Coal mine work moves ahead without permits

Environmental groups are asking Ottawa to enforce its rules on an Alberta coal site that has started building an underground test mine without fisheries permits that officials have said are required.

“They can't just sit back and wait for habitat destruction to occur,” said Ecojustice lawyer Dan Cheater. “We'd like to see them take action.”

Coalspur Mines is planning a large expansion of its Vista thermal coal mine near Hinton, which would make it the largest thermal coal mine in North America. The company is also planning an underground test mine on the site to determine the feasibility of subsurface mining.

In 2020, then-federal environment minister Jonathan Wilkinson ordered a joint federal-provincial review of both the expansion and the test mine. That review collapsed last fall 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 it required permits under two different pieces of legislation.

“DFO indicated that the physical activities would require a Fisheries Act authorization,” says the 2021 analysis report from the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada.

“The physical activities may also potentially require the exercise of powers ... such as a Species at Risk Act permit for impacts to Athabasca rainbow trout or other species.”

The department has been in con

tact with Coalspur but has not begun an investigation, said Fisheries spokesman Robert Rombouts.

“The company is obliged to comply with the acts and failure to comply may lead to enforcement action,” he said in an email.

Meanwhile, work on the underground mine has begun.

“The company started construction work, but it's limited to the underground portion of the mine,” said an email from Renato Gandia, spokesman for the Alberta Energy Regulator.

“Coalspur has not commenced mining activities at Vista test underground mine.”