Alberta Environment and Parks had made provision for Statements of Concern to be submitted under the Water Act regarding the Mountain Ash LP gravel mine proposed very near to Big Hill Springs Provincial Park and its critical thermal spring. The deadline for submissions was the last day of January. Apparently now AEP will make decisions on which SoC’s they will accept and then they are all sent to the mine proponent for their scrutiny. Beyond this, we are not yet aware of the procedure entailed but will inform people once we know. Statements of Concern over environmental matters like gravel mines are uncommon, so the procedure is not something common to the public.
To understand what’s involved, BCPS has made its own submission available (here), and we have included a sampling of other submissions that we think are informative of the range of issues explored. These can be found in the “Threats” section of our web site.