On Vancouver Island, Compliance Energy’s proposed Raven Underground Coal Project is causing a lot of concern among citizens, businesses and communities.

With plans to mine more than 28 million metric tonnes of coal and rock, this proposed mine represents a huge threat to the Island’s air and water quality, not to mention our fragile ecosystems and endangered wildlife. Potential environmental impacts from this project would hurt the more sustainable fishing, tourism, and shellfish industries that depend on the ecological health of central Vancouver Island.

Compliance is risking all this to export coal, the world’s dirtiest resource. This is not sustainable development—this is a huge leap back into the boom-bust resource cycle that has caused environmental damage and economic hardship in small communities up and down this coast.

Citizens from the Comox Valley to Port Alberni are coming together to voice their strong opposition to this ill-conceived project. Residents have been particularly vocal in places like Fanny Bay, where the world-renowned shellfish industry would be at direct risk of water contamination from the drainage of coal tailings associated with the mine. In Port Alberni, the site of the proposed port, locals fear the serious impacts from the coal trucks (the biggest the Island has ever seen) and the potential dredging of the inlet.

These are stories that need to be told. So today, we’re launching a brand new video to help spread the word and build opposition to this short-sighted project.

You can watch the video below:

Island Opposition to the Raven Coal Project from The Wilderness Committee on Vimeo.

Please help us out by sharing this video with your friends, family, coworkers and neighbours. You can also learn more about the Raven Coal project and coal in British Columbia by visiting our campaign web page.

As the project heads to public comment period as early as this fall, we need to show Compliance Energy that it’s 2012, not 1912, and that Vancouver Island is no place for a new coal mine!

Torrance Coste | Vancouver Island Campaigner