Objections to Grassy Mountain proposal

I spent most of my working career in landscape ecology and conservation biology, working in the Rocky Mountain national parks.  I am the author of a book called Heart Waters/Sources of the Bow River that entailed extensive research and interviews relating to the hydrology and history of Eastern Slopes landscapes, and my wife and I also own property downwind of this proposed mine.

The terms of reference for the Impact Assessment set boundaries around the discussion that, unfortunately, may render some of my comments legally moot.  They are, or should be, nonetheless critical if the actual "spirit of the law" for the Impact Assessment Act is to ensure that the final determination on this project is in the public interest.  I encourage the Panel, and the responsible Ministers, to recognize that while the terms of reference limit consideration of the scope of the project primarily to site-specific impacts, the expert and public advice will result in identification of significant impacts that can theoretically be mitigated on a sliding scale from "monitor and react" to "deny approval or require definitive elimination of risk".  The decision of where on that sliding scale to land can, and should, be informed by real world consideration of the cumulative effects of all land uses on the mountain headwaters region in which this proposed mine is located, and the policy environment to which the decision will contribute.  In short, I encourage the Panel and responsible Ministers to invoke the precautionary principle in every case and err consistently on the side of addressing worst case scenarios in a cumulative impacts context.  I believe this is legally defensible but in any event I believe it is ethically imperative, given the risks this project poses.

Water and  Species at Risk

My primary concerns relate to the unique nature of the environment in which the mine, if approved, would be operating.  This is an exceptionally windy location on the east slope of a narrow strip of mountains where there is a sort of constant Bernouli effect.  Winds have been recorded, frequently, well in excess of 100 km/h.  There is an abrupt gradient from high precipitation snow accumulation and spring rain maxima along the Continental Divide to low precipitation/high evapotranspiration landscapes along the edge of the Rockies and east onto the plains.  This is the source water region for the entire Oldman watershed in Alberta and contributes a large amount of flow to the Saskatchewan River which waters parts of Saskatchewan and Manitoba.  Two-thirds of Canada's irrigated agriculture relies on waters from the Eastern Slopes, including the project region.  Water is so scarce there has been a moratorium on new water licenses in the watershed since 2006.  

The mine is not adjacent to the Oldman River or the Oldman Reservoir where, arguably, there is a relatively abundant water resource.  It is in the headwaters, and the only surface water resources are small streams that often have critically low flows in late summer and again in winter.  Those small streams, as the Panel has seen, are essential habitat for a threatened species, the westslope cutthroat trout.  Cutthroats survive there to a large degree because of the region's groundwater hydrology and relatively intact surface vegetation and soils.  It is base flow and springs that not only sustain water flow in their habitat during the late summer and winter periods, but also keep that water cold in summer and unfrozen in winter, since groundwater buffers extremes of heat and cold.

The mine will remove vegetation and uncompacted surface deposits of soil and raw parent material.  This will divert snowmelt and rainfall from groundwater into surface flow.  Even if elaborate water management strategies are faithfully and consistently implemented by the company to the extent that flow rates in the creeks are not reduced during those critical seasons, there will be a shift from groundwater to surface water that will change the temperature regime and icing characteristics of those streams in ways that degrade them as aquatic habitat for species that are already classified as threatened by the Federal government.  The correct test for evaluating the potential impact of an industrial proposal on a threatened species, in my view (again, going to the spirit of the law) should not be whether impacts can be mitigated or minimized.  The fact that the species is threatened means it is already too late for mitigation and minimizing because of pre-existing challenges.  The objective is not to keep the patient on life support; it is to help the patient recover.  And for that reason, the project should only proceed if the Panel is convinced, on the evidence, that it will improve conditions for westslope cutthroat trout, bull trout, whitebark pine and other species at risk.  I do not believe this is even remotely possible in the case of cutthroat trout and for that reason alone the project should not be approved.

As further evidence to support this argument, I note that the proponent has provided estimates of water use for mine operations that are based on data from other operating coal surface mines in other regions.  But our region is unique in that we have sustained, drying winds that literally howl through the mine area.  Not only will the wind situation increased the need for water in managing dust and fine particulates, but it will reduce the effectiveness of any water applied to loose materials by quickly evaporating it.  What this means is that this mine is virtually certainly to require much greater amounts of water to mitigate dust and other concerns than coal mines that have been used as a basis for comparison, and that water will come from streams that are much smaller and more subject to critically low flows than the water sources for mines in other areas.  The risk of ongoing and serious harm to these creeks is significant.

The uniquely windy environment in the area would also render any reclamation commitments harder to fulfill than in areas with less extreme local weather.  It is frankly hard to imagine, for someone who doesn't live in and use this area on a regular basis, the intensity and duration of some of these wind events and the degree to which anything that is not solidly rooted into the ground can be displaced and moved.  Wishful thinking will not make those winds go away.  Climate change -- driven in significant part by the burning of carbon fuels like the coal proposed to mined from this site -- will almost certainly make them worse because of the degree to which it loads the atmosphere with energy and supercharges pre-existing conditions like the adiabatic wind effect along the Eastern Slopes of the Alberta Rockies.

For all these reasons, it is my opinion that nothing in the record of this Impact Assessment adequately addresses the water risks and associated habitat risks for threatened species, and the mine should not be approved.  If the Panel opts to approve the mine, it should only be on binding conditions that the Proponent a.) establish a substantial initial performance bond and supplement that on an ongoing basis through the life of the project with royalty-style payments that ensure that through the life of the project and after its abandonment there is more than adequate money to pay for remediation of the groundwater regime, trout habitats and site reclamation; b.) fund instream flow needs and a regional groundwater evaluation to ensure prior to final approval to ensure that project activities won't cause measurable harm to current and historical trout habitats; and c.)  be given the most junior of water rights in the region under any licenced allotments allocated to the mine, behind instream flow needs for habitat protection and all other downstream domestic, agricultural and industrial uses.  We can anticipate significant prolongued drought episodes in the future that will put those streams under serious strain; the mine should specifically be required to be shut down during those periods rather than being given emergency permissions to divert what little water is available to the streams under those conditions.

Selenium and other solutes and contaminants

The mine should not be approved in the absence of proven, effective technologies already shown to be effective and practicable elsewhere in the region.  Unproven technologies and assurance of monitoring and adoption of improved technologies if and when they become available in future are simply not enough given the long-lasting harm that will result should the company fail to prevent downstream contamination.  We are seeing the consequences in the Fording and Elk Rivers of similar mines having been approved in the absence of effective means for preventing selenium contamination.  The Panel should not repeat mistakes already made elsewhere.  The company has not presented compelling and credible proof that it can operate without significant risk of downstream contamination.  Their proposed mitigations are in the "we believe this will work" category, not the "it has been proven to work elsewhere and for that reason we are certain it will work" category. In the absence of the latter, the mine should not be approved.

Socioeconomic considerations

The reason some in the Crowsnest Pass are eager for the mine to be approved is actually evidence of why it should not be.  Previous mines in the region shut down, and the companies left the mess for Alberta taxpayers to clean up or simply to live with.  They also walked away from communities and infrastructure that had been developed to serve those mines.  The profits are gone; the problems remain.  And so there are people who want another mine so that the problems can be addressed.  But this is a recurring pattern around the world; mines are subject to boom and bust based on economic cycles that drive commodity values, and the investors who profit from mining have no lasting loyalty to the regions or communities they exploit.  There has been no evidence provided to suggest that anything will be different this time, and so while the short-term attraction of mine jobs is undeniable, they will not contribute to the ongoing well-being or sustainability of the area's human community.  Just the opposite, because mining will reduce the attractiveness of the region for recreation, angling, tourism and (assuming the mine secures all remaining available water licenses for its operation) other industries.  And should predicted damages to water flows and water pollution result, those effects will undermine other sustainable economic sectors downstream from the mine including domestic water for towns and cities, irrigated agriculture, and livestock feeding operations.

The socioeconomic benefits of a mine are local, ephemeral and inherently unsustainable.  The socioeconomic costs are undeniable.  And the socioeconomic risks are not just local but extend well downstream through one of Canada's most water-scarce and economically diverse prairie regions.  For these reasons, the mine should not be approved.

Climate effects

This is a proposed coal mine.  The coal will be burnt.  Regardless of the ways in which Pontius Pilate bureaucracies have carved up the accounting of the carbon impacts of this or any other coal mine, conveniently excluding carbon emissions from Canada's accounts if the coal is burned in another part of the globe, all the carbon dioxide goes into the same atmosphere.  The climate crisis is too real, and ours and other nations are failing too significantly to meet even the modest climate goals we've agreed to, to continue engaging in silly shell games. Coal that is not mined will not be burned.  For that single reason along, this and any other new coal mining proposal in the region should not be approved.

Cumulative effects

Although it lies conveniently outside the Impact Assessment terms of reference it must be noted that existing coal mines in the region have already eliminated massive tracts of native vegetation and soils that sustain both biodiversity and source area groundwater hydrologies, and are releasing so much selenium into river environments that far-downstream environments in the USA are contaminated.  It needs also to be noted that other coal companies have gone on public record as saying that they see Grassy Mountain not as a single project but as the wedge that will create a positive regulatory environment for subsequent projects in that region.  The Alberta government's arbitrary revocation of the long standing Alberta Coal Development Policy on June 1 2020 lies outside the review panel's terms of reference but is nonetheless relevant in terms of the degree to which the panel should be taking a precautionary approach to its decision making, because it means the other companies watching your work have now leased and have intentions to develop hundreds of square kilometres elsewhere in the Oldman watershed and farther north in the Eastern Slopes headwaters of our prairie rivers.

I encourage the panel to consider these realities in arriving at a final determination not to approve Grassy Mountain and, further, to use your final determination to offer strong recommendations: a.) to the Alberta government, that it reinstate its Coal Development Policy pending a comprehensive re-evaluation of resource values and priorities in this headwaters region and full and fair consultation with Aboriginal governments and Albertans generally; and b.) to the federal government of Canada that in future any and all coal development proposals in Canada, whether for thermal or metallurgical coal and whether for domestic use or export, be subject to detailed public review under the Impact Assessment Act, including consideration of the full-cycle impacts of the mine on carbon loading to the world's atmosphere.

Summary

The mine should not be approved.  

Should it be approved, it should only be on condition that environmental risks to water, pollution, threatened species and the region's socioeconomic well-being are not merely monitored, not merely mitigated, not left to uncertainty, but are fully avoided from the start, and that the company pay up front and on an ongoing basis into an independently managed trust account sufficient funds to eliminate any risk that they will be able to walk away from environmental damages as every other mine in the Crowsnest region has done in the past.   The panel should advise the Alberta government to reinstate its coal policy and should advise the federal government that any and all future coal proposals be subject to mandatory, comprehensive reviews under the Impact Assessment Act.

Thank you for the opportunity to contribute to your important work and I trust that you will give this input serious, principled consideration.

Kevin Van Tighem