The Alberta government decided in 2020 to cancel a coal policy dating back to 1976. This opened up much of the eastern slopes of Alberta's Rocky Mountains to potential open-pit coal mining.
After very widespread opposition to the decision, which included farmers, ranchers, country singers and the general public, the government brought back the policy in 2021 pending further consultation.
Also in 2021 regulators concluded that a mining project being proposed would seriously compromise water quality and quantity in a region which is dependent on ranching, tourism, irrigation and food processing.
The regulators also rejected the project for economic and environmental reasons, and three separate courts upheld that decision.
The owner of a current project is Australia’s richest woman, Gina Rinehart. She owns the $46-billion mining empire Hancock Prospecting and has now been allowed to propose a mine on the eastern slopes in Ranchland.
This current proposal has been pushed along in many ways. Danielle Smith gave Rinehart’s mining proposal a boost by promising her supporters in the Crowsnest Pass that if they voted in favour of the mine in a referendum, she would push the project forward as premier.
To influence the vote, Rinehart’s company funded a school lunch nutrition program in the Crowsnest Pass, plastered the community with “Yes” billboards and “We are a coal town” signs and lobbied the provincial government and the local municipal district.
Recently the municipality of Crowsnest Pass held a referendum. But in 2021 the municipality had already signed a multi-million-dollar deal to sell a water licence to Northback Holdings for the proposed project.
The referendum question was “Do you support the development and operations of the metallurgical coal mine at Grassy Mountain?”
Grassy Mountain is in the municipality of Crowsnest. A more accurate question would have used the fact that the mining project would actually take place in the neighbouring municipal district of Ranchland.
The Crowsnest community, bombarded by the corporation, recently provided a resounding answer to the question.
Almost 2,000 citizens (71.8 per cent) voted yes to this coal mine, located elsewhere, while 769 (28.2 per cent) voted no.
Craig Snodgrass, the mayor of High River, wrote an angry letter to the premier. He noted that the mine’s environmental impacts would affect the health and quality of life of southern Albertans all the way to Lethbridge and beyond.
“There is a deplorable lack of public consultation taking place, and the impacts should be widely communicated beyond Crowsnest Pass and MD of Ranchland No. 66," he said.
Ross Dabrusin,
Mountain View County
