The Crane Lake Advisory and Stewardship Society (CLASS) recently launched a campaign to petition the Alberta Minister of Sustainable Resources to prevent Birchwood Resources from continuing with their proposed plan to develop an oil plant near Crane Lake.
Earlier this summer, Birchwood built three test wells. The company plans to build a SAGD (steam-assisted gravity drainage) oil plant about 300 metres from Crane Lake.
Members of CLASS feels this would jeopardize the cleanliness and natural habitats at Crane Lake and has therefore begun a petition to stop Birchwood from moving forward with their plans for development.
“The goal is to have this plant stopped,” said Alyssa Noel, one of the CLASS organizers. “We're not necessarily anti-development but this is just way too close to the lake. We don't want to compromise the water so we just don't want the plant going forward.”
Hardcopy petitions have been circulating for a couple of weeks now and recently CLASS began an online petition, which Noel said they are directing most traffic to in order to sign the petition.
The petition can be signed at gopetition.com/petitions/save-crane-lake.html.
“We want to petition the Minister of Sustainable Resources. We're just hoping to get the process going so that when Birchwood presents their plan, we can get it stopped ahead of time. The ERCB are the ones that have to approve their proposal to build the plant but we're hoping by petitioning the minister we can get it stopped,” said Noel.
CLASS is concerned of the environmental impact Birchwood's development would leave on Crane Lake, stating chemicals such as sulphur dioxide, benzene and cadium could leave a negative impact on the area.
“We want to make as much noise as possible and show the government and the ERCB that a lot of people are upset about this,” said Noel.
“We would love to get it stopped as soon as possible. We've spent our entire summer working on this and trying to come up with a plan to stop this. We're going to stick around and keep fighting it as long as it takes.”
Currently, CLASS is still in the early stages of the initiative to stop Birchwood's development and has spent a lot of time spreading awareness through social networking platforms.
As of yet, they are not sure when the petition will be presented to the minister but said when it is, it is will also be sent to Genia Leskiw, MLA for Cold Lake – Bonnyville, as well as other organizations.
Noel said CLASS has been working hard ever since Birchwood's meeting in June where the development was initially discussed and brought into the open.
“I know it's kind of a lengthy process. From what I understand, they still haven't sent in the application to the ERCB but I don't think they have any signs of stopping. That would be wonderful but I don't think so, not yet anyways,” said Noel, stating CLASS has no intent on slowing down their efforts anytime soon.
“This is one step in a big fight that we're really determined to win.”
