Pro-coal citizens’ group links economic revitalization to proposed Eastern Slopes mine

A proposed coal mine — not tourism — is critical in revitalizing southwestern Alberta communities along the edge of the Rockies, a group in favour of a controversial project maintains.

Carmen and Troy Linderman of Citizens Supportive of Crowsnest Coal point to more commerce, new jobs that pay well and a diversified tax base as reasons to support the Grassy Mountain project proposed for an Eastern Slopes site just beyond their municipality.

The spouses envision jobs with little or no travel for working families and a taxbase less reliant on residential property, should Northback Holdings Corporation succeed in its reignited proposal to mine the type of coal used to make steel.

Carmen Linderman told The Macleod Gazette: “The tourism industry isn't going to get us where we need to be for lowering our taxes, improving housing affordability and creating mortgage-paying jobs.”

Her comments come in advance of a Nov. 25 plebiscite that will ask voters in the Municipality of Crowsnest Pass: “Do you support the development and operations of the metallurgical coal mine at Grassy Mountain?” A local government news release quotes a municipal councillor, in proposing the non-binding vote, saying that it’s time for Pass citizenry to float an official position in the debate.

NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi has spoken against Eastern Slopes coal mining. He told The Macleod Gazette last month: “Some things are too precious. The drinking water downstream is too precious. Maintaining fragile ecosystems on the Eastern Slopes is too precious.”

Sarah Elmeligi, the NDP’s environment and protected areas critic, stands with her party leader on the issue. Like Nenshi, she said the Eastern Slopes is too critical for ecosystems, water health and water management to put at risk.

Still, Elmeligi said she understands sentiments voiced by Grassy Mountain’s Crowsnest supporters.

“Crowsnest Pass is really divided on support for this mine. From what I’ve seen in my conversations with community members and stakeholders, a lot of that division stems from wanting to have a prosperous, healthy economy in the long term, and they feel that coal is going to provide them with that,” said the member for Banff-Kananaskis.

But the shadow minister called coal “a very short-term injection of cash, and then you’re back where you started.” She said an Alberta example is Grande Cache, about 430 kilometres west of Edmonton, which has struggled through coal mining boom-bust cycles.

“I really sympathize with the Crowsnest. They have been economically depressed for a very, very long time, and you can see that, and you can feel it in the community. And I know that the community is looking for economic wins,” she said.

“But that just means we really need to be strategic and careful to make sure that we're setting the Crowsnest Pass community up for success over the long term, and I'm not sure that the coal mine does that.”

Troy Linderman said that the geography, geology and weather of Crowsnest aren’t conducive to typical mountain tourism and development, calling his home municipality “a very unique community — we're 30 kilometres long and one kilometre wide, with a big pile of rock in the middle.” 

He continued: “It’s beautiful. We grew up here and our children grew up here. They enjoy the outdoors and the rivers, and so have we our entire lives. However, we've been waiting 50-something years for tourism to take off, and we're still waiting.”

Troy said Canmore and Banff are often held up as models for Crowsnest tourism success. But the climate and mountain-scape are not comparable, and Crowsnest is farther away from a major airport than the world-class park and resort area is.

But becoming another Canmore should never be the goal, Elmeligi said, pointing to a need for a unique tourism strategy and proper incentives as a new starting point for a Crowsnest Pass without coal mining.

Crowsnest Pass is a municipality of about 5,700 people. It was created in 1979, through the amalgamation of an improvement district with communities along Highway 3 to the B.C. border including Hillcrest, Bellevue, Frank, Blairmore and Coleman. Built on coal mining, the area had its mines open and eventually shut down through most of the 20th century.

The last coal mine there closed in 1983, although so-called legacy coal mining continues in the neighbouring Elk Valley area of B.C.

Northback, a subsidiary of Australia’s Hancock Prospecting Pty Ltd, faces renewed regulatory scrutiny and a legal challenge in its quest to mine the abandoned and unreclaimed Grassy Mountain site about seven kilometres north of Blairmore. The company has filed applications with the Alberta Energy Regulator to explore for coal, as well as divert water and drill in the process.

The Eastern Slopes of the Rocky Mountains within Alberta is an area long considered ecologically sensitive and critical to water management and wildlife habitat and movement. Northback and its supporters say modern regulations and technologies would minimize the mine’s environmental impact at a site in dire need of reclamation.

Carmen Linderman noted that the past coal mine was abandoned six decades ago. “It’s not pristine wilderness that we're talking about here,” she said. “It's a mess up there, so that needs to be fixed regardless.”

Rina Blacklaws, communications manager for Northback, said a progressive reclamation program starting early in the project would serve the community and the environment. The site can’t support recreation or even the wildlife habitat and vegetation that belong there, she said.

“There’s old equipment and debris still scattered throughout the site. So in reclaiming it, we can return the land to a state that can be used once again to support diverse ecosystems and be used by future generations,” Blacklaws said.

The municipality whose corporate borders contain the site is against the Alberta Energy Regulator’s decision to treat Grassy Mountain as an “advanced coal project.” In August, the Alberta Court of Appeal granted the Municipal District of Ranchland leave to appeal the AER move. 

The appeal challenges the advanced designation, given that an original version of the proposal failed to earn federal and provincial approval. But AER is adhering to a practice common among regulatory bodies to proceed unless ordered to stop, setting hearing dates in December and January.

In June 2021, a joint review panel of AER and the Federal Impact Assessment Agency found that the earlier version of the proposal was not in the public interest because of potential threats to the environment. Benga Mining Ltd., as the Hancock proponent was then called, had applied for an open-pit mine to produce up to 4.5 million tonnes of metallurgical coal over about 23 years.

Carmen Linderman said Citizens Supportive of Crowsnest Coal will present a 1,700-plus-name petition to the legislative assembly in favour of Grassy Mountain. The group itself has about 1,000 members, she said.

“We've talked to thousands of people about this project, and overwhelmingly they’re supportive once they understand what the project is, that it's an abandoned site, and the rest of it,” she said.