High River Mayor Craig Snodgrass and councillor Bruce Masterman handed over a 93-page report to the panel looking at a coal policy for Alberta last week.

Snodgrass says the Town is not interested in any new policy that would allow mining on the eastern slopes.

"We did meet with the coal policy committee and presented our findings and report from all the municipal consultation work that we did and the feedback that we got from different municipalities."

"I've got a lot of respect for the people on that coal policy committee and we were very clear that we are not interested in a modern coal policy as the (provincial) government has asked that committee to research, we said no to doing that and we asked them to consider the Alberta Coal Restriction Policy that says no further coal development in Alberta, on the eastern slopes, period," he says.

The policy calls for:

No further coal exploration or development on the Eastern Slopes.
Existing coal mines in the Hinton/Grande Cache areas will be permitted to retire gracefully.
Reclamation of lands disturbed by coal exploration activities on coal exploration permits issued prior to Feb. 8, 2021 must be reclaimed no later than Dec. 31, 2025.
The proposed policy details the following rationale:

The inherent value of the Eastern Slopes only exists with the landscape remaining intact.
The headwaters and landscapes of the Eastern Slopes are critical to the future of our province. Our communities, agriculture producers, food production, tourism, recreation, sport fishing and hunting all rely on these landscapes and watersheds producing clean water.
Economics – no amount of jobs or money created by coal exploration or development can offset the negative effects to the environment or human and animal health.

The panel is to present its report to the provincial government by November 15, 2021.

 

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