[The Alberta Environmental Policy Series highlights the many environmental challenges and related government policies in Alberta. SAGE welcomes feedback on these topics.]  In 2020, the 1976 Coal Policy was rescinded without public consultation. Significant areas of the Eastern Slopes land were opened to coal leases, initiating a widespread response from concerned landowners, environmentalists, and Indigenous…

From the Petition organized by the Alberta NDP The UCP government’s ongoing plans to advance coal mining in our Rocky Mountains provides very little economic benefit to our province, but significant environmental risk.  Albertans have been clear that they do not want coal mining in our eastern slopes.   Protect our water. Protect our agriculture.…

From the Crowsnest Headwaters, January 11, 2026. Lorne Fitch is a Professional Biologist, a retired Fish and Wildlife Biologist and a past Adjunct Professor with the University of Calgary. He is the author of Streams of Consequence, Travels Up the Creek, and Conservation Confidential. History can be a good teacher, to provide a perspective on coal mining in the…

A letter sent by SAGE to the Alberta Energy Regulator on January 9th, 2026 regarding the proposed Terms of Reference submitted for Northback Holdings Corporation – Grassy Mountain Project. It is disappointing that Northback Holdings Corporation has submitted a boilerplate Terms of Reference for an Environmental Impact Assessment report considering the significant expense and expertise…

9 December 2025 Protesters Push Back at Northback Presentation. Joe Manio, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Lethbridge Herald. … Outside the Coast Lethbridge Hotel around 100 demonstrators waved signs, beat drums and shouted slogans protesting the proposed Grassy Mountain Coal Project while inside the CEO of Northback Holdings, Mike Young, spoke about the economic benefits of…

December 8 (11 – 11:45 AM), Lethbridge Coast Hotel Members of SAGE, McKillop Earth Action Team, Lethbridge Friends of Medicare and other local organizations and citizens are gathering to protest Northback Holdings Corporation’s continued promotion of a discredited coal mine on Grassy Mountain. A Lethbridge Chamber of Commerce event is giving Northback CEO Mike Northcott…

Join us 11 to 11:45 a.m. on Monday, December 8th on Mayor Magrath in front of the Coast Hotel, where Northback will be advocating for an open pit coal mine to the Chamber of Commerce.

Dear Prime Minister,  The Southern Alberta Group for the Environment (SAGE) encourages the Government of Canada to legislate based on the values of distributive justice, social equity and intergenerational equity, which is largely premised on a sustainable relationship with the land – our natural environment. The Government of Canada has a legislative responsibility for the…

[The federal government (Environment and Climate Change Canada ) is seemingly set to change the coal mine effluent regulations, dramatically increasing how much selenium can be released into streams, rivers, and lakes. These proposed new standards ignore the limits prescribed in the science of ecotoxicity. If adopted, this will have devastating impacts on water quality,…

3 June 2025, By Lorne Fitch Research Paper: Cooke, C.A., et.al. (2025). Fish remain high in selenium long after mountaintop coal mines close. (https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.05.22.655156v1.full.pdf) Another piece of research has just revealed the contamination of trout and mountain whitefish in Crowsnest Lake with selenium, derived from the legacy Tent Mountain coal strip mine (Fish remain high…