Sierra Club of Canada
Contact:
Dianne Pachal
E-mail:
dpachal@myexcel.ca
Website:
http://www.sierraclub.ca
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Stripping the Life – the Threat
Roughly 25 tonnes of the mountain landscape will be stripped away and dumped onto the surrounding landscape for every tonne of coal exported to Asia by the Cheviot open-pit mine. It would be dumped at a rate of 30 million tonnes per year over the proposed 20 year life of the mine. Destroyed will be a mountain wildland including eight creeks and valleys of the very headwaters of the McLeod and Cardinal Rivers.
The June 1977 and August 2000 reports of the joint federal-provincial Review Panel (Cheviot Review Panel) found that there would be significant, adverse effects on fish and fish habitat, neotropical migratory birds, soil landscapes, general terrain features, people seeking a wildland experience and the First Nations’ traditional use of the lands. They also concluded that the loss of prime grizzly bear habitat would have to somehow be compensated for.
With the company’s new (August 2002) application to add to the 7,015 hectare (17,557 acre) mine permit, the open-pit mine would form a 22 km by 23 km (14 mi), “L” shape adjacent the east boundary of Jasper National Park. (map) The mine would consist of 26 huge pits and valley-filling piles of waste rock stretching a distance equivalent to the width of Alberta’s capitol city, Edmonton (23 km) and up to eight km (five mi) wide, beginning a short 2.8 km (less than two miles) from Jasper National Park. Linking it with the Luscar open-pit mine to the north would be a 22 km long haul-road, with massive trucks passing any given point along the route every six to 15 minutes, 24 hours a day, every day. (map)
World Heritage Site Threatened
The Cheviot mine permit is adjacent Jasper National Park and the largest unit
of wilderness within the Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks World Heritage Site. The
government agency responsible for national parks (Parks Canada) testified before
the Cheviot Review Panel that development of the mine would harm
the ecological integrity of Jasper National Park and jeopardize Canada’s ability
to meet its international obligations under the UN World Heritage Convention.
Canada is obligated to avoid taking deliberate action that would harm World Heritage Sites. In 1972, Canada, as a member of the United Nations’ Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) adopted the Convention for the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage and proceeded with nominating the unit of Banff, Jasper, Yoho and Kootenay National Parks as a World Heritage Site. The parks were internationally declared as the Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks World Heritage Site in 1984.
Pandora’s Box of Risks to Human and Environmental Health
Like Pandora’s Box, once opened by gigantic excavated pits into the bedrock, there’s no known way to put the lid back on selenium discharges from open-pit coal mines. Particularly when they exceed water quality guidelines and the elevated levels of selenium bio-accumulates in fish and other wildlife. In turn this can pose a human health concern.
Elevated levels of selenium, a trace element, are a serious problem downstream of the present Luscar mine. The mine has frequently exceeded water quality guidelines for selenium. February 2000, the provincial Health and Wellness Department issued a news release and background information alerting the public that eating fish from streams downstream of the mine and from a mining-pit lake in a reclaimed area of the mine could result in a daily selenium intake higher than acceptable health guidelines. People were advised to limit their eating of fish from these waters to less than three meals a week and the department launched a health risk assessment to look further into the problem. Studies have also been launched into the selenium poisoning of the fish and into selenium levels in bighorn sheep and grizzly bears of the area, with reports expected in the fall of 2002.
While monitoring of selenium levels in water and wildlife will tell you when there is a problem from a mine, monitoring alone provides no solution. Experts have described potential mitigation measures as "hypothetical and highly speculative" at this point. The proposed Cheviot mine is located in the headwaters of the same river system as the Luscar mine. Cheviot would be digging into the same geological formations that are resulting in selenium exceedences at Luscar, adding to an already serious problem for which there is no known technically and economically feasible solution. As well, Cheviot would be leaving more than a dozen mining pits to fill with water and be stocked with fish, as was the case with the single mining “end-pit lake” at Luscar that resulted in elevated levels of selenium in the “lake” and fish.
“End-pit lakes” are used as a measure to reduce mining and reclamation costs at open-pit mines. They are also a recent experiment to compensate for fish habitat lost through mining. With the elevated selenium levels and poisoned fish at the Luscar end-pit lake, it is now clear that this approach in no way compensates for the native trout streams destroyed by mining.
Selenium naturally occurs in soil and the bedrock below. It is taken up by plants or when in water, is accumulated in aquatic organisms and so on up the food chain. It is an essential trace element in the diet of all vertebrates (all animals with backbones). While we need a certain amount of selenium in our diets, a mildly excessive amount eaten over long periods of time can cause health problems such as skin lesions, and brittle hair and nails. In extreme cases, loss of feeling and control in the arms and legs occurs. These problems disappear in humans when the selenium levels in the diet are lowered.
Too much selenium also causes health problems for wildlife, with fish being the most researched and documented. At even slightly elevated levels, it can be harmful to fish, reducing growth, impairing reproduction, and causing tissue damage and increased mortality. One of the hallmarks of selenium poisoning in fish is the occurrence of permanent development-defects in the offspring. Initial studies have found such defects in the brook and rainbow trout downstream of the Luscar mine and at the mine’s end-pit lake.
Silencing Nature’s Spring
Experts with the federal Canadian Wildlife Service testified that the proposed mine area has a species richness and diversity of song birds "as high as it gets in North America." Many species are declining in North America, including those that nest here in Canada and winter in the southern US, Mexico or the tropics. The experts estimated that the mine would result in the loss of 4,000 to 5,000 song birds and their off-spring from then on, including birds from 32 species whose populations are already declining. Replacing nature’s spring songs would be the blasts of mine charges, drone of mining equipment and continual roar of huge haul trucks, then the silence of a landscape torn up and reshaped beyond recognition when mining has ended.
Mine Would Contravene Migratory Birds Convention Act
March 1999, the Federal Court of Canada ruled that should Cheviot proceed, it would contravene the Migratory Birds Convention Act by destroying migratory bird habitat, leaving it permanently buried under millions of tons of excavated rock. Although the Cheviot Review Panel found that the impact of the mine on neotropical songbirds (winter in the tropics and nest in Canada) would be adverse and significant, they left it to the federal government to resolve the issue.
Waste rock from open-pit mining, should Cheviot ever begin, would be dumped and left covering the wildland landscape and filling the area’s stream valleys. This would occur at an average rate of 30 million tonnes of rock per year over the proposed 20-year life of the mine. The area is habitat for 127 species of birds, including 32 species whose populations have already declined significantly in North America. Of these 32 species, 24 are migratory. Twenty of the bird species found there are listed as being “at-risk” (rare or may be at risk of extirpation) in Alberta.
The streams of the proposed mine are an integral part of the breeding and brood rearing habitat for the migratory Harlequin Duck. It is listed as “at-risk” both nationally and in Alberta.
Harlequins - the Spotted Owls of Mountain Streams
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The streams of the Cheviot mine permit and adjacent Whitehorse Creek are home to the second largest known breeding population of Harlequin ducks in western North America. Researchers concluded that the only option for the long-term viability of the Harlequins was to leave all of the streams of the proposed mine area untouched.
The dramatically colored Harlequin ducks are long lived and return year after year to their same breeding and wintering areas, making them good indicators of environmental quality. In their breeding areas, they are dependent on fast flowing, undisturbed mountain streams for nesting and rearing their young. Thus, they are good indicators of pristine, mountain stream environments. Due to the loss of habitat, their numbers are declining in western North America and they are listed as a “species at risk” in Alberta (may be at risk of extirpation).
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Mine Would Harm Jasper National Park
In the 1960’s, before any requirement for environmental impact assessments and consultation with the public, open-pit coal mines opened or reopened in the Rocky Mountains of Alberta, including two (Luscar and Gregg River) adjacent the national park. (map) The cumulative impacts of these open-pit mines and other existing regional developments (logging, oil and gas, roads) are a documented threat to the ecological integrity of Jasper and to large carnivores in the region, including grizzly bears. (map) Mountain passes between Cheviot and Jasper National Park are travel routes for grizzly bears, which depend on high quality habitat in the proposed mine site.
The federal agency responsible for national parks, Parks Canada stated its,
"concerns relate specifically to the loss or alienation of habitat; impacts on essential wildlife travel corridors which link Jasper National Park and the high-quality habitat in adjacent provincial lands; increases in wildlife mortalities and the cumulative impacts of this project and other planned or proposed activities such as timber harvesting, access, oil and gas exploration on Jasper National Park."
They focused on assessing the mine’s impact on grizzly bears and the company’s proposal to compensate for the loss through participating in the development of a regional plan for the bears. Grizzly bears are both an indicator and an umbrella species. In this context, an indicator species is one which is particularly sensitive to the effects of development and human activities, “a canary in the mine.” Population or habitat declines for an indicator species indicate not only impacts on the indicator species itself, but also on other species and on the ecosystem to which they belong. An umbrella species is one that occupies a broad ecological niche (combination of habitats and environmental conditions) and thusly, meeting the ecological needs of this species also meets the needs of many other species.
Referring to the Cheviot Review Panel’s first report, they concluded,
“Based on the Panel’s Conclusions, Decisions, and Recommendations Parks Canada cannot be assured that grizzly bears will persist in the cumulative effects study area, and therefore cannot be assured that the national park mandate and objectives for ecological integrity can be met.”
In reference to the supplemental review, Parks Canada stated,
“... evidence presented in 2000 assessing cumulative effects of mining, forestry, oil and gas and recreation, gives cause to increase our level of concern...”
In 2000, Parks Canada’s recommended that the western third of the mine NOT proceed, and that together with four other areas, it be left intact and protected as a security area for grizzly bears.
Damage Would Extend Beyond 100 Years
Both the company's and Parks Canada's experts concluded that the Cheviot mine would result in the direct loss of quality habitat and wildlife travel routes for at least 100 years.
“Species such as grizzly bear are quantifiable measures of ecological integrity and are used as surrogate or umbrella species by which the impact on other species might be assessed. The applicant’s statement that this project will have significant adverse effects on grizzly bears, which are immitigable within 50 to 100 years, suggests a parallel situation for other species under the umbrella.” (Parks Canada, 1997)
The company's carnivore expert had concluded that the Cheviot mine, when added to the effects of industrial activity already occurring or approved elsewhere in the region, would over time result in the extirpation of grizzly bears, wolves, wolverines cougars and fishers from the region.
There is no place else for wildlife to go in the region, should the mine proceed. (map) The mine permit is an island of Critical Wildlife lands within a narrow strip of Prime Protection zoned lands along the boundary of Jasper National Park. There is no vacant, quality wildlife habitat. The rest of the region east of the national park is zoned for development, and consists of roads, mines, clear-cut logging and oil and gas exploration and development. Most of the land area of Jasper is mountain peaks.
Already, Too Few Grizzly Bears Left in Alberta
The international vision of Canada being a reservoir of wilderness and wildlife isn't the reality in Alberta. The Alberta Fish and Wildlife agency has already publicly stated that if the United States would request some grizzly bears to assist with its recovery efforts, Alberta has none to give. The numbers, at roughly 800 bears for the whole 646,880 km2 of Alberta, are a fraction of the historic numbers and are still far below the target of 1,000 set in 1984 as the goal for grizzly bear recovery.
As Alberta's management plan for grizzlies stipulates, "The survival of the grizzly bears in Alberta primarily depends on preservation and management of habitat." About half of Alberta's remaining grizzlies live in the Rocky Mountains. "A priority for management here is habitat inventory, protection and enhancement." The Cheviot mine area is identified as part of the habitat needed for the recovery of grizzlies, but Alberta has no endangered species legislation to require habitat protection. In 2002, the province’s Endangered Species Conservation Committee found that the grizzly bear met the World Conservation Organization’s (IUCN) criteria for listing as a “threatened species” and recommended that the bears be listed as such. However, the Alberta Government has thus far, refused to list them, let alone protect their habitat.
The Alternative
For coal export, the alternative to the Cheviot mine is now in place. December 2000, the parent companies completed transactions allowing them to proceed with their existing Line Creek mine in southeast British Columbia as the alternative. It produces the same “coal product,” and has enough coal reserves to meet the Line Creek exports and cover that which would have been produced from Cheviot.
For the mine workers, those who have not been transferred to Line Creek, there is also an alternative within Alberta. The extensive tarsands developments use open-pit mining and the companies have been looking for workers inside and beyond Alberta for their expansions.
Cheviot’s parent companies, the Canadian Government and the province of Alberta have an opportunity to turn the closure of the region’s three open-pit coking-coal mines and the indefinite postponement of Cheviot into a positive story for the community of Hinton and Jasper National Park. This can be accomplished by:
The way has already been pointed to by recommendations of the Cheviot Review Panel, the national Panel on the Ecological Integrity of Canada’s National Parks and the UN World Heritage Committee.
| The Review Panel recommended the federal government take timely action to assist Hinton with developing an environmentally sustainable and diverse economic base. (Recommendation #28). |
| The Ecological Integrity Panel recommended the federal government work with other jurisdictions, the public and industry to find solutions to maintaining ecological integrity and that this work be supported by a dedicated fund. |
| The World Heritage Committee has added provincial parks (Hamber, Mtn. Robson) on the British Columbia side of Jasper to the World Heritage Site and they did ask Canada to work on alternatives to Cheviot because of the area’s environmental significance. |
Proposed Mountain Wildland Park
| First proposed in 1974 by Alberta Government scientists and in 1977 as a result of the United Nations International Biological Program. (Through the years has been variously called Cardinal Divide, Cardinal, Cardinal-Mountain Park and Mountain Park.) |
| 461 sq km (247 sq mi) in size, one-third of which (174 sq km or 67 sq mi) was established in 1998 as the Whitehorse Whitehorse Wildland Provincial Park. Completion of the park would include the area of the proposed Cheviot mine. (map) |
The proposed Mountain Wildland Provincial Park is of national significance; having a complex of natural features not found elsewhere in Canada. It is also of outstanding cultural and historical value to First Nations and non-native peoples. So important an area is it that once established as a park, it would qualify for inclusion with the Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks World Heritage Site.
The proposed park derives its name from the remote village, Mountain Park, which at the turn of the last century was located in a wilderness paradise that today is proposed as a park. All that remains of the village are the cemetery, some foundations and the vivid memories and photographs of those who lived there. Located adjacent Japser National Park, the proposed park includes the site of Mountain Park, as well as former national park lands.
If established, the park would provide protection for the wildlife habitat that provincial plans identify as needed for the recovery of grizzly bears (a "species at risk") and other carnivores, as well as for bull trout, an endangered species in Alberta. It encompasses lands zoned by the Alberta Government as Prime Protection and Critical Wildlife. The opposing Cheviot mine would be located on the Critical Wildlife lands in the core of the proposed park, and the Prime Protection zoned lands are the mountain peaks and slopes. The park would also include lands (the headwaters of the Cardinal River) recommended by the Cheviot Review Panel for protection in order to protect wildlife habitat and movement in and out of Jasper National Park. Furthermore, it includes the Red Cap Mountain bighorn sheep refuge and thus, would provide the habitat with legal protection.
In addition to being significant in its own right, Mountain Wildland Park is also a key factor for protecting the wilderness and ecological integrity of Jasper National Park.
| includes critical wildlife habitat for animals which are also found part of year in the national park. |
| would protect wildlife movement between the national park and habitat needed outside of it. |
| would protect the adjacent wilderness of Jasper from further incursions by the sights and sounds of industrial development. |
Human History and Cultural Use
(map)
The plants and the wildland that supports them within the proposed park sustains an ancient, unbroken chain of aboriginal use of medicinal plants; many of which are not known from elsewhere. It is also the land where more than one First Nation historically buried their loved ones and where the families of the Mountain Park underground miners buried theirs. The Mountain Park Cemetery is located at the highest elevation of any cemetery within the Commonwealth countries. Both First Nations and non-native peoples hold strong historical, cultural and aesthetic values for the area.
The proposed park includes significant paleotological sites and was the site of one of Alberta’s first and certainly its most remote mining villages, Mountain Park, an early 1900’s underground coal mine. All but the village cemetery was removed from this wildland by 1952. By comparison, the land-area developed or disturbed by the former village and mine (a total of 70 ha or 173 acres) is less than one one-hundredth of that proposed by the Cheviot open-pit coal mine.
Mountain Park – Historic Site
“If we do start a mine, I have chosen a name for the town that will be built. This is like a park in the old country. We will call it Mountain Park.” 1910. Robert Thornton, mining engineer, upon inspecting the claim.
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Its location had the look of a Swiss alpine village set in the Rocky Mountain wilderness; a natural amphitheater of meadows and forest glades surrounded by snow capped peaks. The site was claim staked in 1909 by John Gregg [John James Greig], an early prospector, following a summer camp in the area with his wife Mary, daughter of Chief Cardinal. Mountain Park was established shortly after as an underground coal mine and company village; at 5819 feet elevation, the highest village in Canada. It was located at the end of a railway line built for the mine and the only access to and from Mountain Park for 21 years. (Today, there is a fair-weather, public road.) It was in a region of Alberta that became known as the Coal Branch because of more than a dozen underground mines operating at various times in the early 1900’s. Of Alberta’s early coal “camps,” Mountain Park is the only one that remains with the surrounding wilderness landscape much as it was when the village was founded. So too does the community spirit remain.
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The pioneer miners and their families used their frequent days off to participate in community events and explore the surrounding wilderness, including regular trips by horse through Rocky Pass into Jasper National Park – a new park in 1907. They developed strong community ties amongst themselves and with the surrounding wilderness and its wildlife. Hence, even though all of the village and mine facilities, except the cemetery and foundations are gone, former residents and their descendants are still active with Mountain Park and they formed the Mountain Park Environment Protection and Heritage Association. Even now, 50 years after the town was gone, remembrances are still being put in the town cemetery and former residents still living have expressed their wish to be remembered there. The association has signed the former locations of homes, churches and commercial buildings; sponsored a reenactment of the race up Mount Harris (a prominent event on the very popular sports day in the early history of the town); continues to maintain the cemetery; and is currently researching more of the history.
The town was not hard hit by the depression of the 1930’s as the miners had steady jobs through this period. On the other hand, the early pioneers of Mountain Park also bore the dangers, deaths and low wages of Western Canada’s first coal mines. They carried out a major struggle for better working conditions and wages. The collective labor struggles of those of the Coal Branch, to a large degree, is the reason behind mining in the region being carried out as safely and equitably as it is today.
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We support the Mountain Park Association’s belief that it’s very important for a fitting memorial be left to these pioneers, and that this could best be done through the preservation of Mountain Park’s in situ history; its cemetery, foundations and wilderness landscape. It also makes for a striking and contemplative contrast to today’s open-pit mining of the region and an interesting overlay with the First Nations’ history associated with the same area.
A Hot-Spot of Biological Diversity
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The proposed Mountain Wildland Park is one of the most extensive complexes of alpine tundra and subalpine habitats found in the front ranges of the Rocky Mountains. Scientific assessments of environmental significance conducted by the Foothills Model Forest Program (1994) and by the Alberta Environment Department have concluded that the proposed mine area is of national significance; having a combination of natural features not found elsewhere in Canada. The area is comprised of four contiguous Environmentally Significant Areas (ESAs); Whitehorse Creek, McLeod River Headwaters, Red Cap and Cardinal River Headwaters. (map and site information)
It is a refugium and a "hot spot" of biological diversity, including several disjunct (occurring separate and far removed from their main populations), rare and threatened species, as well as a previously unrecorded species. There is also a high potential for the discovery of additional rare or previously unrecorded species, particularly plants, insects and aquatic life.
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For example, the proposed park (and the opposing Cheviot open-pit mine) is home to:
| mammals and birds of 29 “species at risk” in Alberta including those that require old-growth forests or untouched mountain steams. This includes the second largest known Alberta breeding population of Harlequin ducks, as well as grizzly bears, wolverines and northern long-eared bats. |
| a species richness and diversity of song birds described by the Canadian Wildlife Service as “as high as it gets in North America.” |
| bull trout, which are endangered in Alberta. |
| plants from at least 37 provincially significant and 3 nationally significant populations, as well as rare plant communities, such as a type of Engelmann Spruce-subalpine fir old-growth forest and a White Dryad-Kobresia alpine plant community. |
The area is also of substantial geographic importance as the proposed park (and the opposing mine) sits astride the continental divide between the waters flowing to the Arctic Ocean and those flowing to the Atlantic; at the head waters of the McLeod River (Arctic watershed) and the Cardinal (Atlantic watershed). There are calcareous and sulfur springs, a unique vegetated rock glacier and an abundance of periglacial features including patterned ground.
A Refugium
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Visitors to the proposed Mountain Park today are hiking amongst the direct descendants of plants and insects that were there at least 11,000 years ago and possibly as far back as 128,000 years.
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The proposed park and the existing Whitehorse Wildland Park include an area
that scientists (including those studying plants and insects) believe was unglaciated
during the last major glaciation; an area known as a refugium. This area contains
several disjunct species (individuals far removed from their main populations),
such as species of moss that are only otherwise found in the Canadian Arctic.
Company Changes Mine & Gets More of Our Mountains
Provincial approvals given without environmental assessment or public hearing
In a new bid to get the Cheviot mine underway, the company applied for and in
Dec. 2003, received provincial approvals to develop a potentially more destructive
mine, including adding the west side of the McLeod River valley to the mine.
It will now entail 7,455 hectares (18,421 acres) of public wildlands. Under
the guise of a “private haulroad” application and approvals, as
of March 2004, the company is pushing forward with developing Cheviot as a satellite
operation of their Luscar mine located to the north, instead of the self-contained
mine reviewed by previous environmental impacts assessments and public hearings.
That federal-provincial review did not take into account the impacts of such
a satellite mine, nor how mining less than half the coal and employing only
about 120 people in this non-renewable resource extraction would stack up against
the significant, adverse environmental impacts they concluded would result from
the mine. It was not reviewed as the company had, in their words, “abandoned”
such a satellite mine development for technical, environmental and social reasons.
Spanning a width equivalent to that of Alberta’s capitol, Edmonton, Cheviot
would still strip the heart out of the nationally significant, Mountain Park
wildland. But now added to Cheviot would be continued operations at the Luscar
mine, also adjacent Jasper National Park, and a 22 kilometer-long, high speed,
haulroad to truck raw coal north to Luscar for processing at their 40 year-old
plant. (map)
This gives the new Cheviot project the shape of a giant “L” paralleling
the east boundary of Jasper National Park and Whitehorse Wildland Park. The
road would be blasted and bulldozed into the narrow, headwater valley of the
McLeod River. It will add an equally long north-south leg of development to
the open-pit mining area, which would start 2.8 km from the national park boundary
and extend 23 km eastward. Hauling by massive trucks between the mines would
occur 24-7, with trucks passing any given point along the route every six to
15 minutes. In effect, a wall of bermed road and moving trucks to wildlife movement
and the use of habitat.
Located towards the north end of this route, the hamlet of Cadomin had previously
won the condition that the company would build a bypass around them for the
daily travel of workers from Hinton to the self-contained, Cheviot mine. That
was with the previous mine plan. Now, part of the hamlet’s outskirts has
been taken up by the expanded mine permit, and residents are facing the prospect
of the continuous roar and dust of coal trucks passing their community and the
associated plummeting of land values.
Although the area of the mine operations would be larger and more intrusive,
compared to the previous proposal, the new one will mine less than half the
coal (29 million clean metric tonnes instead of 64) and employ only one-quarter
of the people (around 120 jobs over, at best, 15 years, instead of the 400 plus
jobs over 20 years). The federal-provincial review panel in 1997 and 2000, concluded
that the open-pit mining would result in significant, adverse effects on fish
and fish habitat, neotropical migratory birds, soil landscapes, general terrain
features, people seeking a wildland experience and First Nations’ traditional
use of the lands. They also concluded the mine would destroy fisheries habitat
and prime grizzly bear habitat. Parks Canada had concluded they could not ensure
the ecological integrity of Jasper National Park, a World Heritage Site, if
the mine proceeded.
The previous Cheviot project, approved in 2000, was not developed due to its
poor economic viability and public opposition. Alberta Environment and the Energy
& Utilities Board refused to require an environmental impact assessment
of the new proposal and would not hold public hearings on it. It seems the new
proposal was broken into pieces for approval of one piece at a time in order
to avoid triggering a joint federal-provincial review and the requirement of
an environmental impact assessment and hearings on the whole of the new project.
As of yet, none of the required federal authorizations are in place for the
mine.
Why a Park Instead of an Open Pit Mine?
When significant, adverse environmental effects are predicted to result
from a proposed development, it’s best to look for and use an alternative. For
the Cheviot mine, there are alternatives.
And the proposed Mountain Wildland Park isn’t just any other natural area; it’s
a biological
hot-spot that has been assessed by the province as being of national
significance
and would qualify for inclusion with the Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks World
Heritage Site.
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In this case, it's not an issue of jobs versus the environment, but one of short-term jobs from a non-renewable resource versus long-term jobs and sustainable development. Coal is a non-renewable resource whereas a park is a “renewable resource,” the value of which increases over time. The Cheviot open-pit mine would operate for 20 years (if at all), but would forever destroy the wildland and foreclose the option of a park. Economic assessments found the value of the proposed mine (assuming a future market for the coal) to be in the same order of magnitude as leaving the area in its present wildland state. The region’s first park, Jasper National Park (1907), is still with us, is now of international significance and is of substantial value to those resident in the region. It is so valued that it cannot sustain the full demand of people wanting to use it without incurring harm to the park and thus, additional parks are needed.
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Government land-use planning, which involved industry and the public, identified the need to diversify the Hinton region's resource extraction based economy; highlighting tourism as an option. The wildlands of the proposed mine were identified as one of the two, key tourism assets in the region. The proposed park, of World Heritage caliber, could be the highlight of a circle tour of the Coal Branch, starting from Hinton. But it’s not just tourism. The transportation and internet communication systems are allowing people to bring their businesses and their retirement income to attractive, quality environments in the Rocky Mountains.
It’s important that the Hinton region not fall behind the new times. The Sonoran Institute, an economic research institute, reports the economy of Alberta’s Rocky Mountain region is now clearly being driven by something other than the resource industries. “Environmental protection is good for business … land-uses which damage the environment … actually weaken the economy in the long run.” The fastest growing employment categories are service related occupations, and wholesale and retail trade (65,000 new jobs over five-year study period). Whereas employment in “primary industries” (logging and forestry, mining, oil and gas, agriculture, fishing and trapping) is stagnant (only 320 new jobs). The unemployment rate dropped and the average income increased. For communities, the change means a move away from the boom-bust cycles of a dependency on resource extraction and brings with it the need to manage growth and plan for environmentally sustainable development.
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