We need your help once more! We need you all to voice your opinion via emails! If this bill is passed, all of our mountains and surrounding areas will be protected once more by the provincial government!
Good morning everyone! We have lots of news surrounding our fight to protect our Rocky Mountains from destruction and our water supplies from being contaminated!
To begin with, a bill has been proposed in the Legislative Assembly of Alberta that essentially encapsulates all of our objectives. It prohibits mining in Category 1 and Category 2 lands, completely stops all current exploratory work from proceeding, and only would allow mining on Category 3 and Category 4 lands once a thorough regional assessment and public consultation process has been done. In other words, it brings back the protections detailed by the 1976 Coal Policy and ensures future governments must be considerate of the environment and public opinion if they want mining operations to occur.
As such, in order to boost the chances of this bill becoming law, we must send a flurry of emails to our representatives to create support, regardless of their political party. We have already created an email template; all you have to do is copy and paste it onto your email, sign off, and then send it to all the relevant parties. The email template can be found here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qIfHiF3-1KfX0Q3ymKISSNo49PYapb5ejuibEu_bgVc/edit?usp=sharing
Secondly, the current Alberta Government has created a survey to fulfill its "public consultation" requirement regarding coal mines. However, this survey is unfortunately not comprehensive, and the questions seem to favor convincing Albertans that coal exploration is a "good" idea over the harmful environmental impacts of open-pit mines. It is only open until April 19th! If you are interested in filling it out, the link is here: https://www.alberta.ca/coal-policy-engagement.aspx
If you are also interested in finding out about the negative impacts of open-pit mines, here is a good article detailing one negative aspect. The article focuses on the US, but the same principles apply for mines in Alberta. The link is here: https://www.colorado.edu/cwest/research/research-themes/water-and-environmental-quality/acid-minerock-drainage
Finally, if you have not already done so, please use these email generators to continue pushing for the protection of our Rocky Mountains: https://act.leadnow.ca/tent-impact/?utm_source=leadnow&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=blast2021-03-26 and https://action.cpaws.org/page/77749/action/2
Thank you all for your help!
Until next time,
-Concerned Citizens of Alberta's Administrator
P.S. A big thank-you to Mike van den Bos for the incredible photo!