AWA granted full participation rights in the Summit Mine 14 Public Hearing

February 11, 2025

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• Coal
• Kakwa
• Little Smoky
• Rocky Mountain and Foothills Forests

AWA has long fought to represent the environment in government and regulatory processes.

A massive barrier to that is the legal concept of who is “directly and adversely affected”, basically who gets a voice when it comes to future developments.

Historically, this has been anyone who can prove they’ll be financially affected by a project, or anyone lives directly adjacent to proposed developments like mines, clearcuts, and dams.

Despite the fact that we know all these things have much more extensive impacts then just within the vicinity of their immediate borders, and that there is an immense cost to losing the benefits healthy and functioning ecosystems provide, these arguments have never been sufficient to grant AWA or other ENGOs standing, to speak on behalf of the environment who research and data has well established is often and frequently “directly and adversely affected” by human development.

But it seems something might be changing.

In what to my knowledge is unprecedented in Alberta, last year the Big Hill Creek Preservation Society was deemed directed and adversely affected and allowed to voice their concerns to the Environmental Appeals Board over future gravel developments within their namesake’s watershed and near Big Hill Springs Provincial Park.

Then on February 7th, 2025, AWA and CPAWS NAB were both granted full participation rights in the upcoming public hearing on Summit Coal’s Mine 14 proposal near Grande Cache. Along with the general concerns around air and water pollution, the project proposes to develop an underground, room-and-pillar style metallurgical coal mine within important mountain goat, bighorn sheep, grizzly, and woodland caribou habitat.

Public hearings are formal, court like process held by officials and used to gather more information to inform their decisions. Full participation rights means we get time to present our concerns to the Alberta Energy Regulator, opportunities to question and cross-examine Summit, as well as the support of legal representation and expert witnesses.

It’s an exciting and unexpected outcome, and perhaps an indication that Alberta is taking the public’s concerns for the environment more seriously.

This public hearing is a long time coming. The applications were submitted back in 2023, and by mid-2024, the company’s legal reps sent a letter requesting the AER promptly wrap up their process. The letter concluded stating, “Summit respectfully requests that the AER grant the Applications without a hearing and issue the applied-for approvals in a timely manner”.

The AER announced they would hold a hearing back in November and following their participatory decisions last week, Summit has suddenly requested the hearing be adjourned.

“The decisions have significant implications for the future of the Mine 14 Project and Summit is considering them and assessing its next steps. Therefore, we respectfully request that the AER refrain from establishing any further deadlines or process steps in this Proceeding until Summit has had sufficient time to consult with its investors and other key stakeholders. Summit will advise the AER on next steps in due course and, in any event, will provide the AER with an update within two weeks of the date of this letter.”

I’ll let you make your own conclusions, but it’s noteworthy that industry’s confident enough to request the government’s regulator expedite their project, to repeatedly assert that their project is in the public’s best interest, but is also apparently threatened by the prospect of a public hearing that includes more inclusive representation of all the various interested and affected parties.

Regardless, AWA will continue preparing for the hearing, and as we’ve done for the last 60 years, advocate the best we can on behalf of Alberta’s wildlife, waters, and wilderness.