High River's mayor and council are doubling down on their opposition to open pit coal mines on the eastern slopes of southern Alberta.

Mayor Craig Snodgrass says the government's plan just doesn't make any sense.

He says he recently spoke with the mayor of Edson.

"They've got three mines up there, two have closed, one just closed in August because they just couldn't make it viable so why are you opening up new mines down here when they've already got all the existing infrastructure and everything else, is going up there," he says.

Snodgrass says he's not surprised to hear work has already started on the lands where leases are still in effect.

"That's a game that the coal industry, that I'm learning that the coal industry plays, is as soon as they get access to it they go in and they just start bashing things around and making roads and everything else because then it makes it hard for the government to say no."

The mayor says he's not impressed at all with the UCP caucus and its efforts to support the end of the 1976 moratorium on mining or the government's pull back on eleven license's.

"Don't be sold on what the UCP is trying to sell, you know with their fancy new PDF's. That's just smoke and mirrors, it's .12 per cent of the leases that have been sold in Class 2 (lands) so far," he says. "Their whole campaign is nothing more than laughable as to how they're trying to justify this stuff."

Snodgrass says they want the UCP government to put a halt to any more work until a decision's rendered in the court hearing held last week.

Local farmers, ranchers, indigenous groups and others want an injunction to stop the work while the Province wants the request thrown out.

That decision's expected to take a couple months.

 

Send us your news tips, story ideas and comments at news@highriveronline.com