An Australian Coal Speculator Flouts More Alberta Laws

An Australian coal speculator that is suing the Alberta government for billions of dollars has been found to have violated the Public Lands Act and has been ordered to clean up contamination at a construction site in the Crowsnest Pass.

Despite repeated visits by government inspectors, Montem Resources, which now operates under the name of Evolve Power, ignored requests to clean up after its unauthorized construction activities for a year and half. (The enforcement order names Montem.)

In 2025 the company asked for an extension on an enforcement order by Alberta Forestry and Parks and was granted one by the government.

Evolve Power (Montem) did not respond to email queries from The Tyee.

Critics of Premier Danielle Smith’s unpopular pro-coal development policies in the eastern slopes of the Rockies say the incident underscores that while the government can promise “environmentally responsible policies that hold industry to the highest standards,” the reality is different.

In fact, the province’s regulatory record shows that coal companies routinely break the law and in some cases have expressed disdain for Alberta’s regulations and its regulators.

“Why are these companies that flout provincial rules even allowed to continue to operate in this province?” asked Kennedy Halvorson, a conservation specialist with the Alberta Wilderness Association.

A coal rush, then backlash

Nearly a decade ago Sydney-based Montem Resources proposed to reactivate a historic Tent Mountain mine in the Crowsnest Pass.

When the UCP government of Jason Kenney killed the 1976 Coal Policy that effectively protected the Rockies from open-pit mining, Montem then joined in a coal rush, largely led by Australian speculators.

During that controversial boom Montem submitted 13 coal lease applications for lands located in both formerly restricted areas and unrestricted areas near Gina Rinehart’s controversial Grassy Mountain project. The company talked about developing as many as four open-pit metallurgical coal mines in the Crowsnest Pass.

But a public backlash to Kenney’s pro-coal plans forced the government to declare a 2022 moratorium on coal development and exploration in the eastern slopes. That order temporarily ended Montem’s mining prospects.

In response the company then sued the government for more than $1 billion in damages.

And then it got caught breaking the law.

In August 2023 staff at Alberta Forestry and Parks visited leases owned by Montem Resources in the Crowsnest Pass and found that the company had engaged in a flurry of “unauthorized activities” in violation of the Public Lands Act.

According to a government enforcement order the Australian company had committed four distinct violations.

It had dumped debris into Crowsnest Creek while installing a bridge. In the process it had failed to install erosion and sediment controls at the site. It also dumped more material on a floodplain without proper drainage and it had excavated two borrow pits without provincial authorization on public lands.

Government staff returned several times to the site in 2023 and 2024 only to find that Montem “continued to occupy the Lands and erosion and sediment control measures installed on the Lands were ineffective and not functioning.”

In May 2024 the government ordered Montem to follow a remediation plan to clean up its mess on Crowsnest Creek. But returning staff found nothing had been done. In fact, the situation worsened as loads of sediment now poured into Crowsnest Creek, muddying its mountain waters.

The province finally ordered Montem to stop all unauthorized activity on the lands in February this year and gave the company until May 1 to come up with a written plan to clean up its mess and stop the water contamination.

Montem requested an extension until May 22 and was granted one by the province.

Punishment ‘too slow, too measured’ says biologist

Lorne Fitch, a retired provincial fish and wildlife biologist who knows the area well, characterized the incident as “an outstandingly bad violation” of Alberta legislation.

“It shows this company’s utter disdain and contempt for rules and regulations,” Fitch told The Tyee. “While it’s encouraging to see the response from Alberta regulators, it is too slow, too measured for a violation that occurred two years ago.”

He adds the province should have slapped the company with a substantial fine plus full remediation.

Halvorson added that the incident underscored that coal companies can vow “best practices” to uphold “stringent regulations” but rarely keep their promises.

“I question why the government and its regulatory agencies continue to allow companies with questionable records to continue to operate in this province.”

As The Tyee discovered, Montem has a record of intransigence when it comes to following Alberta’s laws.

When the Alberta Energy Regulator asked the company to improve selenium monitoring and uphold the law at a proposed mining site on Tent Mountain in 2021, the firm’s CEO, Peter Doyle, not only refused but threatened to sue individual members of the agency.

At one contentious meeting the executive compared dealing with the regulator to being examined by a “meddling” proctologist.

Documents obtained by The Tyee show that CEO of Montem Resources not only fought a request to establish monitoring for the fish-killing toxin and water pollutant selenium at Tent Mountain, but entered into a two-year-long dispute process with the regulator.

Montem is one of several Australian companies suing the United Conservative Party government for alleged damages totalling $15 billion after the government placed a moratorium on coal development in the Rockies in 2022.

After those lawsuits were filed the government killed the 2022 coal moratorium last January. In effect the government “traded protection against compensation claims in favour of exposing Albertans to renewed coal mining activities” as one lawyer explained.

Energy Minister Brian Jean’s ministerial decision not only reopened the Rockies to coal development but reactivated all of Montem’s coal leases and exploration approvals in the Crowsnest Pass.

A sector rife with violations

Violating the law is not uncommon among Alberta’s metallurgical coal companies.

CST Canada Coal, an open-pit mine outside Grande Cache, illustrates the scale of problem. It is owned by CST Group, a foreign company incorporated in the Cayman Islands.

In 2023 it failed to notify the Alberta Energy Regulator when it inadvertently released about 1.1 million litres of mining wastewater into the Smoky River near Grande Cache, endangering the lives of Arctic grayling and bull trout. The AER only fined the company $9,000 this year.

The regulator also charged CST another $22,000 for spilling 107,000 litres of untreated mine wastewater that contained suspended solids and metals into the Smoky River in December 2022 due to frozen pipes.

Vancouver-based Coalspur Mines Ltd, which operates a surface mine near Hinton, has been cited nine times by the AER for mine wastewater spills since 2023.

Environmentalists have raised repeated concerns about recurring wastewater spills from three Alberta coal mines in the Rockies because the companies have consistently failed to protect their infrastructure from extreme climate events.