A municipality should have residents — and grizzly bears and mountain goats don’t count, according to B.C. Green Party leader Andrew Weaver who tabled a private member’s bill in the legislature Wednesday aimed squarely at the controversial Jumbo Glacier Mountain Resort Municipality.   Weaver’s bill to amend the Local Government Amendment Act would repeal the Liberal government’s 2012 changes to legislation that made it possible for mountain resort municipalities to exist without residents.   The 2012 changes were designed to push through development of Jumbo Glacier Resort, a proposed 6,300 bed resort in the wilderness of the Purcell Mountains, 55 kilometres west of Invermere — a project strongly opposed by local residents and First Nations.   Jumbo Glacier Mountain Resort Municipality was created in November 2012 and the province then appointed a mayor and two councillors. Even though the municipality had no residents or buildings, it became eligible for provincial government grants of $200,000 a year and about $50,000 in federal gas tax money.

The existence of the municipality has been a flashpoint for many opponents and, with the future of the development now in doubt, there is a renewed push to scrap the no-resident municipality. 

“The idea of a town with no people and an appointed mayor and council to preside over that town is preposterous and flies in the face of local democracy and local decision-making,” said Robyn Duncan executive director of Wildsight, an organization that has been on the front lines of the Jumbo fight.   “It is completely unacceptable that an unelected body can make land-use decisions and be accountable to no one,” she said.   It is a view shared by Weaver, who is adamant that provincial laws should not be used to help specific projects succeed or fail.   “The fact that you can create a municipality with no people and no buildings and put in a mayor and two councillors and give them government money is truly bizarre — only in B.C.,” he said.   The reason the “ridiculous loophole” exists is because the government had a pet project that it wanted to succeed, Weaver said, admitting that the chance of his bill getting the support of government is almost non-existent.   “I am hopeful, but I don’t think it will go through as long as (Energy and Mines Minister) Bill Bennett is in government. This was his clearly his pet project and he was a huge advocate for it,” he said.   If the bill did go through, it is likely the resort municipality would argue to be grandfathered in, Weaver said.   “But this is essentially a shot across the bow. It’s saying clean up your act government. This kind of shenanigans has to stop,” he said.   If nothing else, the realities of climate change should give the government pause, said Weaver, who is a climate scientist.   Between 1985 and 2005 glaciers in that area lost 15 per cent of their total mass and glaciologists predict that, by 2100, glaciers that the resort is relying upon for year-round skiing will not exist, he said.   “It makes no sense on so many levels.”   Last year, after 24 years of controversy, Environment Minister Mary Polak pulled the project’s environmental assessment certificate, concluding the billion dollar project had not substantially started during the 10 years since the certificate was granted.   Proponents, Glacier Resorts Ltd. and the Phaedias Group, have said they plan to appeal that decision and are considering changing the proposal to a smaller resort that would not need to go through a full environmental assessment.   However, any proposal to build in the area will face a legal challenge from the Ktunaxa First Nation, who have been given leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada, based on a freedom of religion argument that could set a precedent for indigenous people worldwide.   The area at the foot of Jumbo Glacier is known as Qat’muk by the Ktunaxa people who believe it is where the Grizzly Bear Spirit was born, goes to heal itself and returns to the spirit world.   Jumbo Glacier Mountain Resort Municipality Mayor Greg Deck, former mayor of Radium Hot Springs, said he hopes the government does not repeal the legislation.   “The wisdom of the original legislation was that it anticipated doing really good planning in advance, through a resort municipality, and I believe that is still valid,” he said.   People who disagree with plans for the Jumbo Valley should not try and take away a tool that could be valuable in other areas, Deck said.   In the meantime, the municipality is deferring acceptance of government grants until the situation around the development clarifies.   “We are a little bit hostage to legal challenges. The Ktunaxa appeal adds a bit more uncertainty which we have to wait out,” Deck said.   The bulk of the municipality’s money has gone on defending a series of legal challenges, Deck said.   “It’s a bit frustrating when people say we shouldn’t be spending money and then they keep suing us.”

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A billion-dollar plan to build a 6,300-bed resort in the glacial wilderness near Invermere is essentially dead in the water after B.C. Environment Minister Mary Polak ruled Thursday that construction on the controversial Jumbo Glacier Resort did not start in time.

That means the project’s environmental assessment certificate has expired and the proponent, Glacier Resorts Ltd, would need to re-apply if it wanted to continue with the project.

 “We are overjoyed with the province’s decision,” said Robyn Duncan of Wildsight, a group that has fought the project for years. “This is the only reasonable outcome for this beleaguered project.”

The province granted an environmental assessment certificate to Glacier Resorts Ltd. in 2004 and the certificate was renewed in 2009. It could not be renewed for a second time, and the Environmental Assessment Act requires that projects be “substantially started” within the time limit set out in the certificate.

Polak ruled that the project hadn’t been “substantially started” by Oct. 12, 2014, 10 years after the certificate was issued.

Last fall, DeSmog Canada published a 13-part series on Jumbo Glacier Resort, examining concerns about democracy, court challenges to the project, the concerns of the Ktunaxa Nation, threats to grizzlies and the threat posed by climate change to the Jumbo Glacier.

Photo: Howard P Smith, phototide.com

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A provincial delay in deciding whether construction of Jumbo Glacier Resort has substantially started is giving hope to opponents that close scrutiny will lead to the province yanking the resort’s environmental assessment certificate.

“It seems impossible to me that a minister with even the slightest self-respect could look at this and proceed with it,” said Norm Macdonald, Columbia River-Revelstoke MLA.

In order to keep the environmental assessment certificate, first issued in 2004, Glacier Resorts Ltd. had to prove by mid-October that substantial progress had been made on construction of the billion-dollar, all-season ski resort in the remote heart of the Purcell Mountains.

Concrete slab foundations were poured in October for the day lodge, lift and service building, but the day lodge was moved from the original plans to an area that a report by Meiklejohn Architects concluded is outside the land tenure. The new location also puts the lodge directly in the path of high-magnitude, high-frequency avalanches, according to local mountain guides and RK Heliski, a company that has operated in the area for 44 years.

A condition of the environmental assessment certificate is that structures should be located completely outside the avalanche hazard area.

Avalanche concerns erupted in the legislature in November and, at that time, Environment Minister Mary Polak said she believed the proposed resort buildings were outside the avalanche zone.

But, in a letter sent to Glacier Resorts Dec. 11, the Environmental Assessment Office asked for a new engineering avalanche risk evaluation and a zoning plan based on possible impact pressures from avalanches.

The letter, from Environmental Assessment Office policy and compliance manager Autumn Cousins, says the zoning plans should be led by an engineer who is a member of the Canadian Avalanche Association.

The new evaluation is in addition to a report provided by Glacier Resorts to the Environmental Assessment Office in November that concludes that extensive mitigation, with avalanche control by explosives, will be needed to avoid danger at the day lodge.

“Although no damaging avalanche has reached the lodge site, a larger avalanche than had occurred in the past or an avalanche with an irregular flow direction could hit the lodge,” it says.

But professional mountain climbing guide Arnor Larson, who has taken visitors into the area for four decades, said the company doesn’t seem to have considered that avalanches have to be bombed from helicopters and the wild storms in the area frequently ground helicopters.

“Sometimes a big storm can last multiple days and the helicopters can’t get up,” he said.

“In my opinion, from being a guide in the area since the early 1970s, I certainly wouldn’t tell guests that they can manage the avalanche issue there.”

It is not only the pressure of the snow, but the wind from an avalanche can severely damage buildings, he said.

Renowned mountain climber and photographer Pat Morrow, who lives in the nearby East Kootenay community of Wilmer, has been trying to raise the alarm about avalanche hazards for several years.

“Above and beyond the location of the lodge, there’s also the vulnerability of the gondola towers from the lodge to the head of the Jumbo Valley that are in an even more threatened position than the lodge,” he wrote in an e-mail.

Larson, like others, is puzzled why, at the last minute, Glacier Resorts would change the location of the day lodge.

In October a pole stuck in the ground showed the lodge in a damp, forested area, but it has now moved closer to the open meadow area, where avalanche tracks are etched into the surrounding mountains.

Macdonald believes the day lodge concrete pad was laid in the new location because it was easier to build.

“All they are trying to do is put something there and they didn’t think there would be any tremendous amount of scrutiny,” he said.

Questions were also raised in the Meiklejohn report about other changes to the resort plans, ranging from parking to sewers, that must be made if the day lodge has moved.

In addition, the report questions why the slab has been laid without roughed in sewer drainage piping.

“No evidence was visible, either above the slab or at the building perimeter (e.g trenching) that any of the rough-ins that may have been required had been installed,” says the report, which was prepared for the Ktunaxa Nation Council.

The Ktunaxa Nation is vehemently opposed to the plans for a 6,000-bed resort on land they consider sacred.

Tommaso Oberti, vice-president of the resort’s project management group, did not reply to questions from DeSmog, but told the Vancouver Sun that the company is doing more detailed avalanche zone mapping and will provide a response to the government shortly.

Image Credit: Jumbo Glacier Resort

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