Emails obtained by CTV News show RCMP in Cochrane are calling for action and urgent meetings with Alberta’s transportation ministry in a months-long protest over a carbon tax along the Trans-Canada Highway west of Calgary.

“Today we have a developing situation at the Cochrane protest site,” wrote Cochrane RCMP Sgt. Matt Pumphrey in a Sept. 20 email to several provincial government employees, including the transportation ministry’s head of emergency management.

“I am sending this to you for awareness and action as it is becoming increasingly important from a public safety perspective that this site be cleaned up,” the sergeant wrote, calling for an urgent discussion on the matter.

Emails between the RCMP and the province were obtained through a Freedom of Information request. The province’s written response to Pumphrey’s email is redacted in its entirety.

“During that time, we had information from the Calgary Police Service that there was going to be another protest that was scheduled to take place in Calgary (and) was going to take place at that location as well,” Pumphrey said Wednesday.

“One group ended up appearing, and the other didn’t. So we planned for three different protest groups to come at the same time, but that never materialized.”

The protest began along the highway near Cochrane in April when hundreds gathered to speak out against the federal carbon tax.

Protesters waved flags and signs, honked their horns and parked caravans at the stern and pledged to stay until the carbon tax was scrapped.

By October, the group left with an organizer telling CTV News that their departure was due to the cold weather and a feeling of not being heard.

The RCMP response in the first week was significant, with uniformed officers observing and standing between protesters and freeway traffic.

As the crowd thins, so does the presence of officers.

“We drove around every day for a while, in both marked and unmarked police cars, just to make sure the location was safe for protesters if people wanted to protest at it. That’s a legal right that people have,” Pumphrey said.

In questions about his application in September, he says the province has been cooperative and in regular contact with them.

There was never a request for the RCMP to forcibly remove the protesters, the sergeant said, because the protesters left on their own.

Devin Dreeshen, Alberta’s transportation minister, said he did not know the specific emails from the RCMP to government members, but said enforcement is the responsibility of the police.

“When it comes to enforcement issues, that’s something that the RCMP, if they see there’s a public safety issue that they need to address, that would be an enforcement issue that the RCMP will take on,” he said.