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Old 10-28-2020, 11:16 AM
Don Andersen Don Andersen is offline
 
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Central Alberta
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Default Letter from a Retired Fisheries Biologist

This letter writer was the Biologist for the Hinton/Edson region.

Don

Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson,

Minister of Environment and Climate Change

Oct 27, 2020



Dear Minister,



In 1964 as a newly recruited Alberta fish biologist, I stood with two senior biologists on the eroded, trampled, over-grazed banks of the North Raven and looked at muddy watering holes for cattle in the headwater springs. Back then most anglers wanted us to poison the suckers with Rotenone & plant more hatchery trout! Fortunately a few knowledgeable farmers like Elmer Kerr, Henry Lembicz & lawyers like Bob Scammel, police chief George Mitchell & a handful more avid anglers, bought the biologists pitch about the need for habitat reclamation and supported Buck for Wildlife (to reclaim habitat). Today the Raven has been restored by anglers, Alberta Fish & Game Association and Trout Unlimited & now gravel operators want to mine the water source springs and will destroy the fishery. The provincial govt defers to the public to protest the threats to a self-sustainable $million dollar fishery. More examples include unregulated industry roads for logging, petroleum, pipelines and coal mines. Myths blame over-fishing, poaching & Catch & Release mortality. Meanwhile the UCP are opening East Slopes for more metallurgical coal (selenium) and de-listing Parks (campsites) and ignoring OHV 'recreational' damage.



Coal mines always promise clean coal with 'Industry leading world class' reclamation. The short term impacts like sediment & coal fines occur sporadically during construction, when it's too late to stop the mine. Civil servants get left to deal with industry and placate the public without irritating politicians. The big impacts show up after 20 or 50 years when the foreign owned mines are folding like Grande Cache & 3 near Cadomin. They quietly disappear leaving long term environmental liability with permanently buried trout streams and mine waste pits leaching calcium that cements stream bottoms, destroying invertebrate (fish food) habitat. Trout spawning gravels are poisoned with selenium that kills fish shortly after they hatch. The foreign owned mines leave bankrupt communities and workers without jobs, plus the damaged publicly owned landscape and water shortage.



Nobody seems to look at old mines at Grande Cache, Cadomin & Mountain Park in the Northern East Slopes that had scenery, wildlife & fisheries with economic potential that would have competed with Banff & Jasper. The recent Obed Mine spill, Nov 1st 2013, of 670,000 cubic meters of mine waste water, silt & coal fines, made the news for a few weeks and 3 years later the company quietly pleaded guilty and shareholders paid a fine. To put the penalty in perspective, the Alberta Wilderness Association estimated, "this fine was equivalent to paying roughly a $1.40 tax on every tonne of coal produced in one year at Obed Mountain Mine." The receiving waters included about 20 km of trout stream that had Athabasca rainbow trout, listed by SARA as ' Endangered' and bull trout, that are 'Threatened' in Alberta (for 25 years).



The 'new initiative' of expanding coal mines in Alberta was rejected in 1976 and is a sad description of government's failure to protect renewable resources, like water. It also demonstrates a willingness to exploit non-renewable resources in favour of a quick profits benefiting the rich 1% and ends up in Tax Havens or pockets of foreign shareholders. Most Albertans never get to see the inside of a strip mine (using public safety excuses) and the few that do, get a 'guided tour', to see the big machines and the small reclaimed areas and have no concept of unseen cumulative impacts of silt, calcification & selenium or long term damage to our water supply. Communities in the northern East Slopes have long term residents that work in petroleum, wood & coal and many are conflicted because they greatly value the renewable resources. We also have transient workers for a few months or a couple of years, that only stay for the money (example is building pipelines like Trans Mountain).



Politicians have reorganized (shuffled) the 'Environment Department' so many times that it's almost impossible to understand the process of enviro protection. Forestry long ago managed 'forests & watersheds' but it was easier to get budgets for firefighting & tree farming, so land use management was a loser. Fisheries is all about stocking and angler harvest regulations. Habitat protection is seldom mentioned in public, while some biologists blame catch & release angling mortality for the loss of native salmonids. Industry follows an Enviro Code of Practice that allows companies to hire 'experts' to decide on best practices for stream crossings etc. AER reviews industry applications and I don't think local biologists even get to comment on these projects and if they do, the public has no access to the information. I suspect the numerous govt reorgs are quietly manipulated by recommendations from big business to ensure the dysfunction of environmental protection.



Will scientific arguments to reject new coal mines, like Grassy Mountain, be ignored, as per previous mines including Cheviot, Cardinal & Gregg River, and Grande Cache, that are now closing and leaving an environmental liability? These examples are ignored and politicians repeat the same mistakes, based on the old propaganda from industry. As a fish biologist that worked in the E/S for 30+ years, I have investigated numerous 'mine accidents' that harmed our fisheries and we even took a few to court. In 1997 I was a member of the government panel at Public Hearings for the first Cheviot Coal Mine application. I was there to protect the fisheries resource and made the usual arguments based on science. A mining engineer hired by the Review Panel summarized the impacts on fish & wildlife as 'insignificant' and his opinion was quoted in the report that approved the mine. Since 2000, metallurgical coal mining has added selenium to the list of known harmful impacts. In 2011, Teck Coal Hinton, conducted a review of selenium using an independent panel of experts that made several recommendations to reduce the leaching of selenium into headwater streams. None of the methods worked! Now the Alberta government is supporting new mines and using the old arguments that dismiss environmental impacts.



The message from scientists has not been effective in protecting renewable resources, so I plead that you will review the past evidence of coal mine impacts and think about the future instead of making the same mistakes that will severely impact valuable renewable resources and make future generations pay for our mistakes that are based on short-term greed. Please reject the current mining application and set a precedence to stop a scourge of coal mines that will destroy our Eastern Slopes and jeopardize the future water supply for dry prairie landscapes across three provinces. Burning this coal offshore will still cause climate change & contribute to melting glaciers & loss of polar ice cap.



Alberta politicians in 1940s had experienced the prairie drought of the 'dirty thirty's and protected the East Slopes Forest Reserve to conserve & supply water. "A Policy for Resource Management of the East Slopes, 1977" stated, "The highest priority in the overall management of the Eastern Slopes is placed on watershed management". Forty years later Albertans have forgotten these values and already lost most of our native sport fish in East Slope streams and much of our wildlife. Please reject all coal mines in the East Slopes and start a process of reclamation that will provide biodiversity and productive habitats to support renewable resources and benefit all Albertans.



Do it for our Grandchildren.



Carl Hunt

Edson Alberta





Bcc. ENGOs and general public
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  #2  
Old 10-28-2020, 12:33 PM
huntsfurfish huntsfurfish is offline
 
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Thanks for posting that Don.
__________________
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eat a snickers


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Old 10-28-2020, 12:55 PM
saskbooknut saskbooknut is offline
 
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We need a "Like" button.
Those who forget history, are doomed to repeat it.
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Old 10-28-2020, 01:23 PM
osprey osprey is offline
 
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Location: Calgary
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This is a great summary of why business as usual in the eastern slopes will result in wrecking them for this and future generations. Please consider writing or phoning your MLA and phoning Jonathan Wilkinson at 1(603)995-1225 to protest this mine and the general degradation of the eastern slopes to industrial interests.
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Old 10-28-2020, 03:20 PM
pgavey pgavey is offline
 
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Location: Beaver Mines AB.
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Oh jees and I thought it was the quads that destroyed our rivers and creeks.
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Old 10-28-2020, 03:26 PM
tallieho tallieho is offline
 
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Really good read Thanks for sharing Don.
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  #7  
Old 10-28-2020, 04:59 PM
Pioneer2 Pioneer2 is offline
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by pgavey View Post
Oh jees and I thought it was the quads that destroyed our rivers and creeks.
That too.
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