Questions raised by members of the community has prompted Lethbridge City Council to re-commit its opposition to any coal projects that would put the Oldman Watershed at risk.
The motion, brought forward by City Councillor Belinda Crowson and passed by council, includes having Mayor Blaine Hyggen issue a public statement that outlines the city’s concerns about coal mining and asking the province to ensure that there are no coal mine projects allowed on the Eastern Slopes. City administration also has been directed to make a presentation about potential concerns of future coal mining projects related to the Oldman Watershed and local water supply.
Crowson says this conversation is an important one to have because everyone in the community is a steward of the water and it is important to take care of both the quality of the water and the quantity of the water for not just daily use but also industry use; including agri-food businesses and agriculture in the surrounding region.
“Think about just over this past year, the city has created a water policy, we are looking at how we are going to charge for water,” Crowson says. “Water is absolutely something that is always on the mind of any resident and any municipality in southern Alberta, and so this has been part of a long-term conversation and will always be part of the conversation.”
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Mayor Hyggen says the presentation administration has been directed to bring forward on April 10th is not going to change council’s stance on the matter, but is a response to what they are hearing from the community about people wanting to have their voice heard on this issue.
“This is honestly what standing policy committees are all about, the opportunity to have the community members come in and speak on this,” Hyggen says. “So, of course, I think that is something of importance. I think getting more information is not terrible.”
City Councillor Ryan Parker echoed the mayor’s comments, saying the last time there was a “hot topic issue in regards to oil, gas, or coal mining” was back in 2014 about fracking within the city. He describes it as being a contentious issue, in which the community was “pretty one-sided in regards to there was a lot of concern about it.”
“So instead of having some kind of public hearing within council chambers, we should have a public meeting, a public discussion, where all sides of the story could be heard, and we used the Yates,” Parker says. “If we have to go down that route on something like this because it is a big issue in our community [as] it affects everyone, we can always go back to the template we had in 2014.”
In October 2020, then-Mayor Chris Spearman was directed by the council of the day to send a letter to the Alberta Minister of Environment and Parks, the Premier of Alberta and the MLA for Lethbridge East about council’s concerns about water quality. The letter is also said to reference the Oldman Watershed Council Submission to the Joint Review Panel on the Grassy Mountain Coal Project. The next year a trio of resolutions were passed by council about the concerns. In 2023 Mayor Hyggen was directed by council to write another letter to the Alberta Energy Regulator and include the previous letter sent by Spearman with the the same concerns.
