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SAGE is a leading voice for a healthy and environmentally sustainable community.

Oki.  We respectfully acknowledge that SAGE meets on the traditional lands of Piikani, Kainai & Siksika, members of Siksikaitsitapi (Blackfoot Confederacy) and the homelands of Métis Nation of Alberta, Region III.  We are grateful for their keeping of these lands and waters - past, present & future.
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SAGE is currently recruiting for members and for positions on the Board. 

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Enhancing Water Availability Engagement

Submitted 23-January-2025

Aquatic ecosystems include rivers, stream, lakes, ponds and wetlands as well as the riparian areas on their periphery. These landscape features capture, store, release and convey the water that falls as snow and rain. They are critical for sustaining life in a watershed and provide nature-based functions and services including resiliency to floods and droughts, erosion prevention, sediment capture and transport, recharge of groundwater aquifers, water purification, productive vegetation and important habitats for fish and wildlife. Man-made reservoirs and canals store and convey water but fail to provide other nature-based services. The health of aquatic ecosystems is a measure of how sustainably we live in a watershed.

[...] The suggestions that follow focus on water and watershed management that strives to ensure sufficient water is available at the appropriate times to maintain and restore healthy, functioning aquatic ecosystems.

1. Enhance headwaters storage and yield using nature-based approaches. This includes managing land use to support aquifer recharge and protecting and restoring wetlands including beaver pond complexes.

[...]

2. Determine science-based environmental flows* that will support healthy and resilient aquatic ecosystems. Require collaborative basin water management planning that defines instream flows needed for protection of the aquatic and riparian environment, including protecting biodiversity, and corresponding limits on water available for allocation. Publicly communicate instream flow needs determinations for specific river reaches.

[...]

3. Establish water available for the aquatic ecosystem through a legislated Water Conservation Objective (WCO) under approved water management plans for all basins. Implement through placing WCO conditions on all water licenses and dam operations, real time monitoring of instream flows, enforcing compliance with WCO and regular public reporting on performance to achieve WCO.

[...]

4. Monitor indicators of aquatic ecosystem health to assess the effectiveness of WCO in protecting the aquatic environment and improve WCO if required.

[...]

5. Where Instream Objectives (IO) currently apply to dam operations and water licences replace them with Water Conservation Objectives for protection of the aquatic environment.

[...]

6. For allocation decisions where specific advice or objectives have not been developed or approved, follow guidance to achieve environmental flows provided by the Surface Water Allocation Directive (Alberta Environment and Parks 2021).

7. In basins closed to further allocation because of insufficient water available to achieve both licensed water withdrawals and environmental flows (e.g. South Saskatchewan River Basin) provide direction for flow restoration using an aspirational Water Conservation Objective and implement measures to achieve the WCO. Monitor progress.

[...]

8. In decisions regarding approval of water license allocations (new or transfers), of amendments to water licenses (e.g. reduced return flows) and of proposed new water management projects require assessment of potential impacts on instream flows and achievement of WCO. Consider impacts with predicted climate change and cumulatively with other allocations (existing and proposed). Include assessment of potential impacts of change in land use associated with new allocations and water management projects.

[...]

9. Avoid use of interbasin transfers to address water availability issues given potential serious ecological, economic and social impacts. Continue to focus on water management planning within basins that recognizes basin-specific limits on water availability.

10. Broaden opportunity for public engagement in decision-making processes regarding water allocation and water management projects. Expand participation beyond the narrow definition of “directly affected” to all legitimate interests (including environmental and recreational).

11. Improve transparency and public access to data collected by government on river flows. For individual rivers or reaches provide Instream Flow Needs and Instream Objectives data and the methods used to determine them, along with historical information on how the methods have changed over time.

For the complete submission, click ... here.

Coal: If Trout Could Talk
Lorne Fitch, P.Biol.

Published 22 January 2025 in The Lethbridge Herald

In the coal saga there’s more to mine than the mountain. Despite protestations of due diligence and highest engineering standards, every coal mine in the Eastern Slopes has had spectacular environmental failures and most of them on a regular basis. This is a function of topography, engineering failures and an inability to incorporate the effects of weather events into mine design. If ever there was a lesson about future mines, all one has to do is review past mines.

Pit wall collapses, settling pond failures, conveyance system upsets and mine road washouts are the most visible evidence of problems. But it is the liberation of a witches brew of toxic chemicals that creates legacy issues. Selenium, antimony, cobalt, lithium, manganese, molybdenum, nickel, strontium, thallium, uranium and many others are released for decades by the weathering of the shattered caprock overburden.

Hidden in the labyrinth of the Benga environmental impact assessment report for the proposed Grassy Mountain mine is a cryptic note on the analysis of selenium in the flesh of trout from Gold and Blairmore creeks. Selenium concentrations in the trout were significantly higher than those adopted by both BC and Alberta to protect fish populations from collapse. This is despite the fact selenium concentrations in these streams was lower than guidelines. This never came up in the Joint Review Panel hearing although there was evidence enough to damn the project.

Contamination of fish isn’t restricted to the Crowsnest watershed. Evidence from other watersheds with coal strip mines show similar results for elevated selenium concentrations in fish, including the coal industry’s much promoted reclaimed mine pit lakes.

This isn’t restricted to fish. Bighorn sheep living on reclaimed coal mines in the Coal Branch of Alberta have selenium concentrations in their tissue higher than any other place in North America.

Native cutthroat trout used to exist in East Crowsnest Creek and the headwaters of Crowsnest Creek, beneath the Tent Mountain coal mine. Very high selenium concentrations from the mine spoil, coupled with excessive sediment loadings to these streams is implicated in trout disappearance.

The selenium guideline values adopted by past BC and Alberta governments were not proposed by armchair eco-terrorists. They were developed after multiple fish populations collapsed after exceeding these values. They are a warning – there is a limit to the amount of selenium pollution fish populations can absorb before they disappear.

Trout aren’t just the quarry for a few anglers. They speak to us on the impacts of coal mining. Trout form our distant early warning indicators and are the bellwethers of danger. To ignore their message is to ignore our peril.

A fundamental message from the selenium contamination of trout is we need to look beyond what is found in the water, to how it bioaccumulates up the food chain, to levels of significant health concern. It wouldn’t hurt to remember that we are at the top of the food chain.

Yes, these are some of the things to mine in our deliberations over coal mining in the Eastern Slopes. We might also reflect on the misinformation and distortion from congenital corporate liars. There are municipal councillors with their eyes firmly fixed in the rear view mirror of time and coated in the fairy dust of illusionary economic benefits. Overseeing this is an “arms length” regulator manipulated by political puppet masters.

Arrayed against this are the clearly articulated wishes of the majority of Albertans who are passionate about a mine-free Eastern Slopes. Alberta recently went through a review of coal policy by an independent panel. This panel was responsible for the largest public engagement process in Alberta‘s history to define a path forward for coal. Their recommendations have yet to be implemented.

Lastly, we have recently witnessed, from the minister of Energy, Brian Jean, a muddled, barely coherent “clarification” of coal policy to the Alberta Energy Regulator. The letter was issued in the midst of an ongoing AER hearing into a coal exploration application and it opens a question of whether Jean was trying to fetter that process.

Jean’s retreat from the wishes of Albertans effectivity winds the clock back, reinstates exploration permits, opens up new exploration, including construction of new roads that will erode for years. Nothing else has changed, including the continual leaching of selenium into East Slope rivers, no timely, effective reclamation of coal exploration roads and Albertan’s frustration with the intransigence and lack of spine of the UCP government.

Utah Phillips was a folk singer and philosopher who once said, “The Earth is not dying—it is being killed. And the people who are killing it have names and addresses.” If it isn’t evident by now, the names with the UCP government are writ large on this public policy failure to protect the Eastern Slopes.

*

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: Dispatches From the Conservation World and Travels Up the Creek: A Biologist’s Search for a Paddle.

15 January 2025

To: Minister Joseph Schow, Minister of Tourism and Sport

Bill 35 All Season Resorts Act

It is unfortunate that the All Season Resorts Act (Bill 35) was hastily moved through government in November 2024, as it might have been better informed by consultation with Albertans.

The notion that the designation of currently protected provincial parks, provincial recreation areas, wilderness areas, ecological reserves, natural areas or heritage rangelands may be rescinded on the recommendation of the Minister of Tourism and Sport to make way for an all-season resort contradicts the preamble that evokes environmental standards to “ensure that the province’s land is conserved and responsibly managed for the benefit of present and future generations.”

Surely, our ‘world-class environmental standards’ would embrace the maintenance, if not the expansion and restoration of the eastern slopes, natural grasslands, wetlands and rangelands. Installing all-season resorts in protected areas will diminish habitat for species at risk, disrupt wildlife with greater numbers of visitors, and increase linear disturbances that lead to ecological damage. Furthermore, the language of the Act is troubling as it appears to limit, if not bypass, environmental review processes that might normally be expected for significant changes in the land-use of protected lands. Environmental review is meant to evaluate if the negative impacts of development are in the public interest – it is not a barrier to overcome.

Our final concern is the absence in the Act of any measures of disruption and any mention of assigned responsibility for mitigation once it is recognized as being required through environmental monitoring. The Ministry of Tourism and Sport does not have the capacity for environmental monitoring or assessment that would be required to protect our natural areas.

We understand that this act was proclaimed on December 5, 2024, despite a profound lack of public consultation or consideration of the environmental impacts of ill-defined notions of All Season Resorts. We are extremely disappointed with the Act and hope that the Government of Alberta will properly monitor and mitigate negative impacts to the environment. It should be said that ecological damage = social and economic damage when considered in the longer term and is not in the public interest.

SAGE Submission for 10-year Review of South Saskatchewan Regional Plan
1 December 2024

The Southern Alberta Group for the Environment (SAGE) has been a leading voice for a healthy and environmentally sustainable community in Lethbridge and region since 1984. SAGE was an active participant in the public consultations that eventuated the South Saskatchewan Regional Plan (SSRP).

The SSRP articulated strategic directions for policy action that included the management of air quality, conserving biodiversity, promoting the efficient use of land and advancing watershed managements among others. Sustainability goals suggest the stewardship of land and resources to ensure current needs are met without compromising opportunities for future generations. In other words, the SSRP promises responsible social, environmental and economic decisions that consider the best interests of future generations. We take this sustainability goal as the primary imperative, with a strategic direction of mitigating and adapting to climate change.

The following points are intended to help guide the SSRP Review currently being conducted by the Government of Alberta:

For the full document, click ... here.

Provincial By-election 2024: Open Letter on Environmental Policy in Alberta

Since 1984, Southern Alberta Group for the Environment (SAGE) has advocated for a healthy and environmentally sustainable community. SAGE has actively participated in municipal and regional planning, and has advocated for the protection and restoration of headwaters, the maintenance of instream flows required for aquatic health and biodiversity, and the preservation of native grasslands. The organization has also informed the public on home energy performance, waste management, and emerging issues like microplastics in the environment.

There are a few issues that are important for the future of Lethbridge and region that can be affected through provincial policy and legislation:

1. Prioritize the protection of headwaters from pollution. The two main challenges are: 1) proposed coal mining which will contribute to selenium levels that may exceed allowable levels for drinking water (as currently being experienced in Fernie and Sparwood), and 2) linear disturbances from forestry, industrial and recreational activities leading to accelerated soil erosion into river and streams that negatively impacting habitat for species-at-risk (indicators of a healthy aquatic environment). Healthy rivers represent an irreplaceable source for social and economic flourishing in the region.
2. Prioritize the maintenance of evidence-based Instream Flow Needs (IFNs) in water management. The current system of allocating water from our rivers must acknowledge flows that sustains aquatic and riparian health. Schemes for the expansion of on- and off-stream storage in southern Alberta ignore the observed and anticipated decline in precipitation and snow-pack due to climate change. Furthermore, expanding irrigation acres without adequate water supply represents lost economic opportunities (stranded investment) and threatens the loss of valuable native grasslands that support biodiversity and species-at-risk, carbon sequestration, and drought resistance in the region. Water management modelling must be assessed for source flows from headwater tributaries and the impacts of climate change, and native grasslands must be preserved.
3. Municipal governance should allow for independent decision-making to manage urban sprawl and encourage higher energy performance in the built environment. [...]
4. Create an airshed for Lethbridge & region that will measure, monitor, evaluate and respond to high levels of air pollution including NOx, SOx, ground-level ozone, ammonia, methane and particulate matter.
5. Continue to promote and expand the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) program to improve the management of recyclable materials, and place more emphasis on ‘responsibility’ which encourages manufacturers to better design-for-disassembly and chose materials that are more recyclable or biodegradable. [...]
6. Encourage planning for food security. [...]
7. Support action plans that lead to improved resilience: infrastructure, climate emergency measures, incentives for water-conservation practices, and rebates for upgrades that reduce energy consumption. An urban forest strategy [...]

SAGE encourages our provincial decision-makers to direct policy and legislation towards the preservation of a healthy environment. Sustainable social and economic benefits are derived from ecological integrity – that is, clean water, clean air, healthy soil, reduced greenhouse gas emissions and robust biodiversity.

Click here for the full letter.

Grassland Preservation in Lethbridge
Letter to the University of Lethbridge

1 November 2024

The University of Lethbridge Business Corporation (ULBC) is in the process of conducting a market analysis that will guide the South Campus Development of approximately 100 acres owned by the University (1). Part of the area proposed for housing development has been identified in the City of Lethbridge Environment & Historic Resources Strategy as natural grasslands (2). The Strategy states: “It is rare to find undisturbed native grasslands in Lethbridge. These remaining patches of native grassland must be preserved. Sites that are disturbed native grasslands often require significant intervention and management to restore native species and to ensure the health of these regions does not worsen. Natural grasslands are rapidly declining and there need to be processes put into place so that the remaining areas are preserved” (p.92). Furthermore, according to the State of the Prairie Technical Report by the Prairie Conservation Forum, native grassland in the Lethbridge Plain declined 8% during the period 1990-2010, the greatest amount of change in the Grassland Natural Region of southern Alberta (3).

The fragmentation and loss of grasslands abutting the coulees may lead to decreased biodiversity, including species-at-risk, and may negatively impact drought resilience, soil stability and consequently a loss of carbon sinks which help mitigate climate change.

We expect a high standard of business development, professional practice and environmental stewardship from the University of Lethbridge, given its commitment to biodiversity and conservation in the curriculum, and as a leader in science-based decision making. It is standard professional practice to apply Alberta government guidelines for conservation of native grasslands in decisions regarding industrial development applications. In addition, professional practice expects the application of provincial guidelines and directives to minimize the impact of land-use activities on wildlife (4).

As such, the Southern Alberta Group for the Environment (SAGE) would request that the University of Lethbridge expand its market analysis to include an environmental assessment. Avoidance of losing native grasslands is the preferred approach – it appears to be possible to proceed with about three-quarters of the development and leave the native grassland portion without surface disturbance.

Unfortunately, native grasslands continue to be lost to industrial, agricultural and urban development in Alberta. It is important that their preservation be prioritized. We look to the University of Lethbridge to make principled decisions for its South Campus Development.

1 https://ulbcorp.ca/projects/
2 https://www.lethbridge.ca/media/3ruh5jhv/environment-and-historic-resources-strategy.pdf
3 https://albertapcf.live-website.com/rsu_docs/state-of-the-prairie-summary-document_final.pdf
4 https://www.alberta.ca/land-conservation-and-reclamation-guidelines-for-native-grasslands
  https://www.alberta.ca/wildlife-land-use-guidelines

For the complete letter, click ... here.

October 28, 2024

Dear Minister Loewen and Minister Schulz,

[RE: Grizzly Bear Hunting]

Nature Alberta is a non-profit organization dedicated to the greater appreciation and conservation of Alberta’s natural environment. We serve as a hub for 50 grassroots nature clubs across the province and collaborate with many more community partners. We are a member organization of the provincial Endangered Species Conservation Committee and are obligated to recommend to the Minister of Environment and Protected Areas regarding the status of Alberta species and appropriate management responses. On behalf of our 1,747 members, and the 1,057 members of 9 nature organizations undersigned, Nature Alberta urges you to immediately reverse the Wildlife (Grizzly Bear - Ministerial) Amendment Regulation that permits hunting of Ursus arctos (Brown (Grizzly) Bear), a Threatened species.

For the complete letter, click ... here.

Microplastics
Submitted to The Lethbridge Herald, 1 November 2024

WasteLess.ca recently hosted a film titled Plastic People on the topic of microplastics. Microplastics are defined as pieces of plastic smaller than 5 mm. Microplastics much smaller than this, however, are being found in, well, everything. Imagine dividing the edge of a dime into 1000 slices – that is a micrometer. Invisible to the eye, microplastics are being found in plants, in animals, in the soil, in the water, in the air and in us. In our own bodies, microplastics are being found in our reproductive systems, our blood, within individual cells, in our brains – everywhere researchers look. The truth is we are only beginning to discover the extent of this pollution and the resulting ecological and health impacts. If you think this is bad news, you are right.

Microplastics in our bodies can impact our health in three basic ways: simply having a piece of plastic in your blood or in your brain may cause health problems. The second source of concern are the additives in plastics that are known to leach out – pigments, plastizers, stabilizers, fire retardants: ‘forever chemicals’ associated with a myriad of potential health impacts. And the third source is the fact that plastics attract other chemicals in the environment – herbicides, pesticides and many other synthetic chemicals – which are brought into the body with the plastic, like a Trojan horse bearing toxic gifts.

Plastics generally do not disappear once they are in the environment. They just break down and become harder to clean up as they degrade into smaller and smaller bits. And this is the conundrum as we continue to produce (and dispose of) 400 metric tonnes each year. Like all pollution it is much easier and cost-effective to prevent its release to the environment than to try to clean it up later. One could look to selenium from coal mining or greenhouse gas emissions as examples of this. And though these are considered ‘wicked’ problems, doing something better is always better than doing nothing at all. So, what can you do?

Plastics are an important engineering material – strong, lightweight, chemical resistant, tough. They are useful in durable goods, but maybe not so necessary as disposable goods. One of the easiest ways to reduce the amount of microplastics in the environment is to stop using single-use items like plastic bags, cutlery, straws, etc. You might think this is inconsequential, but about a third of plastic production (140 million metric tonnes) is directed to single-use products. That’s almost 40 lbs for each person on the planet each year! Only 1% of single-use plastics comes from recycled products.

It is likely that the largest source of microplastics from the home is from laundry. Synthetic fibres from our clothing break down and are washed away with the wastewater (eventually re-entering the environment as waste sludge or effluent water after treatment) or they are blown outside with the dryer air. What you can do is choose clothing with natural fibres when you can; use full washer loads with minimum laundry soap and set on gentle; and hang your clothes to dry. Millions of microfibers are released in each load of laundry – these simple practices may reduce this number by 70%.

The film, Plastic People, referred to the microplastics in each of our bodies. But we are also plastic people in that we have become so dependent on the material over the past 70 years. Knowing about the consequences of microplastics pollution should encourage us to use this important material more deliberately.

Consider the River in Watershed and Water Management
Cheryl Bradley, September 2024

Thank you for inviting me to this event that recognizes World Rivers Day, the 22^nd of September 2024. World Rivers Day, launched by the United Nations in 2005, is a day to celebrate rivers and create greater awareness of the need to better care for our water resources. For me every day is rivers day.

Since moving to this province in 1971, I have had the good fortune to live, work and play along the prairie rivers of southern Alberta. My current hometown of Lethbridge straddles the Oldman River. I am mindful that the water I drink and wash-in comes from the Oldman, and for that I am grateful. For over five decades now, the Oldman, Bow, Red Deer and South Saskatchewan as well as Milk rivers have captivated my soul as I paddled their waters, hiked their coulees and camped in the shade of their riparian forests.

Prairie rivers are not just conduits of water. They are dynamic systems that since deglaciation twelve thousand or so years ago have evolved to integrate our region’s geology, landforms, climate, soils and lifeforms.  Through my graduate research on cottonwoods in the early 1980s and from subsequent observations I grew to understand and appreciate the interrelationships of river flows, channel morphology and life in aquatic and riparian ecosystems.  Cottonwoods have evolved to take advantage of spring floods, settling on new river bars created by shifting channels and growing their roots apace with declining flows. Mature cottonwoods stabilize river banks while sheltering songbirds, other wildlife and even humans. Eventually as the channel moves, old trees collapse into the river providing sheltering habitat for fish and other aquatic life during summer drought and spring floods. And so the cycle continues.

There are many such stories of intricate interconnection woven into river ecosystems. It troubles me that all of this has been put at risk by just over 100 years of human intervention.

The rivers I will consider in my talk today are the main tributaries of the South Saskatchewan River in Alberta - the Bow, Oldman and Red Deer. ...

For the rest of the presentation, click ... here

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