By Jane E. Burton, Beacon Magazine, August 2010

Nearly eight months after the citizen’s group CoalWatch was formed the work continues at a steady pace for its volunteers. Three CoalWatch activists agreed to share their stories and explain why they believe that the Raven Underground Coal Mine Project must be questioned.

Campbell Connor was CoalWatch’s first chairperson and now works as the outreach coordinator. A retired entrepreneur and Dean of Student Affairs at Brandon University, Campbell also spent time in the United Church ministry. His boundless energy for the many hours of CoalWatch work has a theological connection: “I come at environmental issues from a spiritual end. I don’t think we’ve got the right to screw up the creative world the way we do. And it is very important to me personally that we get that kind of message out. You can’t sit on the sidelines and believe that.” Born in South Shields England, Campbell could have chosen coal mining as an occupation. Instead he opted to go to marine school to train for a life at sea rather than to go down into the Hilda colliery that ran for three miles under the ocean.

Campbell and his wife Marjorie left Manitoba for Vancouver Island in 1988; finally landing in Fanny Bay in 2003. Their only other involvement in a citizen’s group was being part of the white minority in South Africa who supported African nationalism. Campbell has many serious concerns about the Raven Project, including the threat to the Baynes Sound aquaculture industry: “The Coastal Shellfish Industry Research Centre told us that very small non-lethal amounts of heavy metals coming into the water impair the ability of the shellfish to procreate. That’s tickets, game over. We all know that there are leakages that come out of ponds. With the best will in the world there will be leakages. Those leakages go somewhere.”

John Snyder, originally from San Diego California, says he went to Alaska in 1965 for the summer and stayed forty-two years. He worked most of that time as a truck driver. He and his wife Sheila moved to Fanny Bay three years ago. John originally volunteered for fundraising and the steering committee; when Campbell moved to outreach John agreed to become the chairperson.

Being a shop steward in the Teamsters Union is the closest John has come to being involved in an organization like CoalWatch. The chairperson’s role consumes about two hours a day of his time, on average. Recently he represented CoalWatch in a series of meetings about the Raven Project held in Nanaimo, Duncan, Victoria, Vancouver and Port Alberni in conjunction with the Western Canada Wilderness Committee and the Sierra Club. He believes the public awareness aspect of his work is essential: “There are a lot of people who just have no idea this thing is on the table.”

A “perilously” low well last summer was the spark that ignited John’s activism in CoalWatch. He attended the proponents’ open house last fall with questions about the mines affect on the water table. John continues to work to get those answers and encourages everyone to be equally curious: “I tell them to do research, become aware, go to our public meetings and the more knowledge that they have, they can make their own decision as to whether it is going to be a good project or not.”

Jaye Castleden grew up in Sudbury, spent most of her working life in Manitoba and has lived in Fanny Bay for eight years. She and her husband Don moved here from Winnipeg where she had been a senior program analyst for the Manitoba government in First Nations school programs. Jaye’s concern for the environment prompted her to join CoalWatch and offer her librarian’s skills to the research committee. She then joined the steering committee to work with her long time friend Campbell Connor. It is not uncommon for Jaye to spend five to six hours a day on CoalWatch research and administrative work.

Jaye finds CoalWatch’s organizing quite different than her work for social justice causes. As her father was a mining engineer, she is familiar with the industry, but coal is new to her. Two specific concerns stand out from her research: “Although the environmental assessment doesn’t consider carbon emissions that definitely concerns me in terms of the planet. Another concern I have is the 14 million tons of waste that is going to be sitting up there and I wish we could actually give people a picture of what that is actually going to look like. And that waste when it is exposed to air and it has rain falling on it can produce acid mine drainage and again that’s a big problem for the environment.”

Campbell, John and Jaye are typical examples of the diverse group of people who have chosen to live in this part of Vancouver Island. Bringing together many such committed and passionate people is what CoalWatch is all about as it works to question the wisdom of letting a coal mine move into the area.

Jane E. Burton is a freelance writer who operates her company Memorable Lines from her home in Fanny Bay.

Source: Memorable Lines, and Beacon Magazine August 2010 edition
Article submitted to CoalWatch by the author