An Open Letter to:
Jonathan Wilson, Minister, Environment and Climate Change Canada
Copies to:
Jason Kenney, Premier Alberta
Jason Nixon, Minister, Alberta Environment and Parks
John Barlow, MP, Foothills Constituency
Roger Reid, MLA, Livingstone-Macleod Constituency
Dear Mr. Wilkinson
It has taken me a long time to write this letter. I have needed that time to first calm down, and secondly to try and compose my thoughts to provide a coherent basis for my statements.
I am extremely upset that a federal Government which professes to believe in the importance of combatting climate change, of protecting endangered species, and which is charged with keeping its citizens safe and healthy, has allowed a proposal for a new coal mine to progress to the point of being the subject of a Joint Review Panel. The very idea of a new coal mine violates all the points in the previous sentence.
I refer of course to the proposed Grassy Mountain mine near Crowsnest Pass, Alberta.
What is even more concerning is the financial benefits of this project will mostly flow to foreign owners, while the citizens of Canada, and especially Alberta, will be left with an environmental clean-up that will take many decades to complete, at a huge cost . Some of the most beautiful scenery in this drop-dead gorgeous area will be permanently and irreparably degraded.
The mine, even in a best case scenario, will almost certainly extirpate two of the very few remaining populations of pure strain West Slope Cutthroat Trout (WSCT). Those trout are endemic only to southwestern Alberta, and were widespread throughout most of the East Slopes when I first started exploring this area 60 years ago. They have been gradually eliminated in most streams through seemingly endless acts of commission and omission by previous Alberta governments. This current assault on the remnant populations is being proposed even though the streams in question have been designated as Critical Habitat under the Species at Risk Act that your government is charged with upholding. Canada and Alberta are supposed to be producing recovery plans for WSCT, not entertaining further steps towards extinction.
The mine proponents tell us that they are only mining metallurgical coal, suggesting that this is somehow less damaging to the environment than thermal coal. This is a complete misrepresentation. The carbon in metallurgical coal is released into the atmosphere as CO2 in the same amounts as an equivalent amount of thermal coal. The proposed Grassy Mountain mine will produce about 4.5 million tonnes of coal each year. The digging itself will be a source of considerable CO2, while the coal will yield very large amounts of CO2. More than 10 million tonnes of CO2 will be released in Asian steel mills, and will circulate around the globe, contributing to further global warming. It seems contradictory that your Government is in court arguing with several provincial governments that green house gasses (GHG) from industrial sources contribute to global warming and this justifies intrusion into areas that may be in provincial jurisdiction, while at the same time allowing developers to ignore their contribution to the creation of GHG in a distant jurisdiction. The CO2 will not be restricted by political boundaries of any type. For consistency, the Federal Government must make developers account for all the emissions arising from their projects, not simply those that happen to occur in areas of Canadian jurisdiction.
Finally, should the project proceed, Canadian citizens will be subject to well documented threats to their physical health and well being from materials that will be released during mining. That ultrafine particles pose a significant health risk to people living in the vicinity of coal mines has been well documented in numerous studies over more than 20 years in Appalachia. One of the key researchers, Michael Hendryx, has published more than 30 papers outlining these risks. He has also done a TED talk that can be reviewed in less than 30 minutes.
The hazards mining poses to social health have similarly been well documented by researchers in multiple countries. That developers over promise on benefits, and under estimate negative impacts, has been seen many times in many places. One of the most complete reviews of that inaccurate presentation can be seen in a recent court decision in New South Wales where a proposed open pit coal mine was rejected. Since that decision, there have been further denials of mine projects in places as diverse as Australia and Britain, also for environmental reasons.
All of the arguments for and against this mine proposal have been put before the Joint Review Panel. Ultimately, the decision on whether to authorize this mine will fall to the Government of Canada, since it is difficult to believe that the current Alberta Government will deny the mine. When the time comes for a final decision, I urge you to prove that the Federal Government can not only ‘talk the talk’, but it can ‘walk the walk’.
You must reject the mine.
Sincerely,
Allan Garbutt, B.Sc., M.Sc., Ph.D., MD, LMCC, CCFP, FCFP, FRRM (retired)