A renewed attempt to explore the Grassy Mountain coal deposit kept a long-running dispute alive near Alberta’s Crowsnest Pass in October 2024. Northback Holdings was seeking permission for exploratory drilling and temporary water diversion, not yet authorization to construct and operate a mine.
Three applications were before the regulator
Northback asked the Alberta Energy Regulator to approve a coal exploration programme, a deep-drilling permit and a temporary licence to divert 1,500 cubic metres of water. The proposed boreholes were on Crown land and company-owned land north of Blairmore.
The distinction matters. Exploration can gather geological and environmental information for a future proposal, but it can also disturb land and move a previously rejected development closer to another application.
An earlier mine proposal had failed review
Northback was formerly known as Benga Mining. In 2021, a joint federal-provincial review panel denied Benga’s proposed open-pit steelmaking-coal mine after concluding that its likely environmental harm outweighed the positive economic effects.
The panel identified significant risks to surface-water quality, westslope cutthroat trout habitat, whitebark pine, rough fescue grasslands, biodiversity and the physical or cultural heritage of some First Nations. The federal government later determined that the project’s significant adverse effects were not justified.
Supporters emphasized jobs and mining history
Crowsnest Pass communities were built around coal, and supporters viewed a modern mine as a source of employment, municipal revenue and economic diversification. Northback said additional drilling would define the resource and support better planning.
Those possible benefits deserved evaluation, but they were projections rather than guaranteed outcomes. A complete assessment would examine job duration, local hiring, commodity cycles, reclamation security and the public cost if water treatment continued after mining.
Opponents focused on water and cumulative risk
Ranchers, environmental groups and downstream communities raised concerns about selenium, water withdrawals and effects throughout the Oldman River watershed. They also questioned whether describing the new request as exploration separated it too neatly from the mine Northback ultimately wanted to develop.
Support or opposition within Crowsnest Pass could not settle every consequence because water and wildlife cross municipal boundaries. Indigenous rights and interests also required direct consultation rather than being reduced to local popularity.
The regulator scheduled a public hearing
The AER accepted the applications for consideration and assigned them to a hearing panel. That procedural decision was not approval and did not reverse the 2021 findings. Legal challenges also questioned whether the regulator could treat Grassy Mountain as an advanced project exempt from restrictions on new eastern-slopes coal development.
A hearing was eventually held in December 2024 and continued in early 2025. In May 2025, the AER approved the exploration applications with conditions, a later decision distinct from approval of a full mine.
Later approval did not end the debate
Regulatory permission establishes what activity may lawfully proceed under stated conditions. It does not prove that every environmental prediction is correct or that a future mine would be in the public interest.
Credible oversight requires baseline water data, public monitoring, enforceable limits, financial assurance and transparent reporting of any incident. It must also explain how new evidence relates to the earlier panel’s findings rather than treating those findings as obsolete without analysis.
The controversy concerned process as well as coal
Residents disagreed about development, but they also disputed who should decide and what evidence should control. The durable question was not simply whether the region supported mining; it was whether this specific activity could meet legal, ecological and public-interest tests.
At the time of the original report, only exploration applications were under review. The accurate record therefore preserves both facts: Grassy Mountain had previously failed a comprehensive mine assessment, and Northback was pursuing a narrower set of permissions through a new regulatory proceeding.
