processes available. But the big question is will they work for a long time or will the effectivness of the treatment decline over time?”

Frank noted the agriculture and irrigation aspect.

“We do have a large portion of irrigated land and the Old Man Watershed is very important industry, near a billion dollars, we can estimate. So we don’t want to see any water contamination impacting our agricultural economy,” she said.

The same goes from ground water as well, said Frank.

“We knew there is very limited groundwater data. So we’ve been making recommendations for how monitoring needs to be improved for groundwater so we can make better decisions. So far, we know any contamination of ground water would likely reach the river because it does flow in that direction and the two are highly connected.”

Frank also discussed linear features, such as roads, trails and pipelines and the targets to reduce them.

“They all fragment the landscape and they add up,” she said. “What we would like to see is negligible or low density, but we actually have moderate and high density. So we want to bring those down and coal mines just add another type of fragmentation on top of what’s already there.”

Soil and erosion is another issue in a steep, mountainous area with the moving of millions of tons of soil and rock, said Frank.

“We want to make sure any management ponds for sediment need to be large enough to withstand these huge runoff events. We’ve heard of examples where entire sedimentation ponds were blown out and run off into creeks. We need to make sure that is not happening.”

Frank also addressed the low adult densities of the westslope cutthroat trout.

“There are only three watersheds left with low adult densities,” she said. “All the other land is very low or functionally extirpated. This fish is not doing well and the Grassy Mountain Mine is actually located right in the Gold Creek Watershed. It’s quite contentious. How can this critical habitat be destroyed when there’s actually a federal government order saying it can’t be?”

Frank noted other points of biodiversity.

“There is endangered whitebark pine, limber pine, there’s so much that could be impacted by this. But we know there are quite contentious debates about this. We know from the environmental impact assessment for Grassy, they’re very clear about how much land would be lost, how many wetlands and hectares of grasslands. It’s all laid out there. We know what the impacts and losses would be.”

Frank said it would also be a loss for Indigenous people in the area.

“(They) use these plants for medicines and ceremonies and even food. There is definitely some concern here, habitat loss is a big one.”

Frank said the area already has a lot of serious threats, including climate change, declining biodiversity and the mountain pine beetle.

“It’s a high-pressure situation. So coal mines would add another pressure to the ecosystem and there could be up to four mines over time if they were all approved. That would be a big change for the area and could have bigger impacts. So what we’re asking for is a cumulative effects assessment so we can really understand this.”

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