“Heartland or Heartbreak” is a three-part blog series by Reaching:
Conversations on the environment, climate change, and politics in Alberta. It explores the impact of Alberta’s Industrial Heartland (AIH) on environment and community, nearly 20 years after its inception. Read about the history of citizen action and the AIH below.
Image: Lydia Neufeld, CBC. 2017. From Heartland Landowners Calling for Sturgeon County to Buy Them Out.
At a 2000 meeting of the Sturgeon County Council, representative of the Heartland Citizens’ Coalition Anne Brown sent a letter to council requesting the postponement of its approval of Alberta’s Industrial Heartland (AIH). The four-jurisdiction coalition wanted to push pause on the bylaw until its impact on environment and community could be properly assessed. They wanted an assessment of the current air quality completed before the decision to expand be decided.
In mid-February of that year an impassioned Brown delivered a final plea, swaying the vote of one council member — regardless, council passed the motion in a 4-3 vote, with a final vote expected to take place by the end of March 2001. At that meeting, Brown told councillors she had contacted Dr. David Suzuki, who had shed perspective on the group’s fight: “The issue you are confronting is the power of industry to marshal the support of governments.”
There were town hall meetings where residents and farmers with concerns lined up for a turn at the mic. There were letters to MLAs. The citizen coalition was roughly 500-strong, with members from each of the jurisdictions. Brown’s group included the residential communities of Hu-Haven and Riverside, located near Fort Saskatchewan, across the river from AIH. It finally caught the attention of mainstream media when it rented a bus and invited media to tour the affected region, illustrating the scale and potential impact the expansion might have on the community at large.
Citizens were in general concerned about air quality, the effect on drinking water, and on the environment. They were worried about the sheer volume of potential for pollutants and the possibility of increased rates of cancer. Farmers argued that the area was comprised of some of Alberta’s number one prime farmland that boasted a unique sub-climate with more frost-free days than land only 30 km. away. They called the 30-50 year AIH plan short-sighted, in relation to what farmland could provide far into the future.
It’s been nearly 20 years since AIH secured approvals from the municipality of Fort Saskatchewan and the counties of Lamont, Strathcona and Sturgeon. The area of the Heartland ballooned from 200-582 sq. km., and hosted a handful of industries. The AIH industrial complex has grown to 40+ since 2001, largely geared toward heavy industry with an emphasis on petro-chemical. It is Canada’s largest hydrocarbon processing center.
How has the environment fared? A study of the region released in 2013, conducted by scientists from the Universities of California and Michigan found air quality downwind of AIH compared to air quality in Mexico City in the 1990s. The study found 77 volatile pollutants that included carcinogens that result in blood-related cancers, such as leukaemia and Hodgkin’s lymphoma, which have disproportionately been represented in men. The researchers surmised that men suffer more exposure because they are more representative of the workforce of AIH. At that time, Brown noted an alarming rise in cancers in the community, with some of the individuals dying, and others taking buyouts and moving.
How have communities fared? How well has industry managed the potential negative effects of its activities? In a three-part series we will take a look at where some of these individuals who fought so hard to protect their farms, communities and families are doing. In our first podcast we talk to Gord Thompson, who recently retired from his work as a technical advisor with the North Saskatchewan Watershed Alliance, but offers a wealth of experience in the ways of water, going back to 1972.
