Mine opponents call referendum ‘a dirty trick’
By Al Beeber - Lethbridge Herald on September 14, 2024.
LETHBRIDGE HERALDabeeber@lethbridgeherald.com Crowsnest Pass council is guilty of pulling “a dirty trick referendum,” says a member of an organization opposed to a coal mine at Grassy Mountain.Municipality of Crowsnest council on Tuesday passed a non-binding vote of electors to be held within the next 90 days on whether they support a mine with the ballot question to read “Do you support the development and operations of the metallurgical coal mine at Grassy Mountain.”
Two councillors – Dean Ward, who brought forward the motion and Lisa Sygutek – told The Herald on Thursday the mine is needed to lower the tax burden on residents who shoulder 84 per cent of that burden and to pay for needed infrastructure and facilities.
But David Thomas, communications coordinator of the Crowsnest Headwaters organization, says the Pass council is naive if they think a mine will result in lower taxes.
And he says council isn’t thinking of Lethbridge and other communities downstream of the mine which rely on water for their own needs, much of that which would be used to wash coal if the mine is approved.
And future residents are going to need water – that isn’t polluted with selenium from mining operations, which opponents believe will happen.
“Crowsnest Headwaters honours our coal-mining heritage. We energetically support measures to eliminate waterborne and airborne selenium contamination from the mines on the west side of the Continental Divide so that they can continue operating for years to come. At the same time, we recognize our own accelerating transition to an economy based on residential growth, home-based work, and outdoor recreation. The essential natural resources for this future-oriented economy are clean air, clean water and attractive landscapes,” says its website.
Thomas said Friday that residents should have been given opportunity to engage in discussion about the referendum before a decision was made.
“They put it on their agenda as what’s called a notice of motion. And what that means generally – universally whether it’s in the House of Commons or any other municipality in Alberta – is that you’re putting it down to give citizens notice of an upcoming and important decision to give the citizens time to think and express their points of view to the councillors.
“Instead of doing that, they decided to immediately change the motion entirely to completely different wording and vote on it immediately and surprised everybody with a press release in the morning.
“So there was no opportunity for consultation,” Thomas said.
He said “a pointless exercise” will cost the community $27,000 and if members don’t have the ability to make decisions about what’s good for the CNP they shouldn’t be sitting on council.
Thomas added “if they are so concerned about municipal finances, why are they spending $27,000 of taxpayer money on a referendum they admit has no legal effect. The mine property is not even in the municipality of Crowsnest Pass. It is the MD of Ranchland where council opposition to the mine is unanimous.
“The Crowsnest Pass council is being a very selfish neighbour, willing to sacrifice precious headwaters needed by downstream farmers, ranchers and citizens.
“This pointless referendum is just a vanity project for the far-right extremists who dominate council. They are just naive minions to the Australian coal dominatrix Gina Rinehart and the Alberta nationalists who are behind the so-called Crowsnest Citizens for Coal. Former Reform MP Eric Lowther is the leader of the so-called Citizens for Coal. He acquired a property here during the pandemic, has no roots here, and is dividing our community for his own political purposes,” he said.
He said the recreational and residential economy in the Pass are “doing quite well and will be killed dead if the coal mine is eventually approved. If they think that the taxes are going to go down when a major industrial development takes place, they are extremely naive. That’s not what happens – everything goes up, nothing goes down, particularly not taxes,” added Thomas. “These people have been fooled by Lowther and his gang and the Australian miners. They’re very naive and they’re also extremely selfish. The people downstream of here, all of them, are against this thing – they need the water for agriculture, for food processing, for residential, drinking water and they just don’t care,” stated Thomas.
“The municipality is ready to hand over vast amounts of water for washing coal. That water is needed downstream. It’s also needed by future residents of Crowsnest Pass if they don’t destroy the place with this stupid project.”
The joint federal-provincial panel that rejected the mine said the mine owners had no plan for controlling selenium, said Thomas.
“We are supporting the decision by the federal and provincial regulators to deny this project,” added Thomas.
In 2021, a joint panel issued a report denying approval of the Grassy Mountain coal project, finding that it was likely to cause adverse environmental impacts that weren’t outweighed by the economic impacts.
The report said the those impacts would include:
• Surface water quality, including from selenium effluent discharge;
• Westslope Cutthroat Trout, listed as threatened under the Species at Risk Act, and its habitat;
• Whitebark Pine, listed as endangered under the Species at Risk Act; and
• Physical and cultural heritage of the Kainai, Piikani and Siksika First Nations.
It also stated “the project is likely to contribute to existing significant adverse cumulative effects to:
• Westslope Cutthroat Trout and its habitat;
• Whitebark Pine;
• Little brown bat; and
• Current use of lands and resources for traditional purposes and physical and cultural heritage of the Kainai, Piikani and Siksika First Nations.”
The report also states the federal government “is particularly concerned with deleterious substances associated with coal mining. Effluent from coal mines in Canada can be a source of pollution that harms aquatic life and specifically fish and fish habitat.”
And Crowsnest Headwaters believes the report was well done.
“We believe that they did a very thorough review and came to a very commonsensical conclusion – that the mine was not in the public’s interests,” said Thomas.
If the mine is approved, that will affect the amount of water flowing into the river system, he said.
“The mine is going to have such a huge footprint it’s going to destroy the watershed functionality. That requires healthy forests and beaver dams and so on and they’re just going to rip that up. As last winter showed, we don’t have enough water as it is. We need to restore the watershed, we need to restore the water producing functions of all the clearcuts in there and the mine destruction that has been left as is and hasn’t been reclaimed.”
Crowsnest Headwaters will be campaigning against a “yes” vote in the referendum, he said.
“We’re going to our best to win the referendum,” said Thomas.
“This is very important for the people of Lethbridge. The people of Lethbridge should be voting on this. This is completely selfish on the part of the council of Crowsnest Pass that they think they should control the destiny of people downstream.”
The government report says that the mine, if approved, would produce up to 4.5 million tonnes of processed coal per year over its 25-year lifespan
Other reports say it is expected to generate taxes of about $1.7 million and employ 400 people. 4
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