Alberta thermal coal mine expansion gets green light without federal impact assessment

A large expansion of a massive thermal coal mine near Hinton, Alta., has been given the go-ahead by the federal government, without a federal impact assessment. 

The Impact Assessment Agency of Canada (IAAC), on behalf of the minister of Environment and Climate Change, announced the decision late Friday.

The expansion of the Coalspur Mines Vista project, which is already the largest thermal coal mine in Canada, would make it the largest thermal coal mine in North America.

Fraser Thomson, climate director at the environmental law organization Ecojustice, said local environmental groups are "deeply disappointed" by the decision. 

"Our clients had asked the federal government to honour its commitments and to ensure that basic safeguards were put in place against the dangers of unchecked thermal coal expansion," Thomson told CBC on Tuesday.

"Instead, Canada is now doubling down on the mining and the export of one of the world's dirtiest fossil fuels.

"By refusing to designate the Vista coal mine for an impact assessment, the federal government has removed this critical guardrail on thermal coal development."

Expansion didn't meet threshold for assessment

Coalspur Mines is expanding its project underground and expanding Vista's surface thermal coal mine pits westward, with an area of about 630 hectares.

The expansion will use existing mine infrastructure like conveyor belts, raw and clean coal storage areas, coal preparation facilities, roads, refuse storage areas and rail loadout, the IAAC said in its analysis report. 

The mine, which will also include a freshwater pipeline, is expected to operate for 11 years.

In its decision, the IAAC said regulations require a federal environmental assessment for the expansion of an existing mine when the expansion would result in an increase in the area of mining operations of 50 per cent or more — and in the case that total coal production capacity would be 5,000 tonnes per day or more after the expansion.

Coalspur informed the federal government the total coal production capacity after the expansion would be 21,960 tonnes per day, of which the expansion would account for 7,202 tonnes.

While the daily production capacity would exceed 5,000 tonnes per day, the expansion would not increase the area of mining operations by 50 per cent or more, the IAAC said in its decision.

The project would increase the area of mining operations by 44 per cent, it said.

Trevor Bamsey, president of the Hinton and District Chamber of Commerce, said Vista is an anchor in the community, employing 450 people with high-paying jobs.

"Luckily, Hinton has many anchors as our key industries in town, and they're definitely one of them. And they've been one of them for a long time," Bamsey told the CBC Tuesday.

Previous federal review had said permits were needed

The IAAC considered input from 20 Indigenous groups, environmental groups and members of the public.

In 2020, then-federal environment minister Jonathan Wilkinson ordered a joint federal-provincial review of both the expansion and the underground test mine. That review collapsed last year when the Supreme Court of Canada ruled Ottawa's Impact Assessment Act was unconstitutional.

But by then the Department of Fisheries and Oceans had reviewed plans for both projects and decided they required permits under two different pieces of legislation, including the Fisheries Act.

Area waterways are habitat for the endangered Athabasca rainbow trout and the bull trout, Alberta's provincial fish.

Provincial review underway

The Vista mine expansion application is being reviewed by the Alberta Energy Regulator under current Alberta regulatory rules, the Ministry of Energy and Minerals said in a statement.

"We would note that this application is for an extension of an already approved mine and that it will utilize new techniques and technologies (underground mining and high-wall mining) which have less of an environmental impact than the mining techniques currently in use at Vista," the statement said.

Thomson, of Ecojustice, said he thinks the provincial review won't be as thorough as the federal government's assessment would have been.