Episode Details

In this episode, you hear about the environmental concerns surrounding gravel pits in Bighill Creek, Alberta. Jerry Bietz from the Bighill Creek Preservation Society highlights the issues of water shortages and the impact of gravel extraction on the local ecosystem. The conversation delves into the broader implications of gravel mining, including the potential contamination of groundwater, the cumulative environmental impacts, and the need for better regulatory oversight.

The discussion then shifts, the Polluter Pay Federation team touches on the challenges of administrative law, the role of government and regulatory bodies, and the importance of public engagement and education in environmental stewardship. The participants emphasize the need for a balanced approach to resource management that considers both economic benefits and environmental sustainability.

Key takeaways include the importance of baseline data for monitoring environmental impacts, the need for more effective public representation in decision-making processes, and the role of education in fostering critical thinking and environmental awareness.

Welcome and Updates for Gerry Bietz and the Polluter Pay Federation

Alex:

Welcome to The Gravity Well where we break down heavy ideas into small buckets anyone can handle. In our work and at play, we seek the wisdom of elders, individuals, and communities to share their knowledge to care for our water, air, land, life and resource needs. A healthy relationship with our homeland and each other is our guide.

Jenny:

Excellent. I am just going to do a roll call. This is weird for us because we’re doing it on a different system today, but we have Gerry Bietz who is with the Big Hill Creek Preservation Society and we’re joined by the Polluter Pay Federation team: Mark Dorin, Regan Boychuk, Dwight Popowich, Vern Bretin, and myself, Jenny Yeremiy, and Alex McGillivray, of course, my cohost here. We are going to dive into our original discussion, which is around the who’s who in the zoo in Alberta. But first, we’ve got Gerry who’s here to talk about the issues that he’s seeing in terms of gravel pits in Big Hill Creek. I’ve been attending the watershed council meetings, been very concerned about water shortages, and originally started with the logging campaign, looking at the clear-cut logging that’s happening in the headwaters of the Highwood and realized that it’s a broader issue than that.

Jenny:

We’ve started looking at watersheds and I am now on the Bow River Basin Stewardship Committee of that. Being that I get to hear what all the watershed groups are doing, and now I’m trying to go to all the watershed meetings and learning a lot. Last week I was in sundry and heard about some gravel pit extraction and water usage by industry. That was quite alarming. I had just been to the Cochrane meeting, the Bow River Basin hosted in February, excuse me, and met with some members of Gerry’s group, the Bighill Creek Preservation Society, and they brought me the gravel pit concern to my attention. Here we are. We’re going to let Gerry expand on that. Alex and I have been meeting with a group that we’re going to have a meeting, or sorry, they will join us next week and they’re doing a strategy in meetings to try and make sure that meetings are actually more democratic and that the purpose of everybody, everybody’s perspective is brought in really well.

Jenny:

We’re going to use that system today. I’ve got three questions that I want us to use as we go around to help Gerry explain his issue and then we can give our perspective back to him on it. We’re going to test some stuff and this is flexing this learning muscle that we’re trying to do in these c