One person who was disappointed to see the departure of Sonya Savage from the UCP government is High River Mayor Craig Snodgrass.

He worked with her when she was energy minister, dealing with the coal mining issue.

"We're all a little bit nervous as to what the UCP currently has planned for the coal mining, I think Sonya's put some good things in play and I don't think anything's going to happen, definitely not before the election's done but I think it's an extremely important issue for everybody to keep watching going into the election," he says.

"The Alberta party and the NDP party have publicly stated that it's going to be a full 'no' for any future coal mining but the UCP is still hanging their hat on the fact that what the coal policy committee did over the last couple of years, that their recommendations stand and the future of coal mining in Alberta will go through land use planning."

Snodgrass says that can take a very long time and the outcome can still be very political.

He'd much rather the UCP just say no like the other parties have and incorporate that into any land use planning.

"We've did enough work that we know what Albertan's think of continuing to coal mine the eastern slopes and they're not for it so they need to respect the wishes of Albertans and move forward, " Snodgrass says.

He's very grateful to Sonya Savage for all the work she did on the file.