It's time to take action to stop the Raven Coal Mine project. Over the past few months, we've talked a lot about the Raven Coal mine, proposed for the Comox Valley area. We've talked to the people the mine is going to impact, gone on expeditions to the area it would be built in, and held public information meetings across Vancouver Island and in Vancouver. Now, finally, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency has posted the background document for the project, and we have until September 20th to comment on it.
But there just isn't a lot to comment on here. The background document is light on details about the project, and so we're raising some issues that conversations with our local allies and with experts, and our expeditions have all brought up. Issues like this project proposing to wipe out fish-bearing creeks. Issues like the waste rock from this proposal poisoning the Cowie Creek watershed with acid rock and heavy metals, impacting salmon and other aquatic life and eliminating hundreds of shellfish industry jobs. Issues like the unknown impact of drawing on unmapped underground drinking water aquifers that people rely on being used to wash coal. Issues like the health impacts of coal dust on local communities, especially when truck routes pass hospitals and seniors' centres.
And then there are the climate impacts. Raven Coal would add over 80 million tons of carbon into our atmosphere. We are seeing the beginnings of the weather disruptions that climate change is causing, in Russia's heat wave, Pakistan's floods and the forest fires covering our province. As a planet we just can't afford to burn more fossil fuels: we must keep dirty coal in the ground.
Over the last few years we've been successful in opposing bad projects because people stood up together and made sure their concerns could not be ignored. Raven Coal is a bad project, and we need you to write in and say so. This process is just beginning, and over the coming months we will be mobilizing our membership and concerned citizens all over BC against this project.
Take action and submit a comment today. This is only the first step in stopping this coal mine, but together we will make sure this nasty project never gets built.
Thank you for your help,
Tria Donaldson | Pacific Coast Campaigner
Wilderness Committee
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