{"id":56994,"date":"2021-03-06T08:33:43","date_gmt":"2021-03-06T13:33:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=56994"},"modified":"2021-03-06T09:16:59","modified_gmt":"2021-03-06T14:16:59","slug":"when-is-mountaintop-removal-not-mountaintop-removal-in-alberta-of-course","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=56994","title":{"rendered":"When Is Mountaintop Removal Not Mountaintop Removal? In Alberta, of Course!"},"content":{"rendered":"
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When Is Mountaintop Removal Not Mountaintop Removal? In Alberta, of Course!<\/a><\/h3>\n

The Kenney government plays word games as it plans to strip-mine the Rockies.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n

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\"ElkValley.jpg\"
Does this look like mountaintop removal to you? Coal mining underway in Elk Valley, BC, on the west side of the Rockies across from where Alberta plans similar mining.\u00a0Photo by Callum Gunn.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n
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In Alberta, the government of Jason Kenney has one definition for mountaintop removal, while most people have another.<\/p>\n

You might think that excavating the top of a mountain until it\u2019s reduced to a series of carved away \u201cbenches\u201d that rise like giant steps to a last shred of a mountain\u2019s peak is \u201cmountaintop removal.\u201d<\/p>\n

If so, you disagree with the Alberta government.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s someone else who disagrees with the Kenney definition. Australian coal miners.<\/p>\n

While the Kenney government claims mountaintop removal can\u2019t happen in Alberta\u2019s water-sensitive eastern slopes, Benga Mining, an Australian firm owned by Aussie billionaire Gina Rinehart, says that\u2019s the technique it intends to employ \u2014 and in a joint federal-provincial hearing no less.<\/p>\n

Last week, the Kenney government\u00a0told the Narwhal<\/a>\u00a0in a series of emails that open-pit mining can\u2019t be called mountaintop removal if it only removes, say, 90 per cent of a mountaintop.<\/p>\n

By Alberta\u2019s definition, the top of the mountain has to be \u201ccompletely\u201d removed to qualify as mountaintop removal.<\/p>\n

The Alberta Energy Regulator and Kenney spokesperson Kavi Bal both informed the Narwhal that open-pit mining can scrape off the sides of a mountain, devein coal seams and leave a ridge a pockmarked shadow of itself after removing tonnes of toxic debris, and that\u2019s OK: because it\u2019s open-pit mining, and not mountaintop removal.<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n

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When Is Mountaintop Removal Not Mountaintop Removal? In Alberta, of Course! The Kenney government plays word games as it plans to strip-mine the Rockies. Does this look like mountaintop removal to you? Coal mining underway in Elk Valley, BC, on the west side of the Rockies across from where Alberta plans similar mining.\u00a0Photo by Callum […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1082,30921,5549,41,103,147,25592,1482,31005,4710,23884],"class_list":["post-56994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","tag-alberta","tag-alberta-government","tag-andrew-nikiforuk","tag-australia","tag-canada","tag-coal","tag-jason-kenney","tag-mining","tag-mountain-top-removal","tag-rocky-mountains","tag-thetyee-ca"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=56994"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56994\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56995,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56994\/revisions\/56995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}