The Alberta NDP have introduced legislation aimed at protecting the eastern slopes of the Rockies and watersheds from coal mining and similar activities.

NDP leader Rachel Notley says the Eastern Slopes Protection Act, will assure Albertans that their natural spaces and clean water will be protected by law.

The act would immediately cancel all all current activity in the area including road building and cancels existing leases in category one and two lands.

It also stops work in category three and four lands pending development of a regional plan after consultations with residents of the eastern slopes farmers, ranchers, tourism operators, indigenous communities agricultural, tourism and recreational businesses, and representatives of other affected industry and economic sectors.

It would also prohibit the Alberta Energy Regulator from issuing approvals, including for water permits, in categories 3 and 4, and cancels leases issued in conjunction with the UCP’s cancellation of the 1976 Coal Development Policy in May 2020, pending the outcome of the regional plan.

Existing mines in the operations/full production stage are unaffected.

In a release put out by the NDP, Gordon Cartwright, owner of the D Ranch, near High River said; “These are exactly the provisions the legislature should support. Certainly I will support this, as I believe most members of the community will or should. We appreciate this initiative, and will support it in any viable way we can.”

“You can have open pit coal mines or fresh water; you cannot have both,” said Cam Gardner, rancher, councillor for the MD of Ranchland and an NDP candidate in Livingstone-Macleod in the last provincial election. “This bill is a testament that Alberta will not blindly trade away the sanctity of the Eastern Slopes, the source of all our fresh-water security. Land use decisions with this much potential impact, affecting so many aspects of society, reach far beyond regional boundaries and affect generations far into the future. Impacts to climate and Alberta’s emissions liability, species at risk, water security, other sustainable industries dependent on intact ecosystems, tourism, and the loss forever of areas sacred in Indigenous society, form only a partial list of potential trade-offs that Albertans deserve to fully contemplate.”

The bill's unlikely to go far since the UCP has used its majority on the Private Members Bill Committee to kill every opposition bill so far.

Notley says she's putting members of the committee on notice, saying burying this bill would be another attempted cover-up.

A committee was recently established to hold public consultations on future coal policy in Alberta.

They'll report back to the energy minister by November 15, 2021.

 

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