The Livingstone Landowners Groups is fighting against a proposed 50,000 hectare, or 500 square Kilometers, open-pit coal mine on the eastern slopes of the Rockies.

Bobbi Lambright with the group says the Alberta government revoked the coal policy, which had previously restricted coal mining exploration and development in areas considered environmentally sensitive, without any hearing on June 1.

It had been put in place in 1976 after extensive consultations.

She says it had previously been protected because of its importance as the headwaters for all of southern Alberta's water and also because it protected wildland area for endangered species.

"It is critical to the agriculture industry, particularly irrigators, I think more than 40 percent of the irrigators in southern Alberta get their water from the Oldman river water system," she says. "That is one of the last, intact, native prairie, which is critical to carbon sequestration and managing climate change It's also an area that has historically been counted on as rangeland for numerous ranchers."

She says people shouldn't be fooled by the promise that the mine will bring a lot of jobs and economic activity.

"The company that's looking at a mine down here in the Crowsnest, the hearing is supposed to be happening this September, I mean their owner in Australia is a world leader in autonomous operations of mines," Lambright says.

Her group is calling on everyone to get in touch with the MLA's and let them know they're against having a large swath of the beautiful eastern slopes destroyed.

 

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