approximately 70 km west of Edmonton, in the Wabumun Lake area. The Wabamun Generating Station, a coal fired plant owned by TransAlta, located next to the village of Wabamun, Alberta was first commissioned in 1956 and decommissioned in 2010 with the smoke stacks demolished in March 2011. The station's primary source of fuel was sub bituminous from the Whitewood mine. According to CASA and cited in David Schindler's 2003 report commissioned by Alberta Environment the combined emissions of the coal-fired plants in the Wabumun Lake area, emitted, Although mercury levels in fish for consumption meet guidelines for occasional use, Schindler cautioned that for the Paul Band subsistence consumers some concern remains in the consumption of large pike that exceed mercury levels in Lake Wabamun. On 3 August 2005 more than of bunker oil and other chemicals spilled into Lake Wabamun when faulty tracks caused 40 rail cars to derail in the Wabumun village. Two years later there were health cautions still issued, warning users of the Lake to avoid oil patches and tar balls in Lake Wabamun. Education In the summer of 1893 the White Whale Lake Methodist Day School was opened at Paul Band reserve run by the resident Methodist missionary. In the fall of 1893 the Methodist Church began operating the Red Deer Methodist Indian Industrial School. Paul Band school age children attended the Edmonton Residential School and the St Albert Residential School approximately between the years 1923 and 1950. Social issues In an interview with elder Alexie Simon, published in the 1998 Bird thesis, Simon claimed that Paul Band changed dramatically for the worse after the right to have alcohol on the reserve was granted by the Government of Alberta in 1966. In 2011, the band faced a $3 million deficit which shut down many social services such as school buses and transportation to medical appointments. In 2011, the band's estimated budget was $14 million. In 2011 they received $8.5 million from Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada. In 2001, the Band had to take on a co-manager. "Budgets, set at the band level but approved in Ottawa, are formed based on prior year revenues; in years when oil and gas revenues from the band’s Buck Lake property fluctuate, that can affect the flow of funds back to the band from AANDC... Other stressors include a demand for housing and for road repairs, as well as a