SASK. — Alberta coal mining in the Rocky Mountains has potential regional impacts, but consultations won't include any voices from Saskatchewan.
The perspectives of people in this province will be absent when a panel reviewing coal mining in the eastern Rockies is delivers its findings to the Alberta government on Dec. 31.
The panel “held extensive engagement sessions throughout Alberta, but these did not extend into Saskatchewan," panel chair Ron Wallace noted in a prepared statement.
About 99 per cent of the flow of the South Saskatchewan River originates in Alberta, much of it in areas that could be affected by coal mining, according to John Pomeroy, Canada Research Chair in Water Resources and Climate Change at the University of Saskatchewan.
There's a risk substances like selenium could end up in bodies of water like Lake Diefenbaker, where the province has announced a $4-billion irrigation project.
That means local voices like Indigenous communities should be included when consultations take place, he said.
The panel was created in March after the Alberta government reinstated decades-old environmental protections limiting coal mining in the Rocky Mountains and foothills.
Groups like the Saskatchewan Environmental Society (SES) welcomed those limits, but municipalities along the waterways were less vocal.
When those protections were originally lifted, High River, Alta. Mayor Craig Snodgrass invited municipalities in Saskatchewan and Manitoba to share potential concerns.
He said the Resort Village of Kannata Valley is the only Saskatchewan municipality that responded to his invitation to share concerns about potential coal mining on the Eastern slopes at the time.
The village was supportive of the protections due to its economic ties to Last Mountain Lake, which is a tourism and fishing destination.
Kannata Valley Mayor Don Sangster said his concerns were mostly addressed with the reinstatement of the protections and he didn't see a need to be directly involved in consultation.
"We would have hoped High River had 500 communities (that responded) and then they could ... indicate that it does affect people all the way along," he said.
Bob Halliday, vice president of SES, called it "unfortunate" that interprovincial impacts were beyond the review's scope.
He's concerned that coal mining would mobilize metals like selenium, arsenic, cadmium and other contaminants.
He noted the Prairie Provinces Water Board (PPWB) monitors water quality at interprovincial river crossings and that any review of specific coal mining projects must consider interprovincial consequences.
"Experience has shown that this contamination could move downriver to Saskatchewan," he said. "It is Alberta’s responsibility to ensure that this does not happen."
"Saskatchewan respects Alberta’s jurisdiction to make decisions about responsible resource developments within its borders," the provincial environment ministry wrote In a prepared statement.
It added that the Water Security Agency would provide input to PPWB to resolve issues that affect downstream users, including proposed coal development.
"Saskatchewan puts a high priority on the safety and security of its water supply, and will continue to work with Alberta and other jurisdictions on shared water management issues," the statement said.
Pomeroy said the PPWB could call for a Saskatchewan River basin study to examine any potential impacts.
"If you're going to look at mining development of the headwaters, you have to look at the whole river basin, the whole watershed, and follow the impacts downstream," he said.
"And that hasn't been done. Frankly, there is a lot of uncertainty (over) what the impacts would be."
