Alberta’s Highest Court Squeezes Alberta’s Coal Plans
- Sep
- 02
Alberta’s highest court is allowing a southwestern ranching community to appeal applications for coal exploration permits, possibly ending Alberta’s Coal Plans.
The Alberta Court of Appeal says it will hear arguments from the Municipal District of Ranchland that the province’s energy regulator shouldn’t have accepted applications for Grassy Mountain.
Australian billionaire Gina Rinehart, who owns Northback Holdings, is trying to develop Grassy Mountain at the site near Blairmore in the Crowsnest Pass and has filed three applications for exploration coal permits.
Ranchland filed the appeal after Energy Minister Brian Jean wrote the Alberta Energy Regulator suggesting those applications be accepted and exempt from an earlier order banning coal development in the Rocky Mountains.
Jean told the regulator the project should be considered an advanced project, even though it had been denied by environmental review panels.
But Justice Kevin Feth says it’s arguable that a project that’s been turned down no longer exists and can’t be called advanced.
A successful appeal would kill those exploratory licenses which are currently set for a public hearing in early 2025.
It would end the attempts by Gina Rinehart to resurrect the controversial project which a majority of rural residents view as a threat to water security in arid southern Alberta.
Feth also says Jean’s letter may have wrongly restricted the regulator’s ability to consider the issue.
Sources: CTV and The Tyee