Re-opening coal mining on the eastern slopes is absolutely ridiculous. Smith and Jean must re-think this terrible decision. The costs of handling any existing suits pales in comparison to the potential environmental risks long term especially to water ; an increasingly scarce and important resource.
Humans have degraded just about any environment that they have inhabited. Imagine Alberta after years of coal mining and oilsand development; a wasteland!
Given how in the early 1990s, the Alberta PCs failed to properly come after oil companies in Alberta to remediate their messes, leaving Albertans with a mammoth bill of $260 billion to deal with this, the UCP blew $20 billion on the R-Star debacle, and the UCP were negligent with the tailings pond leaks in northern Alberta, which First Nations communities are now suing the UCP and the AER for, the UCP will not be responsible with these coal mines in the Alberta Rockies.
McLeod River water shed studies demonstrate that the L&GR coal mine lands has Big Horn Sheep that have selenium blood levels that exceed safe levels. The herd has low recruitment of lambs. "Selenium levels from live animals are a conservative estimate of the exposure to risks from selenium bioavailability because of survivor bias (United States Department of the interior 1998). The occurrence of relatively high selenium levels in individual animals must be considered in addition to the proximity of selenium levels to the interval bounds. For example 98% and 62% of 200 bighorn sheep sampled on L&GR during 6 sampling years had selenium levels respectively >0.30 and >0.50 ug/g. Three individuals exceeded 1.0 ug/g extending to 1.8 ug/g. High selenium levels are widespread among surviving animals supporting the assessment of high risk from selenium bioavailability as determined from the population mean. Alternatively, although 88% of individual animals in the SRC population had a selenium levels of >0.30 ug/g, no animals exceeded 0.50 ug/g. Although notable risk is documented at SRC, the degree is less than at L&GR" Kneteman 2016
UCP logic. Open up coal mining. Roll it back after public backlash. Reopen it because they don’t want to be sued by coal companies when they opened coal up and then closed it.
This from the same government than banned wind and solar farms in the same area. And the justification is that they want to avoid $16Billion in lawsuits. But $5Billion of wind and solar farms lost with the 6 month moratorium, followed by onerous new rules that oil, gas, and coal don't have to follow. These include fully funding reclamation ahead of time.
Tech in Sparwood and Elkford is moving very aggressively to automation, Down sizing their work force. people are delusional if they think these new mines will be any different.
It is truly sad to see people and towns fighing for things like this, when at the end of the day they are very much on the short end of the stick in a rapidly changing operating landscape. Net-negative future for locals with a coal mine view.
They changed two coal generation power operations (Sheerness and Battle River) and switched them to natural gas in my area of Alberta. Our power bills went up. Some of the reasons were for green reasons. This area has little population(east central Alberta) Now they want to open this up in the Rockies. Where is the coal going to go? Likely China? Is this kind of a double standard? We have to pay for environmental policies, but it is OK for a "few" people to profit from such ventures not to mention the environment. Follow the money...............
From: Adam North Peigan "Ryan, if at some point you are up to looking at how Coal will affect the First Peoples in Alberta message me. I am the Chairman for the Piikani First Nation "Mountain Child Valley Society" (MCVS). MCVS has done a lot of work in lobbying against coal."
Once again, fear mongering the same as they do for OIL and Gas. All of these minds are still under the obligation to put things back the way they were. I know where I work they have been stalking the lakes with trout that is almost extinct in Alberta and it has been very successful. This call will be mined and sent around the world metallurgical coal is needed around the world for steel making as as well as as thermal coal is needed by lots of Third World countries. This employees tens of thousands of people and helps many small communities within Alberta maybe people failed to realize but the environmentministry is very much involved in what goes on in coal mining.
Believe it or not, but when we go quadding at grande cache guess where we always see big horn sheep? It’s always around the reclaimed coal mines there. Rarely have seen a bunch away from there, not saying they aren’t, but there’s always huge herds enjoying the better vegetation that grows around those reclaimed sites. There are coal mines around there, but it occupies such a small space of the actual wilderness around that area. Maybe we are over reacting thinking every mountain will be carved down for coal production. I’ve seen quite a few grizzly enjoying the berries growing in those areas as well. P.S. I am a rancher. Lol 🤣👍🍻
@@RealTalkRJit’s easy to sit in an office or your home and have an opinion. The struggle for folks is to get out and see nature and how industry interacts with it. I think we should be proud for the most part on how industry operates in Alberta. I did work in the forest industry and have a degree in forestry, so I may be biased, but as long as we are striving to do our best to extract resources that the world wants while mitigating the effects, we should continue to do so in responsible ways.
There has actually been a study done, about the selenium contamination from these open pit coal mining operations, and it's very bad. Besides British Columbia, Montana, Idaho, and Washington State have to deal with selenium contamination in their water from the open pit coal mining in British Columbia. The governments from these states aren't happy with this. Teck Mines in British Columbia have gotten numerous fines for environmental protection breaches. We don't want to emulate that in Alberta.
@@chadtosh6831How industry operates in Alberta has been very bad, since the 1990s. In the early 1990s, the Alberta PCs failed to properly come after oil companies in Alberta to remediate their messes, leaving Albertans with a mammoth bill of $260 billion to deal with this. The UCP were negligent with the tailings pond leaks in northern Alberta, and now First Nations are suing the UCP and the AER for their negligence with this.
@@dwaynewladyka577 Well as you see, LOTS of people dont mind, even think that canadian industry is doing a 'fine job' becauese 'we are doing our best'. Which is a pile of rubbish of course. The CONSERVATIVE finance minister said that the province faces a quarter of a TRILLION dollar remediation debt. Which is why most international financiers are pulling out. And forestry of course hardly even provides any jobs any more. So yeah, with the UCP, you get what you pay for. It certainly should come as no suprise to anybody, its kind of hilarious that this is the main support for the UCP. But thats not surprising, here in New Brunswick the previous conservative government had policies that MOSTLY attacked rural ridings, which are his base. We got royally screwed, yet most rural poeple still voted for them, becaues of coures when you are rural thats just what you do.
Mar 19, 2024 - A new Wildsight-commissioned report has revealed it will cost at least $6.4 billion to reverse rising selenium concentrations in Canadian and United States
![I.N "HALLUCINATION" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/n5B5q1Hwt_U/mqdefault.jpg)
Re-opening coal mining on the eastern slopes is absolutely ridiculous. Smith and Jean must re-think this terrible decision. The costs of handling any existing suits pales in comparison to the potential environmental risks long term especially to water ; an increasingly scarce and important resource.
Transparency transparency transparency transparency transparency transparency; we must have more!
What a shock! Who would have thought that the UCP government would do such a thing. Oh wait, of course they did.
Humans have degraded just about any environment that they have inhabited. Imagine Alberta after years of coal mining and oilsand development; a wasteland!
I see the same picture ,
@@gerry5029 some humans. We absolutely can cut back on production and let the land heal. But that would require us to not act like conniving bastards.
Given how in the early 1990s, the Alberta PCs failed to properly come after oil companies in Alberta to remediate their messes, leaving Albertans with a mammoth bill of $260 billion to deal with this, the UCP blew $20 billion on the R-Star debacle, and the UCP were negligent with the tailings pond leaks in northern Alberta, which First Nations communities are now suing the UCP and the AER for, the UCP will not be responsible with these coal mines in the Alberta Rockies.
McLeod River water shed studies demonstrate that the L&GR coal mine lands has Big Horn Sheep that have selenium blood levels that exceed safe levels. The herd has low recruitment of lambs.
"Selenium levels from live animals are a conservative estimate of the exposure to risks from selenium
bioavailability because of survivor bias (United States Department of the interior 1998). The occurrence
of relatively high selenium levels in individual animals must be considered in addition to the proximity of
selenium levels to the interval bounds. For example 98% and 62% of 200 bighorn sheep sampled on
L&GR during 6 sampling years had selenium levels respectively >0.30 and >0.50 ug/g. Three individuals
exceeded 1.0 ug/g extending to 1.8 ug/g. High selenium levels are widespread among surviving animals
supporting the assessment of high risk from selenium bioavailability as determined from the population
mean. Alternatively, although 88% of individual animals in the SRC population had a selenium levels of
>0.30 ug/g, no animals exceeded 0.50 ug/g. Although notable risk is documented at SRC, the degree is
less than at L&GR"
Kneteman 2016
UCP logic. Open up coal mining. Roll it back after public backlash. Reopen it because they don’t want to be sued by coal companies when they opened coal up and then closed it.
This from the same government than banned wind and solar farms in the same area.
And the justification is that they want to avoid $16Billion in lawsuits.
But $5Billion of wind and solar farms lost with the 6 month moratorium, followed by onerous new rules that oil, gas, and coal don't have to follow. These include fully funding reclamation ahead of time.
Why would AB go after coal mining at this point? Is the plan to truck it out west & east and ship it to Asia & Europe?
Ucp must go !
UCP is hell bent to destroy Alberta.
Tech in Sparwood and Elkford is moving very aggressively to automation, Down sizing their work force. people are delusional if they think these new mines will be any different.
It is truly sad to see people and towns fighing for things like this, when at the end of the day they are very much on the short end of the stick in a rapidly changing operating landscape. Net-negative future for locals with a coal mine view.
They changed two coal generation power operations (Sheerness and Battle River) and switched them to natural gas in my area of Alberta. Our power bills went up. Some of the reasons
were for green reasons. This area has little population(east central Alberta) Now they want to open this up in the Rockies. Where is the coal going to go? Likely China? Is this kind of a double
standard? We have to pay for environmental policies, but it is OK for a "few" people to profit from such ventures not to mention the environment. Follow the money...............
Good ol lump of coal for Canada good job Mrs Smith. Lol
From: Adam North Peigan "Ryan, if at some point you are up to looking at how Coal will affect the First Peoples in Alberta message me. I am the Chairman for the Piikani First Nation "Mountain Child Valley Society" (MCVS). MCVS has done a lot of work in lobbying against coal."
Once again, fear mongering the same as they do for OIL and Gas. All of these minds are still under the obligation to put things back the way they were. I know where I work they have been stalking the lakes with trout that is almost extinct in Alberta and it has been very successful. This call will be mined and sent around the world metallurgical coal is needed around the world for steel making as as well as as thermal coal is needed by lots of Third World countries. This employees tens of thousands of people and helps many small communities within Alberta maybe people failed to realize but the environmentministry is very much involved in what goes on in coal mining.
Believe it or not, but when we go quadding at grande cache guess where we always see big horn sheep? It’s always around the reclaimed coal mines there. Rarely have seen a bunch away from there, not saying they aren’t, but there’s always huge herds enjoying the better vegetation that grows around those reclaimed sites. There are coal mines around there, but it occupies such a small space of the actual wilderness around that area. Maybe we are over reacting thinking every mountain will be carved down for coal production. I’ve seen quite a few grizzly enjoying the berries growing in those areas as well. P.S. I am a rancher. Lol 🤣👍🍻
Fascinating! I'm gong to read this comment on the show. Thanks for sharing, Chad! -rpj
@@RealTalkRJit’s easy to sit in an office or your home and have an opinion. The struggle for folks is to get out and see nature and how industry interacts with it. I think we should be proud for the most part on how industry operates in Alberta. I did work in the forest industry and have a degree in forestry, so I may be biased, but as long as we are striving to do our best to extract resources that the world wants while mitigating the effects, we should continue to do so in responsible ways.
There has actually been a study done, about the selenium contamination from these open pit coal mining operations, and it's very bad. Besides British Columbia, Montana, Idaho, and Washington State have to deal with selenium contamination in their water from the open pit coal mining in British Columbia. The governments from these states aren't happy with this. Teck Mines in British Columbia have gotten numerous fines for environmental protection breaches. We don't want to emulate that in Alberta.
@@chadtosh6831How industry operates in Alberta has been very bad, since the 1990s. In the early 1990s, the Alberta PCs failed to properly come after oil companies in Alberta to remediate their messes, leaving Albertans with a mammoth bill of $260 billion to deal with this. The UCP were negligent with the tailings pond leaks in northern Alberta, and now First Nations are suing the UCP and the AER for their negligence with this.
@@dwaynewladyka577 Well as you see, LOTS of people dont mind, even think that canadian industry is doing a 'fine job' becauese 'we are doing our best'. Which is a pile of rubbish of course. The CONSERVATIVE finance minister said that the province faces a quarter of a TRILLION dollar remediation debt. Which is why most international financiers are pulling out. And forestry of course hardly even provides any jobs any more.
So yeah, with the UCP, you get what you pay for. It certainly should come as no suprise to anybody, its kind of hilarious that this is the main support for the UCP. But thats not surprising, here in New Brunswick the previous conservative government had policies that MOSTLY attacked rural ridings, which are his base. We got royally screwed, yet most rural poeple still voted for them, becaues of coures when you are rural thats just what you do.
Mar 19, 2024 - A new Wildsight-commissioned report has revealed it will cost at least $6.4 billion to reverse rising selenium concentrations in Canadian and United States