By Somya Lohia, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Shootin’ The Breeze
With a June 10 deadline approaching, Pincher Creek volunteers continue gathering signatures for a citizen-led petition that would ban new coal mining along Alberta’s Eastern Slopes. Water security is the issue bringing most residents to the table.
The provincewide campaign was launched by country musician Corb Lund. The petition seeks to prohibit new mining on the Eastern Slopes, excluding mines already operating as of Jan. 1, 2026.
To proceed, organizers must collect 177,732 valid signatures by June 10. Elections Alberta began the official signature collection period on Feb. 11 after the campaign was reapproved earlier this year under updated provincial legislation.
Pincher Creek resident Allan Garbutt, one of the local canvassers, says volunteers have hosted signings at Ranchland Mall and most recently at the Annex in early May, with plans to return.
He says the response from residents has been encouraging, though a paperwork snag has slowed things down.
Elections Alberta requires signatories to provide identification showing a physical address, not a post office box, which means a driver’s licence listing a box number is not accepted.
Garbutt says many rural residents don’t carry a utility bill or tax notice, the kinds of documents that satisfy the requirement.
Water at the centre
Garbutt says the petition taps into anxiety that has been building in southwestern Alberta for years. He points to the region’s visibly low reservoir levels over the past three years as evidence of how precarious the situation already is.
“The water we drink comes off the East Slopes,” he says. “If the coal mines are allowed to proceed, the water either may not be there or it may be contaminated.”
He describes southwestern Alberta as “the driest corner in the driest province,” noting that more than 90 per cent of water flowing into the North and South Saskatchewan River basins originates on the Eastern Slopes.
The problem, he says, is that the foothills and mountain terrain in this part of the province are exceptionally narrow, roughly 20 kilometres wide, compared with as much as 200 kilometres farther north near Edmonton.
“Anybody who’s looked at our reservoir the past three years up until this fall knows how precarious our water situation can be,” he says.
Cody Johnson, the Pincher Creek resident who organized the Annex signing event, says selenium contamination from coal mining is what concerns him most and points to communities near mines in British Columbia’s Elk Valley as a warning.
“They will use clean water and they will produce contaminated water,” Johnson says of the proposed mining projects. “They have not yet demonstrated a way that they can clean and clear the water before they return it to the system.”
He notes that the proposed Grassy Mountain coal project, the focus of much of the opposition, was reviewed by a joint federal-provincial panel, which concluded it would have adverse environmental effects and was not in the public interest.. That decision was later upheld through multiple appeals.
The Annex event drew fewer visitors than Johnson hoped, but the mall event weeks earlier was more successful. One group of visitors stayed with him.
“Several people used to work in mines in British Columbia and they said, ‘We don’t want it here,’ because they say, ‘We know what happens,’” he says. “I was surprised when miners came up to me and said that.”
He frames coal as a sunset industry ill-suited to the region’s future and questions the economic rationale for a project that would, in his view, put tourism, fishing and recreation at risk for a limited number of short-term jobs.
“You aren’t bringing tourists to look at open-pit mines and blowing up mountains,” he says. “That one industry would put many other things at risk.”
A narrow strip, and a fragile one
Brenda Davison, an environmentalist who lives near Burmis, between Crowsnest Pass and Pincher Creek, says her concerns are both personal and environmental.
She draws her drinking water from a private well fed by groundwater near the Crowsnest River and says contamination from selenium — a byproduct of coal mining that leaches into waterways — would leave her with no safe alternative.
“If the groundwater gets contaminated, I’m in big trouble,” she says. “They can clean the surface water, but they can’t get that deep water.”
She describes the area’s mountains as uniquely fragile water towers. Unlike areas near Canmore or Banff, where multiple mountain ranges provide a broad band of water-capturing terrain, she says the Crowsnest area has only a thin strip between the Continental Divide and the open prairie.
“The reason the Crowsnest River keeps running even when it’s not raining is because the mountains are like big water towers,” she says. “They hold the water.”
Davison also worries about coal dust and the long-term impact of open-pit mining on wildlife habitat and migration corridors along the Eastern Slopes. Grizzly bears, elk and wolves once ranged across the prairies, but she says they have been pushed back by private land development until only a narrow corridor of public land remains.
She describes the Crowsnest area as the narrowest wildlife corridor along the entire Continental Divide and says open-pit mining would further fragment or eliminate it.
Grizzly bears are “an indicator species — if you have bears, you have a healthy ecosystem,” she says. “The only place where there can be grizzly bears or wolves or animals or those kinds of things, where they’re safe, is public land. It’s already very small here.”
She has collected about 50 petition signatures by going door-to-door in the Burmis area, with roughly 70 per cent of those she approached agreeing to sign.
Davison says she understands some residents support coal development because of potential employment opportunities, but believes the economic benefits would be temporary compared with the long-term environmental impact.
“A lot of people in the Crowsnest Pass, their parents and grandparents were coal miners,” she says. “I don’t want to discount other people in the Pass who believe the coal mine will bring jobs, I just believe that a healthy environment is very important.”
Garbutt says organizers plan to continue hosting signing events in Pincher Creek in the coming weeks and encourages residents interested in signing to contact local canvassers.
“Sign the petition — our water security depends on it,” he says. “If somebody up this way wants to sign and they haven’t done it already, I’ll come to their house.”
