"Massive And Irreversible" Damages From Planned Open-Pit Coal Project In Southern Alberta

[hatrack]

A new scientific study on controversial metallurgical coal mines being proposed in southern Alberta’s famed eastern slopes says that the open-pit mines will leave a massive and irreversible footprint on water quality and quantity in the arid region. “Our study has identified significant risks to water quality and quantity and biological diversity in the Oldman River watershed,” Brad Stelfox, the lead author, told The Tyee. Stelfox is the province’s most prominent land use ecologist and founder of the ALCES group which models impact of human activity on natural systems over time.

For starters, says the study, the coal mines would destroy 92 square kilometres of “critical wildlife habitat” and working alpine landscapes in the scenic southern Rockies. They would replace ancient forest groves, native fescue grasses and grizzly bear environs with open-pit mines and large rock waste piles leaching selenium. Approximately 32 square kilometres of flowing mountain streams and creeks — a prime refuge for cutthroat trout — would be destroyed in the headwaters of the Oldman River watershed. As a consequence the eight open-pit mines currently proposed by Australian mining firms would disturb an area on the same scale as Teck Resources’ massive coal project in B.C.’s Elk Valley.

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in particular the study found that selenium, a toxic pollutant that leaches from waste rock piles, would alter water quality in the region whether industry gets the go ahead to proceed with two or as many as eight proposed mines. “Uncertainty about industry’s ability to manage that selenium risk is very high,” said Stelfox. According to the report’s modelling, industry would have to prevent the release of 95 per cent of all selenium from mine sites “to meet all water quality standards in the upper reaches of the watershed, and even higher attenuation levels would be needed to prevent harm to the smallest streams nearest to the mines.”

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In contrast, Australian coal speculators, which have commissioned no studies on cumulative impacts, offer a rosier picture for the region, using the term “New Age Coal.” Riversdale Resources, for example, boasts that they are “committed to using innovative, sustainable and mindful best practices.” It also claims that open-pit coal mines are “compatible” with tourism in the Rockies. But that’s not what the report found. It calculated, for example, that carbon emissions from the development of the mines (including extraction and burning their output over a 50-year period) would roughly equal seven years’ worth of Alberta’s current emissions — making it impossible for either Canada or Alberta to substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

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https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2021/06/15/Aussie-Coal-Mines-Pose-Big-Threat-Southern-Alberta-Water/

[Cobalt Violet]

1. Sounds like something Trudeau dreams of.

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