‘Stories the numbers tell’: Critics ask why Alberta sat on coal contamination data

Critics are asking why Alberta Atmosphere has been sitting on years value of information about air pollution from coal mines whereas the federal government considers a dramatic enlargement of the business.

“It raises some essential questions on our capacity to belief what’s occurring,” stated New Democrat setting critic Marlin Schmidt. “The very fact (Alberta Atmosphere) hasn’t reported publicly is extraordinarily regarding.”

On Monday, The Canadian Press reported on an evaluation of coal mine contamination within the Gregg and McLeod Rivers and Luscar Creek close to Jasper, Alta., relationship again to the Nineties. It discovered poisonous ranges of selenium many instances over the quantity thought of protected for aquatic life.

The Gregg and Luscar Creek mines closed within the early 2000s. Selenium ranges from each declined, at finest, solely steadily over greater than 15 years of remediation.

Within the case of the Cheviot mine on the McLeod River, ranges steadily grew between 2005 and 2017. The operation closed final June.

The info additionally exhibits the provincial authorities knew concerning the ranges for a minimum of 15 years and didn’t report something after 2006. The data was out there in uncooked kind, however Schmidt stated it isn’t sufficient to easily accumulate data.

“There are numbers after which there are the numbers that the tales inform. That’s the piece that’s lacking.”

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The New Democrats have been in energy for 4 of these years. Schmidt stated sitting on the knowledge is worse now as a result of Alberta goes via a wrenching debate over the current authorities’s plans to broaden the business by opening up the Rocky Mountains to open-pit, mountaintop coal mines — an choice that didn’t exist beneath the NDP.

“This information’s relevance is extra essential now,” he stated.

Alberta Atmosphere has identified that the uncooked information has all the time been public. Spokesman John Muir promised the province would quickly launch its personal report on water downstream of coal mines.

Lack of motion exhibits that monitoring usually promised by business and authorities as new tasks are thought of isn’t sufficient, stated Katie Morrison of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society.

“On these rivers we’re seeing that monitoring hasn’t been sufficient to truly management selenium. We simply proceed to vow monitoring. We didn’t see motion to convey these selenium numbers down.”

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A 2006 provincial report discovered that selenium was already harming fish. As nicely, a 2005 revealed examine co-authored by provincial scientists discovered rainbow trout have been struggling facial and skeletal deformities from selenium.

The province has lately offered about 1.4 million hectares of coal exploration leases. Tons of of drill websites and kilometres of recent roads have already been permitted on beforehand unmined mountainsides. One new coal mine, Benga Mining’s Grassy Mountain undertaking within the Crowsnest Cross in southwestern Alberta, is earlier than a joint federal-provincial evaluate.

The data on the previous coal mines exhibits what’s at situation for brand new ones, stated Morrison.

“These stakes are actually excessive. (Selenium launch) has been taking place different locations and so they haven’t been capable of get the selenium beneath management.”

Benga says a brand new methodology ought to permit the mine to deal with 99 per cent of its selenium. As nicely, the mine has been designed to attenuate contact between water and selenium-bearing rocks, the corporate says.

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Morrison stated that therapy continues to be unproven. She stated if its effectivity falls to even 90 per cent, selenium ranges in close by streams will cross thresholds protected for aquatic life.

Morrison stated her group produced professional testimony on the Benga hearings suggesting the corporate doesn’t have a convincing long-term plan for controlling selenium lengthy into the long run.

“We’ve not seen that know-how work on the scale that we’ll want it to or with the quantity of selenium we’re more likely to see.”