Frequently Asked Questions

The petition must be signed in person with a registered Canvasser. You cannot sign it online. We have thousands of signing events happening across the province. Visit waternotcoal.ca/sign-the-petition to find a location near you.

Water Not Coal is led by country singer and proud Albertan Corb Lund, along with a coalition of rural and urban Albertans–including hunters, anglers, farmers, and ranchers who are concerned about the impacts of coal mining on the environment and their livelihoods.

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There are three ways you can help: 1) Sign the petition — find a location where you can sign in person at waternotcoal.ca/sign-the-petition. 2) Collect signatures — volunteer as a canvasser at team.waternotcoal.ca. 3) Make a donation — support the campaign at secure.waternotcoal.ca.

With 8 billion people on the planet, everything we do has a cost. But the risk/reward ratio of allowing coal mines at the headwaters of our rivers where we get our drinking water from is one of the biggest ecological threats Alberta faces.

That’s what the government would like us to believe, but for years they have repeatedly responded to public backlash by trying to fool Albertans. They pretend to ‘fix’ the problem in a cosmetic way but leave large loopholes for the foreign coal companies.

No, because the ‘process’ is deeply flawed. The regulations are not nearly strong enough and the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) that oversees these projects has demonstrated over and over that they value the interests of industry over the interests of regular Albertans.

No, we don’t, although this is a common refrain from industry. They say that Alberta has world class regulation and that we have the strictest standards available around resource extraction and this is simply not true. Our regulations are quite lax and unsatisfactory when compared to many, many other countries.

We don’t live in BC, we have no control over what BC does. We are Alberta citizens and we are trying to stop coal mining here in Alberta that affects our water here in Alberta. We can’t fix every problem in the world.

Because Grassy Mountain is one of the imminently looming projects in an extremely sensitive area at the headwaters of the Oldman River that provides drinking water for 200,000 people and is the thin edge of the wedge for a larger plan to allow much more coal mining in a much larger area of our Rocky Mountains. The project has already been deemed not to be in the public interest by the federal government, the provincial Alberta Energy Regulator and the provincial courts of appeal but the project is being allowed to reapply for a full mining license very soon. It is a ‘foot in the door’ as it will reportedly provide much of the loading infrastructure for other future mining projects and expansions. Grassy is key to this whole effort and if we don’t stop Grassy Mountain, more and more mines will follow. Grassy is the goal line stand.

This coal is not for energy production (thermal coal). Thermal coal production has been largely phased out in Alberta and Canada. This issue is about metallurgical coal, used to make steel.

Certainly, but more modern methods of steel production that don’t require coal are being used by Scandinavia, China and India. This will only increase over time. Perhaps most importantly, the coal in question has been analyzed by independent coal engineers with decades of industry experience and has mostly been found to be of poor quality and highly questionable in terms of its marketability as steel producing coal. Also, the amount of coal available here is insignificant on a global scale and is in an extremely sensitive area in the headwaters of our rivers. It’s not necessary to mine our mountains and ruin our water for such a tiny amount of metallurgical coal.

Of course we need jobs but every project has to be examined in terms of cost/benefit. The few hundred jobs being discussed per mine have to be weighed against the detrimental effects on other industries, such as agriculture, tourism, guiding/outfitting etc as well as the massive cost to taxpayers to clean up the inevitable mess that will be left behind. It doesn’t add up. As well, the coal industry is aggressively and vocally embracing automation, reducing the need for human workers in the future.

Coal mining proposals are concentrated along Alberta’s Eastern Slopes — the headwaters of the rivers that supply drinking water to most of southern and central Alberta. The most imminent projects are Grassy Mountain (Crowsnest Pass / Oldman River headwaters), Aries and Blackstone (Clearwater County / Ram and North Saskatchewan rivers), and Mine 14 (Grande Cache, beside Willmore Wilderness). The maps below show the locations of these projects and the broader pattern of coal leases across the Eastern Slopes and West Country.