An announcement from fifth-generation rancher Reata Schlosser sums up her opposition to the possibility of coal mining in the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains in southeast Alberta.
“It’s probably the most useful useful resource in the whole world — we all know there’s a scarcity of it on this planet, and fortunate to have the recent water that we have now in our nation,” Schlosser stated.
“And to be ignorant sufficient to simply be prepared to sacrifice that, I feel, may be very shortsighted.”
Schlosser, whose household grazes cattle within the headwaters of the Oldman and Livingstone river watersheds joined a few hundred different ranchers, environmentalists and anxious Albertans at a protest Tuesday, March 4, exterior the downtown Calgary workplaces of the Alberta Vitality Regulator.
About 100 protestors gathered exterior the AER workplaces in downtown Calgary on Tuesday to protest Northback Holdings’ plans to probe for coal within the japanese slopes of the Rocky Mountains.
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Contained in the AER was hearing final oral arguments from proponents and opponents of Northback Holdings plans to exploratory drilling for coal at Grassy Mountain, about seven kilometres north of Blairmore within the Crowsnest Move — an space Northback says was the placement of a earlier coal mine, owned a special firm, within the late Nineteen Fifties.
Northback Holdings has utilized for permits to probe for coal within the Grassy Mountain space, simply north of Blairmore, within the japanese slopes of Alberta’s Rocky Mountains.
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Northback’s Rina Blacklaws defended the corporate’s plans as solely exploratory drilling.
Northback Holdings’ Rina Blacklaws stated any exploration for coal within the japanese slopes could be subjected to a number of the strictest environmental legal guidelines on this planet.
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“One of many largest misconceptions relating to what we’re doing right here right now is that is for functions associated to a really easy exploration drilling program that’s going to have very minimal environmental results,” stated Blacklaws.
“It’s on beforehand disturbed plans — it’ll pose no danger to public security and could be carried out following the rules of the AER.”
Nicole Johnston, a member of the Piikani First Nation, advised the AER listening to that the realm round Grassy Mountain is sacred territory.
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Whereas some members of the Piikani First Nation have thrown their help behind the plan due to the financial advantages it might convey to the realm, Nicole Johnston requested the AER to reject Northback’s plans as a result of Grassy Mountain is “a sacred place.”
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“There’s a sacred pipe that’s buried up there. It goes again to a narrative the place an previous girl from Piikani, earlier than she died, as a result of it was a really highly effective pipe, and he or she took it as much as the mountain and that’s the place she laid to relaxation,” stated Johnston.
“That is one factor that lots of non-Indigenous individuals don’t perceive relating to our sacredness and our spirituality. I have no idea what’s going to occur when that pipe will get bothered or desecrated.”
The Grassy Mountain venture has been beforehand rejected beneath federal and provincial environmental legal guidelines, however in November 2023, Alberta Vitality Minister Brian Jean promised Alberta’s Energy Regulator would hold public hearings on the company’s application to do exploratory drilling.
These hearings were held in Blairmore in early December 2024 and Calgary in early January 2025.
Following Tuesday’s last oral arguements in Calgary, the AER can have 90 days to decided on Northback’s software.
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