Brian Zinchuk is editor and owner of Pipeline Online
Jason LeBlanc on June 23, in front of the RM of Estevan office. Photo by Brian Zinchuk
ESTEVAN – The June 18th announcement that Saskatchewan would be rebuilding its coal fleet has massive repercussions for the Rural Municipality of Estevan No. 5. Most of the coal mining takes place within the RM of Estevan, with some in the adjacent RM of Coalfields. Both Boundary Dam and Shand Power Stations are within the municipality, as are Rafferty Dam and its reservoir, and Boundary Dam and its reservoir.
Many RM residents work either at SaskPower’s coal-fired power stations or at Westmoreland Mining’s Estevan Mine. And many of the businesses within the RM directly support the mining and/or power operations, from crane operations to cement and more.
For RM of Estevan Reeve Jason LeBlanc, it’s been a long, long battle. Even before he was elected reeve, Jason LeBlanc took part in organizing truck convoys to both Ottawa and Regina in early 2019 in support of coal. His decaled semi was literally parked at the front gate of Parliament in February, 2019. And he gave a speech in the snow, as Parliament Hill police would not let the protesters stand on the broad, swept sidewalks. Instead the protesters from the convoy had to stand in over a foot of snow on the otherwise grassy areas in front of the Parliament Buildings.
Left: Jason LeBlanc’s truck parked at the gates of Parliament, right, a truck belonging to Jerry Mainil Ltd.
In that speech, LeBlanc spoke of the need to keep coal-fired power generation. If the Government of Saskatchewan had not decided to rejuvenate its coal fleet, those two coal-fired power stations, and the associated mine, would have been done for in four years, five months and 29 days from now. The likelihood of keeping a mine open and the massive Boundary Dam Power Station for just Boundary Dam Unit 3, which has carbon capture installed on it, would be improbable at best. As a result, the future of coal, Estevan and its RM, as well as Bienfait and the RM of Coalfields, was bleak at best.
Jason LeBlanc stood in the snow in February, 2019, because House of Commons security would not allow the protest to stand on the wide, empty sidewalks in front of Parliament. Photo by Stacey Wempe
Now, all of that has changed.
Over the top happy
Speaking to Pipeline Online on June 23 at the RM office, LeBlanc said, “We are over the top happy. The reason I say that is because the RM has been a strong advocate and been really pushing hard for the provincial government to get control of SaskPower, and they’re now taking a leadership role in common sense practice.”
LeBlanc implied that in some ways, the tail had been wagging the dog, with SaskPower more in tune with following federal directives to shut down conventional coal by 2030 without looking at the realities of Saskatchewan’s power needs.
“What I’m seeing is some of the former leaders, or the top brass at SaskPower have been taking federal guidance versus provincial guidance as opposed to what we want. And the climate change push, which is now starting to lose traction, it has been rewarded for far too long.
“And now we’re starting to realize that there’s not enough money in everybody’s bank account to pay for the probability of going full-on nuclear, when nobody knew what that was going to cost, and to go into all other options in the sake of climate change,” he said.
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Bridge to nuclear
While Crown Investments Corp. Minister Jeremy Harrison has said the life-extension of the coal fleet will act as a bridge to baseload nuclear power generation, LeBlanc pointed out the costs of nuclear up until recently have largely been unknown.
To that end, Ontario Power Generation has announced in recent months it is going ahead with four GE-Hitachi BWRX-3000 small modular reactors at its Darlington New Nuclear Site, the same make and model Saskatchewan is considering. The cost is listed as $20.9 billion. The entire 2025-26 Saskatchewan provincial budget, including debt servicing and every service provided, was $21 billion. And Saskatchewan would need five, not four, small modular reactors, to fully replace its coal-fired power generation fleet.
LeBlanc said, “So that’s why we’re happy here at the RM, because the provincial government took that, saw that, proved leadership, and put the brakes on this. And there’s been lots of money spent already, but, but by putting the brakes on it, maybe now we’ll have some extra money to put towards health care.”
LeBlanc hopes the timeline on nuclear development will be stretched out a bit as a result. “We have everything you need in Estevan with the lakes and the coal, and the if you want to go nuclear, for sure. What I disagree with is the in-between nuclear is the switch to wind and solar.”
On June 22, the day before LeBlanc’s interview, Alberta’s fleet of 5,688 megawatts of wind capacity fell to 12 megawatts of output. And on June 21, the day after the summer solstice, solar output at noon in Alberta fell to 12 per cent because of an unlikely snowstorm.
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“It is totally unreliable. But they keep pushing that we’re going to need all this more power, need everything. But why? Like we’ve lived this long, the planet seems to rejuvenate all the time,” he said.
“The system was working fine. Look at the improvements they’ve made from mining coal by hand to today’s technology. We have clean carbon capture. We have the best of everything here, but yet we’re being dictated to by federal mandates, and that’s where SaskPower was taking their leadership from, and not listening to home base, and which is what I’m happy with now. Minister Harrison showed some gonads and said, ‘Here we go. This is what’s going to be.’ And that’s great.
“And I would say 90 per cent of the employees at SaskPower have taken a big breath of relief and are happy, whereas there’s a handful that maybe are not happy about it, but I suggest they get happy.”
Reactions
Asked what was the reaction after the June 18 announcement was made, LeBlanc said he had some calls asking, “Do you believe in climate change?”
LeBlanc said he’s against the climate change hysteria and it being blamed for everything, resulting in the expense of billions of dollars.
He pointed out forest fires – often being attributed to climate change – are being lit by arsonists, and that most certainly is not climate change.
“So that’s my point,” he said. “Is all of this stuff we have spent billions of dollars, which comes out of your pocket, all in the name of climate change, and to have our students doing a climate emergency strike, what was that four years ago? What’s changed? And to have continually pushed in the universities and stuff are going on and on and on, and nothing’s changed.”
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Coal reserves
Asked about coal reserves, LeBlanc pointed out that the placement of the transmission lines for the new electrical intertie to the U.S. being built in the southwest corner of rural municipality are being strategically placed to not interfere with access to coal underneath the surface. “So that tells me there’s coal there,” he said.
The possibility of running coal for potentially several more decades means more land will be mined. LeBlanc said on average one quarter of land is consumed by the coal mines each year. There’s also 16 quarters of land in the “West Block,” west of Boundary Dam Reservoir, that’s been reserved for coal mining. The land immediately to the north of that was leased by SaskPower for a 100 megawatt solar installation which is expected to begin construction next year. It’s literally across a grid road from the West Block. When it looked like coal would be done in four years and six months, the prospects of needing that land, both the current West Block and possibly the land adjacent to it, for coal mining was limited. But the situation may change now, should the West Block ever be developed.
LeBlanc said of the solar facility, “SaskPower made a mistake by putting that in there.”
“I never did agree with the placement of that solar plant,” LeBlanc said.
A second, much smaller solar facility that was being considered for reclaimed, formerly mined land south of Boundary Dam Power Station and on the west side of reservoir was proposed for development. “We just said a hard no to it,” LeBlanc said.
LeBlanc said the RM would like to see development of Rafferty Reservoir (Also called McDonald Lake) for recreational purposes like cabins and a marina project.
Huge improvement
Asked if overall, he was happy with the coal announcement, LeBlanc said, “Oh, huge. It’s a huge improvement.
“Overnight, housing people are starting to build here again. The only ones I found upset about any of it are the ones that jumped the gun and took off and left already, because they were buying into the climate change thing, and all of a sudden, oh, things have changed now.
“I know demand is there. Houses are on the market and gone, just like that,” he said.
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BREAKING: Saskatchewan to rebuild its coal fleet, despite federal regulations calling for its demise