Dismissing the experts

November 24, 2025

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• Coal
• WLA Archive

In recent years, Dr. Colin Cooke and his colleagues… have published five articles that examine poorly understood and previously unknown threats associated with coal mining.

By Kennedy Halvorson

Read the PDF version here.

 

It is extremely difficult to understand the Alberta government’s support for the coal industry, considering it’s at odds with the research from its own scientists.

In recent years, Dr. Colin Cooke and his colleagues in the Ministry of Environment and Protected Areas, along with associates at the University of Alberta, University of Calgary, and WFD Consulting. have published five articles that examine poorly understood and previously unknown threats associated with coal mining. Genuinely, hats off to them.

In Transboundary Atmospheric Pollution from Mountaintop Coal Mining and Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining Contaminates Snowpack across a Broad Region, they found that coal dust emitted by mines in BC’s Elk Valley is dispersed well beyond their mining footprint. Carried downwind across the provincial border, this fugitive dust is an additional source of contamination along Alberta’s Eastern Slopes, transporting and depositing harmful substances in the otherwise wild and protected landscapes.

While these threats persist from active mining operations, Cooke’s team has also investigated the long-term impact of closed surface and underground coal mines in Alberta. The paper Legacy coal mining impacts downstream ecosystems for decades in the Canadian Rockies reveals that well after the mines at Grassy and Tent Mountain had ceased operation, they continued to be a source of pollution, contributing to increased concentrations of sediment, selenium, iron, and other chemicals in the Crowsnest watershed through run-off.

Cooke’s follow-up, Fish remain high in selenium long after mountaintop coal mines close, found these elevated concentrations had entered the food chain. Fish collected from Crowsnest Lake, a managed recreational fishery that contains brown, lake, and rainbow trout, along with mountain whitefish, were found to have concentrations of common mining pollutants above average in their muscle tissues when compared to other fisheries in Alberta.

Of the 212 fish sampled, every single one was found to have concentrations of selenium in its muscle tissues well exceeding safety guidelines. Arsenic, barium, chromium, cobalt, manganese, molybdenum, nickel, thallium, and zinc were also above detection limits in some samples. The source of these pollutants was identified to be from drainage the lake receives from the legacy mine on Tent Mountain. The authors conclude that considering the existing stressors in the watershed, “any new development of coal mining along the Eastern Slopes may well push the Crowsnest fishery beyond recovery.”

Downstream water quality impacts persist despite mountaintop coal mine reclamation in the Canadian Rocky Mountains, the most recent paper published by the government’s scientist, calls into question the efficacy of Alberta’s own regulatory processes and reclamation standards. Cooke and the other researchers observed that irrespective of whether mine reclamation was complete or in progress, pollutants persisted at elevated and harmful concentrations downstream, impairing water quality in the McLeod River headwaters.

Coal mine operators are required under the Environmental Protection and Enhancement Act to reduce concentrations of contaminants, like selenium, to pre-mining conditions and to levels that support aquatic ecosystems. Despite these requirements, the findings reveal that this is not being achieved. This reflects a failure in both the reclamation practices being used and the regulatory system meant to enforce them.

Considered altogether, the findings of Cooke and colleagues’ research reveal the coal industry’s pollution problem persists from past projects, presents at existing operations, and can be expected in the future without drastic action. The problem is one that has, is, and will continue to impact Alberta’s watersheds, airsheds, landscapes and fisheries. It’s an issue they find the Alberta government’s regulatory regime and reclamations are insufficient to address.

To say it’s unclear what takeaways governing officials have had from all this is an understatement.

In the past year, the government has announced a Coal Industry Modernization Initiative with industry as the sole consultant. It suddenly ended the moratorium on coal exploration and development. The government also reinstated and renewed the licences of operators who have sued the government and have not been compliant with the province’s authorities. And, it settled with said companies out of court for hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars.

The government did all this to appease an industry deeply unpopular with the public, and despite its own experts’ findings that show the coal industry causes harm to Alberta’s landscapes. It is baffling in its ignorance and downright disrespectful to the brilliant people they employ.

Keep fighting the good fight Dr. Cooke.