Cole nodded, sipped his water, cleared his throat, and replied: “We both agree that Oracle needs to diversify its economy. Don’t clearcut and send your trees overseas for someone else to make them into Ikea furniture. Set up secondary manufacturing right here. Every man who works at this mine or at the mill has a basement full of tools. Imagine the stuff they could build. Someone else can do the marketing. This creates new businesses in town, generates money for the local economy. Guys are afraid that if they give up mining and logging they’ll be flipping burgers or telecommuting to Calgary or leaving home to slave in the oil sands. But a town like Oracle has options. A small-scale manufacturing economy values skills and rewards them with good-paying work. But big companies like Athabasca Coal get in the way.
“I agree,” said Barnes.
“You agree?”
“I do. We create a dependence on our employment for the people of this town. Everybody in Oracle, in some way, needs us to make a living. Am I right?”
“You’re right, but there’s more. You frighten people so they fight change.”
Barnes shrugged. “We don’t do that on purpose. There’s no sinister plot. We don’t pass out leaflets that tell our employees to fear change.”
Cole leaned forward, “Actually, Mr. Barnes ...”
“It’s Mike.”
“OK , Mike, I’ve seen that happen. Maybe not here, but in other company towns.”
Barnes shrugged again. “I won’t argue with you. But people are afraid of change by nature. If you’re making seventy or eighty thousand a year punching the clock at the mine, driving a nice truck to work, with a big house for your wife and kids, it’s pretty hard to imagine yourself going into business for yourself and making four-poster beds to sell over the internet.”
Cole stood up and walked to the windows. He looked out over the mine site to the forested hills beyond. “Here’s another thing,” said Cole, noticing how the evening light slanted across the spruce and fir forest. “Oracle wants to bill itself as the gateway to Jasper National Park instead of the gateway to a humongous hole in the ground.”
Mike Barnes allowed himself a smile. “Think, Cole. To get to their second homes in Canmore, Calgarians don’t mind driving right past Exshaw where Lafarge and others have been levelling an entire mountain and grinding it up into cement. And the millions of tourists who visit Banff National Park drive right past that hole in the rock too. Canmore’s growth isn’t slowing one iota, despite the plume of cement factory exhaust and the massive scar on Grotto Mountain. Mining certainly hasn’t hurt Canmore’s prospects. Maybe it’s even helped.”
Cole heard the words, but right now his attention was riveted to the hills, their shapes and shadows. “Yes, Mike, you’re absolutely right. But there’s bears in them there hills.” He pointed and Mike’s gaze followed his fingers. “I happen to believe strongly that to have a diverse economy Oracle’s got to keep some of the ecological pieces intact. It’s got to be a place where grizzly bears are protected, not persecuted. That’s part of the whole picture.”
“But it’s not up to Athabasca Coal alone to protect them, Cole. This town has to want a future other than mining if this is going to work.”
“So why are you pushing so hard for the McLeod River project? There’s a disconnect between what you’re telling me and what you’re doing.”
“At the end of the day, Cole, I’ve got a job to do. That job is to ensure that through this operation, the best interests of Athabasca Cole are served.”
“So there is no middle ground?”
Mike Barnes stood, put his hands in his pockets, and walked to the windows. Cole wondered if Mike Barnes saw the same thing that he did. Was their view of the world so different?
“Cole, I’m not going to lie to you. We plan to push ahead with the McLeod River project. That’s in the best interest of Athabasca Coal. We aim to have the road built this fall, and the rail line soon after. We intend to minimize our impacts on wildlife. Maybe your friends at ESCoG can give us some help with that. I’d promise to deal with any recommendations they make myself. But we’re not going to pull the plug on this operation. I’m sorry, Cole.”
“I’m sorry, too.” Cole appreciated the frank exchange of views with Barnes. The man was not from the stone age. What on God’s green earth was he doing in a place like Oracle? “Because we’re going to stop you,” Cole concluded. “That’s in the best interest of humans and grizzly bears and the future of this planet.”
“I would expect nothing less,” said Barnes, smiling. “But do me a favour. Two favours, really.”
Cole looked at the man. “What’s that?”
“First, keep the lines of communication open. No more games.”
“Deal.”
“And let’s keep it civil. I can’t control some of the rougher elements around this place, and there are some people in your camp with bad reputations, but let’s do our best to keep this a clean fight.”
“I’ll do what I can, Mike.”
They shook hands. “Now,” said Mike Barnes, “If you’ll excuse me, I have another meeting, if you can believe it. I need a few minutes to collect my thoughts for this one.” He consulted the full-sized Day-Timer on his desk, scrolled a finger down the day’s appointments, and said, “Seems everybody wants to talk right now. I doubt this conversation will be as civil as the one you and I just enjoyed.”
“I appreciate your time, Mike. I’m glad we can be straight with each other. That’s refreshing.”
They shook hands again and Cole left the office. He found the stairs and walked down to the main floor. He passed no one. His head was spinning. It was after six when he exited through the double glass doors and found his truck in the parking lot. He pressed his back on the driver’s door and leaned his head against the truck.
Maybe Mike Barnes should be in charge of this campaign, he thought. He’s got all the answers. I should just head back to Vancouver and get a job as a Greenpeace door-to-door canvasser. Barnes had made quite an impression on Cole.
Cole shook his head, got into his truck, and headed back to the gatehouse. JP was nowhere in sight, so Cole stopped and signed the ledger, as instructed. He scanned the sheet to see if anyone else had signed in, but there were no names on the list after his own. He turned his truck onto the gravel road and began the journey back to Oracle. He stopped in Cadomin for a snack and continued on his way. Traffic was light; he passed only a few pickup trucks headed in the opposite direction. His thoughts returned to Barnes. Who was he seeing so late in the day? Why was he so accommodating with his time, and so forthcoming with his opinions? Was that in the best interest of the company? More importantly, the question of the hour became how was Cole Blackwater, hired gun, going to stop a mine that by its manager’s own admission was not what the town needed, but everybody seemed to believe was a done deal?
By the time the lights of Oracle hove into view, Cole was certain of one thing at least. Mike Barnes, good natured as he appeared, was not to be taken lightly. The man was intelligent, and a clever, perhaps even brilliant, strategist. Had he planted the mole in ESCoG? With the company’s best interest in mind, of course.
Deep in thought when his cellphone rang, Cole jumped, startled. He rummaged beneath the newspapers on the passenger seat, spilling them onto the floor, and knocked the binoculars down too before he found the phone.
“Blackwater,” he said.
“Cole, Jim Jones here.”
“Hey Jim, good of you to call.”
“Sounds like I caught you driving.”
“I’m on my way back into town after a very interesting visit with Mike Barnes.”
“What, did he surrender?”
“Not exactly. That wouldn’t be in the best interest of the company. But we found a lot to agree on.”
“Oh?”
“Well, we agreed that the last thing Oracle needs right now is to become more dependent on mining for its future.”
“But Cole, haven’t you heard. Mining i
s everybody’s future.”
“Yeah, that was some good PR a few years back. But it’s not the way Mike Barnes sees it. He actually came out and said that Oracle should be diversifying its economy, not consolidating around the mine.”
“We’ve been saying that for years, Cole. But the mayor, and this David Smith character who runs the Chamber of Commerce, are both hot to trot on the McLeod River project. I heard Smith on the radio staking his political reputation on the project.”
“Yeah, I met with him today too.”
“You’ve been busy.”
“So’s the other team, Jim. Barnes is determined that the haul road will be pushed into the McLeod River headwaters by the fall, and the rail line shortly after.”
“Well, that makes sense,” said Jones. “It’s consistent with what I read in the draft environmental report just this afternoon.”
“You got a copy of it?” Cole asked excitedly.
“I sure did. Wasn’t really that hard, actually. I just called up our mutual friend Jeremy Moon at Wild Rose and asked for one. Courier brought it this morning. It wasn’t much of a read, really, a hundred pages long if that.”
“That’s it? The last time the thing was as thick as the Calgary phone book, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah, like five times as thick.”
“What gives?” asked Cole.
“You want the long version, or the Reader’s Digest one?”
“I want the long one, but I’ll probably get into town before you can tell it all, so give me the condensed version for now and I’ll call you later this evening, if that’s OK .”
“Sure thing. So here’s the short answer: I don’t think they intend to go ahead with this mine.”
Cole paused, then: “Sorry, say again?”
“I don’t think they intend to dig the pit.”
“OK , Jim, I’ll need the full page in the Reader’s Digest, not just the headline.”
Jim Jones laughed. “Well, here’s what I see in the EA. Lots of upfront work to evaluate the impact of a four-season haul road over the Cardinal Divide connecting with the existing mill at the Buffalo Anthracite Mine. Lots of charts and graphs about mitigation for bull trout where the road crosses the McLeod River, and a lot of effort to address grizzly bear mortality on the highway, including posting a 30 km speed limit through Mountain Park.”
Cole thought of the sow and cubs. “Wow, that’s unheard of.”
“Sure, and you’ll see why it’s unheard of in a minute. So they have some top-of-the-line mitigations in place for the haul road and for the rail line. They don’t actually propose infrastructure moderations, understand? It’s not like they will fence the road and build wildlife underpasses. They propose speed limits, no hauling early in the day or early in the evening. Pilot cars for the trains to clear the tracks.”
“That all sounds pretty good to me,” said Cole.
“Like I said, wait for the catch,” said Jones. “And here it is: there is no back-end clean up plan for the mine. They don’t even talk all that much about how they plan on doing the mine work itself. And there are no details on how they would restore the pit. They talk about a lake and bull trout, et cetera. But there are no details. No time lines. Nothing.”
“Weird,” said Cole.
“Yeah, and all of that only comes in the section on Cumulative Effects, which is required by law. You know, the part where the company has to explain how the impacts of this project, when taken into account with everything else that is happening or could happen in the future, will impact wildlife. So what we have here, Cole, is a very detailed plan for a road and a rail line, and very little at all for the rest of the mine.”
“So it’s the old trick of breaking the project into little pieces so that it seems less menacing.” One hand around the phone, Cole steered his truck with his knee and geared down as he came into Oracle.
“Maybe,” said Jones. “But I’ve seen enough of these to know when the intent is to slip something past a sympathetic regulator, and when the plan is to simply get away with murder. I don’t think either is the case here. I’d bet you a case of Kokanee that Athabasca Coal is really only trying to get approval for this road and rail line and if they get it, we’ll lose Cardinal Divide, and Oracle will lose its main employer.”
“You think they’ll build the road and the rail line and then cut bait?” Cole pulled into the Rim Rock Motel and managed to park with one hand between a behemoth Dodge Ram 1500 and a Ford F250, and not stall his little Toyota.
“It’s not unheard of.”
“But why?” He switched the ignition off.
“Could be any number of things. But my guess is simple: economics. Coal is too expensive to produce right now. Labour costs and shipping costs make it too expensive to produce here and ship to market in Japan, so the company wants to sit on this for five or ten years until the market is more favourable. They could wait even longer. Maybe never develop it. But in the mean time, they have a lot invested in this region, and their shareholders are eyeing all of the existing infrastructure nervously. So the company makes a lot of noise about the McLeod River project to keep its shareholders happy right up until the moment they pull the plug. My guess is that Athabasca Coal has got something big happening overseas that they’ll be announcing in the next few months, and when they do, they will quietly slip out of Oracle’s back door.”
“Won’t be so quiet around here,” said Cole, and walked up the steps to his room.
“Maybe not in Oracle. But in Toronto and New York, where it matters, nobody will hear a peep. The news will be focused overseas on something big, something new, and not on a backward town on the eastern slope of the Rockies that had its chance and blew it.”
Cole dug into his pockets for his key. It was attached to two rubber bands and a gum wrapper. He untangled it and unlocked his door.
“Ok, Jim, this has been enlightening. Thanks for all the digging.”
“No problem. Little bit more than the Reader’s Digest version, I know.”
“It’s fine. It’s a complex theory.”
“It is that. And listen Cole, the thing about all of this is, they can do this and come out smelling like roses, you know.”
“I was just thinking that. They can blame the market, they can blame labour, they can even blame the berry-sucking, fish-kissing, sandal-wearing environmentalists if they want. They’ve got lots of options, my friend.”
Jim was chuckling. “We don’t wear sandals in Alberta, Cole. Hiking boots here. Sandals are for you crystal gazers on the wet coast.”
Cole cracked a smile. “I’ll be in touch, Jim.” And he hung up.
Cole Blackwater sat down on his bed. He put the phone down and let his body fall backward onto the covers. Was it only this morning that he watched Deborah Cody make up this very bed after a thunderous encounter with her husband? “What a day,” he moaned.
Flat on his back, he dialled Peggy McSorlie on his cell. She answered on the first ring.
“Sitting by the phone?” Cole asked.
“Hi Cole. Well, yes, I guess I was wondering how things went.”
Cole filled her in. He told her about all of his meetings: with David Smith, his brief encounter with Hank Henderson, his long meeting with Mike Barnes, and then his recent conversation with Jim Jones.
When he was finished there was silence on the line. “You there?” he asked.
“I’m here,” she said. “Just digesting.”
“Don’t blame you,” he said wearily.
“Do you really think that’s their plan? To push in the road and the rail line and then leave? Seems like a lot of money just to string their shareholders along.”
“Seems that way to me too, Peggy, but I don’t know enough about this sort of thing to measure the trade-off. They spend, what, four or five million dollars, maybe ten, on the road and rail line? What would their stock have to do to make that worthwhile?”
“I don’t know, Cole. I don’t own a single stock. I’m tot
ally out of my league.”
They discussed their intent to trim the planning team down to just a few trusted colleagues. Cole urged Peggy to cut Dale van Stempvort out of the mix, and she reluctantly agreed. “I don’t trust him, Peggy; he’s not stable. I don’t know what he might be capable of, but he’s not an asset. He’s a liability,” he repeated.
After they hung up Cole went to the washroom to wash his face and brush his teeth. He realized that he was hungry. He went back to the bedroom and found the phone number for a pizza place and ordered. While he was waiting he flipped the television on, opened up his laptop, and dialled into the internet.
So Mike Barnes had checked him out online. Fair enough, thought Cole, waiting for his web browser to open. When it did, he searched Mike Barnes again. He came up with the smattering of references he had seen that morning, mostly on the company website, and a few in The Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star. Then he decided to expand the search, and keyed in Barnes’ name and the names of the towns that he had worked in before Oracle. He found several stories in small community newspapers whose content was online.
“Let’s see what you’ve been up to, Mike Barnes,” said Cole, clicking on a link.
The first story was about a mine in New Liskeard, Ontario, where Mike Barnes had been the manager for about eighteen months. The story was about the impact that the mine’s closure had on the tiny town.
He clicked another link. This was a story from a paper in The Pas, Manitoba, where Barnes had been managing the operation for nearly a year before it had unexpectedly closed. The editorial praised Barnes for his dedication to the community.
Cole sat back. His pizza arrived while he was deep in thought, and he paid for it and began to eat without stopping his stream of consciousness.
Two stories. Two mines. Two closures.
Was Mike Barnes a hatchet man?
Had Athabasca Coal hired him not to make a mine like the McLeod River project a roaring success, but to quietly shut down its existing operation at the Buffalo Anthracite Mine without raising suspicion, or upsetting shareholders?
Cole went over his conversation with Barnes. Dangerous, Barnes had told him, for the town to put all of its eggs in one basket. Darn tootin’, thought Cole.
The Cardinal Divide Page 12
