Estevan Mayor Roy Ludwig has been a coal miner for 44 years, and is considering taking an early retirement as part of the 25 positions currently being laid off for Westmoreland Mining LLC.
As such, a transition away from coal-fired power generation in Estevan is a very personal thing for him.
Estevan will be getting $8 million of the $10 million in provincial coal transition funding, announced by Premier Scott Moe in Estevan on Friday. The other $2 million will be going to Coronach, which is in a similar predicament.
“Coal is very important to the city of Estevan,” said Ludwig. “It’s been part of our community since the turn of the (20th) century, in the 1800s, we were mining coal.
“It’s a huge impact, to see, with the changes, with the carbon tax, with the changes of the regulations. The fact is our industry is under siege,” he said.
Ludwig noted the impending 25 layoffs are just the beginning.
Asked if this money takes away hope for additional carbon capture and storage (CCS) at Shand and with Boundary Dam Unit 6, he said, “We hope not. We will continue to work very hard on the clean coal. Again, we feel that’s our future in this community, clean coal. And now that the first unit has been put into place and is working very well, with the fact that we can sell it (CO2) to the oil industry to revitalize the oil wells in a given sector, we do feel it does have a future for us in this community and we’ll continue to support that.”
He noted that with oil companies willing to buy carbon dioxide (CO2), it will make clean coal more viable and put Estevan in the running for other technologies SaskPower is looking at.
“We feel that clean coal is definitely one of the ones in the running. That’s going to be our focus, going forward. And if we can top up the grid with nuclear, we’ll be willing to look at that. The bottom line is jobs.”
Asked if he would welcome a nuclear power plant in the Estevan area, Ludwig said overtures have already been made to New Brunswick to learn more about it, realizing it’s a 10-year window for a project like that to be initiated.
The federal government has a role to play in Estevan, he said.
“With the carbon tax they’ve put in place, with the fact they feel coal is black, and therefore it’s dirty, which we don’t agree with, we feel their responsibility should be pension bridging for people losing their livelihoods, and of course training and transition to new jobs, whatever that may look like, whatever that may be.”
The federal “Just Transition” task force last year recommended pension bridging not just in Saskatchewan, but other coal mining operations, but Ludwig has not heard back from the federal government on it.
He said Estevan set up a coal transition committee a year ago with stakeholders in the community, as well as representatives from the federal government. “We are looking at federal transition funding,” he said. “One of the things we’re looking at is an incubator, for small businesses to start up in a given area. We will supply the office and allow them to get up and running, and hopefully their business will take off, and from there … they don’t need those additional resources,” said Ludwig.
The incubator, with federal funds, would be put in place to help people get started in new businesses.
“That’s something we have started on. As we come forward with more and more suggestions on different businesses, different technologies that we want to perfect, different ideas that maybe this will work in our community – those are the transition funding, at this point that we’re looking at getting.”
Jody Dukart, international auditor and teller for the United Mine Workers of America Local 7606, which represents the unionized workforce at the Estevan Mine, was present for the announcement and subsequent working lunch with the premier. He said that “It would be nice for the provincial government to follow what Alberta did,” referring to assisting with bridging pensions for those taking early retirement.
Dukart said he realizes that can be a touchy subject with oilfield workers, as they have had a tough go of it but not received similar assistance. However, he noted “I’ve got to fight for my members.”
There are 325 union members at the Estevan Mine, he noted. He pointed out an average coal miner’s wage is between $110,000 and $120,000 per year.
