On Wednesday the province of B.C. granted final approval for the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline. Exactly one year earlier B.C. announced its official opposition to the pipeline in a final submission to the National Energy Board.

In that final submission B.C. said the pipeline posed unacceptable oil spill risks to the province’s land and water.

Since 2013 B.C. has upheld five conditions that must be met for a pipeline project to receive provincial support. Marine and oil spill response capabilties are two of those conditions.

“We have not at this time seen evidence in the NEB process that those conditions have been met,” B.C. environment minister Mary Polak told the press last year.

Now, one year later, B.C. has reversed its position and thrown its support behind the oil pipeline project.

What has happened in the meantime to justify the reversal of position? One thing that’s for sure is Kinder Morgan did not submit more detailed oil spill response plans.

Emma Gilchrist and I discuss.

Image: Province of B.C. via Flickr

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The B.C. government has refused to exercise its authority to order a provincial environmental assessment of the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline and tanker project, instead opting to rely on a report produced by the federal National Energy Board (NEB) that recommended approval of the project.

This means the province’s decision on the project — which would triple the amount of oil shipped through Vancouver — will be made using a Harper-era assessment heavily criticized for having no cross-examination of evidence and failing to assess cumulative effects, marine oil spills and greenhouse gas emissions.

“This is a government that say they’re standing up for British Columbians and when they had a chance legally to protect British Columbians with a made-in-B.C. environmental assessment they passed the buck, accepted Stephen Harper’s process and let down British Columbians,” said George Heyman, the NDP’s environment critic.

The federal government has to decide whether to approve the project by Dec. 19 — but the province also has to make its own decision on whether to grant an environmental assessment certificate.

In May, B.C. Environment Minister Mary Polak said that even if the company met the conditions the National Energy Board placed on the project, the project would still fall short of the five requirements B.C. put in place for its approval of any pipeline project.

“We still have a long way to go with respect to marine spill preparedness and response,” Polak said. “There is obviously significant work that needs to be done with First Nations.”

Which is why it’s so puzzling that, when given the opportunity to conduct its own environmental assessment of the project, the province opted to go with a federal process that’s widely viewed as deficient.

Supreme Court Ruled B.C. Has to Make Its Own Decisions

The province first tried to hand over responsibility for the environmental assessment in June 2010, when it signed an “equivalency agreement” with the National Energy Board.

That meant the province would accept federal environmental assessment reports as its own for five major projects, including the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline and the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline.

It was that abdication of responsibility that resulted in a decision by the B.C. Supreme Court in January, which found the B.C. government “breached the honour of the Crown by failing to consult” with Coastal First Nations for Enbridge Northern Gateway.

Essentially the ruling found that the province could not hand off its responsibility for environmental assessment.

“The decision of the Supreme Court is very clear that the province should stand on guard for the interests of the province in the federal review process and that it failed to do that in Northern Gateway,” said Chris Tollefson, executive director of the Pacific Centre for Environmental Law & Litigation.

In order to comply with the court ruling, B.C.’s Environmental Assessment Office had to make an explicit decision of whether to do its own assessment or to accept the National Energy Board assessment as sufficient for Kinder Morgan’s oil export proposal to Vancouver.

In a letter sent to Kinder Morgan on March 17, Kevin Jardine, the executive director of the Environmental Assessment Office, noted it would “accept the NEB report as the assessment report,” only conducting further discussions with First Nations to fulfill duties to consult and accommodate.

That letter was sent only two months after the province reiterated its opposition to the Trans Mountain pipeline project in its final argument to the National Energy Board, mostly due to the proponent’s failure to submit a detailed oil spill prevention and response strategy.

The province’s final argument reiterated the province’s “five requirements” for heavy oil pipelines, the first of which is “successful completion of the environmental review process.”

Several thousand citizens marched in Vancouver on Nov. 19th to protest the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline. Credit: Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs.

Provincial Environmental Assessment Could Address Gaps

Tollefson said he was “expecting and hoping” the province would embark on a proper consultation and assessment of its own.

“The province could certainly identify areas where the proposal is deficient and where steps need to be taken to fix problems,” he said. “It could certainly quite legitimately under its constitutional powers insist on those issues being addressed.”

To be sure, the province wouldn’t be able to simply veto the project even if its Environmental Assessment Office produced a report that advised not issuing a project certificate.

But the province has a variety of constitutionally recognized interests at stake, Tollefson says.

The judge in the Coastal First Nations case noted it's important for the province to balance economic and environmental interests, and that it “would be best served by a process that provided it with the tools to complete a thorough evaluation and review it before making the decision that will impact the province.”

How BC Quietly Accepted the Harper-Era Federal Review of #KinderMorgan https://t.co/YCAPWO3swW #bcpoli #cdnpoli @christyclarkbc @maryforbc

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) November 21, 2016

Kai Nagata, communications director at democracy group Dogwood, suspects that the province’s consultation process is providing Premier Christy Clark a “political buffer” between the federal approval — required on or before Dec. 19 — and the provincial election on May 9, 2017.

“Dropping a pipeline approval … into the provincial election campaign would destabilize the picture politically,” he says.

“This review would give the provincial government political cover so they don’t have to take a position on the project and can simply say ‘let’s wait for the review to do its work and take its course and we will evaluate our five conditions based on all the evidence on the table so far after the election.’ ”

B.C. has two clear options going forward.

The first is to maintain the current strategy, which relies on the federal assessment of the project.

Even that won’t likely help the Trans Mountain pipeline get built, according to Tollefson, who predicts that if approved under the current rules, the pipeline will be held up in litigation for a “long period of time” and the proposal will never earn the social licence it would require.

The other option is for the provincial government to order a robust review that considers the science and is co-led by First Nations.

Nagata says such an assessment must also offer the avenue to say ‘no,’ something that hasn’t seriously been an option for pipeline proposals up until this point.

Image: B.C. Environment Minister Mary Polak and B.C. Premier Christy Clark, Province of B.C.

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A film documenting a battle that has stretched over almost a quarter century, pitting communities and environmental groups in B.C’s Kootenays against supporters of a proposed wilderness ski resort, is showing to sold-out audiences across North America.

The stunning scenery of the Purcell Mountains, iconic historical clips and the even-handed exploration of a clash between two visions of wilderness make Jumbo Wild an extraordinary documentary that transcends local issues and delves into the ideological battle between those who want to keep the wild in wilderness and those who believe development gives people access to nature.

“We saw sold-out shows at almost all the stops along the way and that’s because the bigger questions being addressed about how we define wilderness and what makes a place sacred are important to people around the world,” said Tess Byers, spokeswoman for Patagonia, the outdoor clothing company that funded and promoted the Sweetgrass Productions film, directed by Nick Waggoner of Salt Lake City.

In Victoria, where the film was first shown to a sold-out audience in October, a planned Dec. 10 free screening at Patagonia on Yates Street sold out immediately and there is the possibility of a second showing in January (you can add your name to the waitlist here).

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Jumbo Wild will also be available on iTunes, Vimeo, Amazon, GooglePlay, Vudu and Playstation on Dec. 11 and will be available in February on Netflix and Hulu. Showings also continue across North America and individuals can host their own screening for $99. All proceeds will go to Wildsight, a group that has fought the Jumbo Glacier Resort proposal since its inception.

The film is now being seen around the world and inspiring audiences to take action, not only on protection of the Jumbo Valley, but also in their own backyards, said Robyn Duncan, executive director of Wildsight.

The saga of the Jumbo Wild campaign is a story of love for wild places, a community coming together to successfully oppose a development they do not want and the story of the Ktunaxa Nation standing their ground to protect their sacred territory, Duncan said.

“The film resonates with people on a deeper level, cutting to the deeper questions of what is wilderness and what are we, as a society, willing to do to protect the wild,” she said.

Patagonia Funding of Doc Rankles Oberto Oberti

However, the Patagonia funding created a controversy of its own, raising questions about bias, especially as the company has supported Wildsight’s fight against Jumbo Glacier Resort and is now advocating for the remote Jumbo Valley to be protected.

But director Waggoner was determined to do justice to all sides of the argument, Byers said.

“While Patagonia’s pro-conservation stance has been no secret for several years, Nick Waggoner made this film and he approached it as a documentary endeavour in every way,” Byers said.

“He gave significant credence to the developers’ arguments during research, production and in the final film that frankly outweighs the balance present in many modern social documentaries.”

That was not the view of Oberto Oberti, the architect who first envisioned the mega-resort in the Jumbo Valley and who has been battling ever since to make his dream a reality.

Waggoner spent a considerable amount of time with Oberti and Glacier Resorts vice-president Grant Costello while making the film, but did not immediately disclose who was funding the project.

“It may be offensive to Canadians (and to justice) to see that a movie made by an American and as an advertising project for a foreign company like Patagonia is made to reverse the CORE land use decision (the legal, political, democratic and moral foundation of the two decades of process for the Jumbo Glacier Resort project) when both sides of the story are not given equal weight,” Oberti wrote in an open letter to Waggoner after being informed about Patagonia’s involvement.

But the film takes a remarkably balanced stance, showing Oberti, not as an evil developer riding roughshod over local wishes, but as a man who believes in his mission and in the ultimate good of building a resort that will allow others to experience the beauty of the area.

“Are you proposing to Patagonia the idea that to keep the JGR territory for exclusive use of wealthy heliskiers and for snowmobilers is a better use?” Oberti asks in the letter.

One of the most telling segments of the film is when Oberti, who was born in Italy, says “creating a mountain resort and access to the mountains is like creating a cathedral” and describes the soaring peaks and glaciers as the “Alps multiplied by 1,000 times.”

For many opposed to the plan for a billion-dollar, 6,300 bed resort, the commercialisation of the Alps is exactly what they want to avoid.

“My church is up there. You can’t get any closer to God can you?” asks Nolan Rad, who has spent almost seven decades hunting, trapping and fishing in the area.

The ultimate opposing viewpoint to Oberti’s vision comes from Joe Pierre of the Ktunaxa First Nation, who regard the area as sacred.

“He’s come here to build a monument to himself. Talk about being offensive to a world view that for 400 generations have never even considered that. It’s hard to take,” Pierre said in the film.

A rare nod to the animosity created by the proposed development comes from Grant Costello.

The opponents don’t believe humans should be allowed to change the environment, he explained.

“I don’t want to lose to these people. That’s what it really comes down to,” he said.

However, for Glacier Resorts and Oberti, the lengthy battle was all but lost in June when Environment Minister Mary Polak decided the project had not substantially started before its environmental certificate expired.

To continue would mean starting the environmental assessment process from scratch.

But Oberti is not ready to give up and is planning a smaller development that would avoid the need for a full environmental assessment.

Tommaso Oberti, Pheidias Group vice-president, said in an e-mail to DeSmog Canada that the company is working on a revised master plan.

“It won’t look very different. It will just be a smaller development. I don’t know yet what the timelines will be,” said Tommaso Oberti, who has not watched the film.

“But I understand there is some beautiful scenery (in the film),” he said.

So, the battle for the wilderness is not yet over and, whether or not skirmishes will continue in the peaks and glaciers that surround the Jumbo Valley, the film documenting the fight is now inspiring communities around the world.

Image: Howard P Smith, First Light on Jumbo.

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Gary and Peggy Zorn lost their livelihood in the wake of the Mount Polley mining disaster one year ago today, the couple explained, after foreign tourists lost the desire to experience the region as a travel destination renowned for its wildlife.

Gary Zorn, adorned with the impressive title of “bear whisperer,” said their eco-tour grizzly-watching outfit lost hundreds of thousands of dollars the day the mine’s tailings pond breached sending as estimated 24 million cubic metres of contaminated mining waste down the Hazeltine Creek and into Quesnel Lake, a local source of drinking water.

The Zorns said in the year that has passed since the spill, the mine, owned by Imperial Metals, has only completed a superficial cleanup in the area, leaving a lingering stain on both the environment and the region’s reputation.

“It’s pretty quiet here,” Gary Zorn said. “The businesses are suffering quite a bit here in Likely because of the damage the breach has done.”

“It’s not just what the breach did environmentally to us; it’s what has happened with the bad publicity we got when this went around the world. That also hurt everybody here.”

He added Mount Polley has yet to deal with the social aspect of the accident.

“They did a lot of damage to a lot of people and are they going to address that? That’s what a lot of people here are wondering about.”

He said he questions the province’s decision to even consider giving the mine a partial start up license “when they’ve totally avoided dealing with what they’ve created.”

Gary said their guide business has been hit hard so he can empathize with the community’s need for economic stimulus — the kind a reopened mine might provide.

“I do know there are people who need jobs. There’s no two ways about it,” he said. “We’re not against mining or logging at all. I worked in mine and in the forestry industry and we worked together with these people.”

“It’s just that when I go ahead in our business and I make a mistake in the bush that affects someone else I’m expected to make that right.”

“That’s all that people here are expecting of Mount Polley. We’re called ‘Canada’s largest mining disaster’ now,” he added. “You guys screwed up. At least make it right.”

B.C. Claims "Significant Progress" Made in Mount Polley Cleanup

Last week the B.C. Ministry of Environment announced “significant progress” had been made in the first phase of the Mount Polley mine mitigation and remediation plan. According to the province the plan focused on stabilizing Hazeltine Creek and improving the quality of water entering Quesnel Lake.

The Ministry of Environment said it considered the containment of tailings, water treatment and the protection of fish “complete or suitably initiated.” Ongoing work will include an ecological and human health risk assessment, the province said.

Environment Minister Mary Polak said she acknowledges “full environmental remediation will take years,” but said the work done over the past year “is truly impressive.”

Peggy Zorn said the mine and the province are over-emphasizing clean up efforts without acknowledging the vast majority of the spill remains lingering at the bottom of Quesnel Lake.

“They’ve taken care of the aesthetics,” she said. “Things look okay but they haven’t dealt with the environmental mess.”

“They talk about the clean up that has been done. They’ve cleaned up the surface but there’s a lot of other stuff that hasn’t been done. They’ll never get [the mine waste] out of the lake so you can hardly call that a cleanup.”

Gary added, “all we’re saying is, hey, you guys created the mess. At least make an effort to straighten it out and not just what looks nice along the road.“

"Year of Frustration"

Richard Holmes, Likely resident and fisheries biologist, said he wishes there was more progress when it comes to environmental cleanup and recovery for the community on the one-year anniversary of the spill.

“We’ve managed to carry on in spite of it all, but we wish there was better news. It’s unfortunate this turned out the way it has,” he said, adding the community is divided over the outcome of the spill and the recent approval from the province to partially restart the mine.

“There are people going back to work at the mine that live here and there are at the other end of the spectrum people that were impacted or had their businesses impacted that haven’t had their needs addressed whatsoever by the company or the government.”

“We find that to be really lacking.”

Holmes also criticized the mine and the B.C. government for their self-congratulatory attitude concerning remediation and the reopening of the mine.

“The last public meeting was about a month ago and I was really disappointed to watch the mine and their consultants and the government people act like they’d just won the lottery. There were as happy as pigs in shit,” Holmes said.

“I felt somewhat insulted, actually.”

Holmes said his community was at the tail end of a “year of frustration” and to hear Mount Polley and the government so focused on making the mine profitable again seemed insensitive. “They’ve forgotten completely about the social impacts and the cultural and economic impacts on the people in the community. It’s disappointing.”

Holmes acknowledged that important environmental remediation work has been done but that both parties are likely too happy with what they’ve accomplished.

“They’ve certainly accomplished some things. Hazeltine Creek has been somewhat cleaned up," he said, adding flatly: "it looks like a pretty ditch now."

"But unfortunately it’s going to be used as a pretty ditch for a couple of years to transport waste water and it’s not going to be used for fish habitat for at least two years.”  

“They may be happy but for people who live here it’s not what we envisioned at all,” he said.

“We expect better. They’re going to be here another 12 years. We expect them to get along with all the community and not just cherry pick who they hang out with here. They seem to be really focused on looking after their employees, the rest of us be damned.”

Image Credit: Tailings waste in the Hazeltine Creek, August 11, 2014. Photo: Carol Linnitt

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The development group that has spent more than 24 years trying to build a controversial ski resort in the East Kootenay’s Purcell Mountains is not giving up without a fight.

Glacier Resorts Ltd. plans to ask for a judicial review of Environment Minister Mary Polak’s decision to pull the project’s Environmental Assessment Certificate. The group is also looking at building a smaller resort that would not have to go through a new environmental assessment process.

A July 20 letter to the chief administrative officer of Jumbo Glacier Mountain Resort Municipality from Oberto Oberti of Pheidias Project Management Corp., the group that manages the project, says Glacier’s lawyers will submit a request for a judicial review of the minister’s “surprising decision” as soon as the case is prepared.

“Glacier cannot allow that the project be dismissed after having substantially done everything that it was asked to do and was permitted to do up to October 12, 2014, and it believes that a judicial review will show clearly that the Minister did not make a correct decision in declaring that the project was not substantially started,” says the letter.

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In the meantime, the company will work on minor amendments to the Master Plan and the Master Development Agreement to reduce the size of the project to below the threshold of Environmental Assessment regulations, Oberti wrote.

The smaller project could move forward under the provincial All Seasons Resort Policy, he suggested.

“The ASRP does not have the deadline created in the revised Environmental Assessment Act, a deadline that has become the latest issue in this project and that is not related to the sustainability or value of the project,” he wrote.

Plans for the billion-dollar, 6,300-bed Jumbo Glacier Resort ground to a halt last month when Polak withdrew the Environmental Assessment Certificate after concluding that the project had not substantially started in the 10 years since the certificate was granted.

Despite strong opposition from local politicians, environmental groups and residents, the province granted the EA certificate in 2004 and it was renewed in 2009, but construction progress was almost non-existent before the October deadline, which marked the expiry of the certificate.

At that time only two buildings were under construction and, in April, the company was handed a provincial stop work order as the footings were in avalanche paths.

Read DeSmog Canada's Jumbo Series:

Jumbo Glacier Mountain Resort Municipality, which has no residents and no buildings, was created by the province for the sole purpose of facilitating development of the resort and the letter from Oberti says he believes Mayor Greg Deck and the two-member council will “easily recognize that the work done in the five available weeks was more than substantial.”

The company has blamed protests, limited access to the area because of avalanche debris and bridge problems and bad weather for not making more progress.

However, Oberti says in the letter that, if the project had been allowed to continue, ski runs that are currently available only to heli-skiers, would be open to skiers in the near future.

“This would have created the certainty that this project so badly needs,” he said.

Robyn Duncan, executive director of Wildsight, one of the groups adamantly opposed to the resort, said the decision to ask for a judicial review is surprising as the minister’s decision was solid.

However, no request has yet been filed and, in addition, there are two court cases still under consideration, she noted.

A B.C. Supreme Court judge has reserved her decision on an application by the West Kootenay EcoSociety to dissolve the municipality and the B.C. Court of Appeal is considering an appeal by the Ktunaxa First Nation of a judicial review that determined the B.C. government acted appropriately when it approved a Master Development Plan for Jumbo in 2012.

Duncan said no plans for a smaller development have yet been seen and opponents are researching what process could be used that would allow Glacier Resorts to forge ahead.

“There are lots of unanswered questions on how they would go about amending the documents,” she said.

“We are doing a lot of research into the mechanisms and hoops they would have to jump through.”

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There are no residents or buildings in the municipality of Jumbo, B.C. The only development proposal planned for the voterless town — the Jumbo Glacier Ski Resort — has been sent back to the drawing board by the province and a Supreme Court judge is considering an application to dissolve the municipality.

But, for now, activity in the Jumbo Glacier Mountain Resort Municipality will continue as usual, says Mayor Greg Deck.

The Kootenays municipality of Jumbo was created by the provincial government (some say undemocratically) in 2012 for the sole purpose of dealing with the controversial Jumbo Glacier Resort project, but in July the Environment Ministry allowed its environmental certificate to expire after ruling the project had not been substantially started in time to meet its permit deadline.

Read Democracy Interrupted: How Jumbo Glacier Resort Became a Municipality with No Residents

That means plans for a massive all-season, wilderness ski resort in the heart of the Jumbo Valley must either be scrapped or proponents must start from scratch and ask the province for a new environmental assessment.

“We want to finish the Official Community Plan by the end of the year. We don’t want it to be a problem because it was left undone. It’s a good insurance policy,” Deck told DeSmog Canada.

“We are doing business as usual with an eye on how the proponents will work out the differences with the province,” said Deck, former mayor of Radium Hot Springs and chair of the Columbia Basin Trust.

The project has a long, controversial history. In 1991, Oberto Oberti of Pheidias Project Management Corp. and Glacier Resorts first envisioned a massive all-season ski resort in the wilderness, about 55 kilometres west of Invermere, but the project was bitterly opposed by environmental groups, the Ktunaxa First Nation and many local residents.

Despite the opposition, the province granted an Environmental Assessment Certificate in 2004 and it was renewed in 2009. But progress on constructing the 6,300 bed resort before the October 2014 deadline was almost non-existent and Environment Minister Mary Polak pulled the certificate.

A spokeswoman for the Community, Sport and Cultural Development Ministry said the proponent’s choices now include seeking a judicial review of Polak’s decision or resubmitting the proposal.

“Regardless of the proponent’s decision the municipality will remain intact until a decision is made by government about its future,” she said.

Resort spokesman Tommaso Oberti could not be contacted by DeSmog Canada, but, after Polak’s decision, he told media outlets that directors are reviewing the decision and plan to speak to ministry officials about ways to move forward.

A hint of the next step came in a February 2014 letter from Oberto Oberti to Deck which said “If everything else failed, (which I really think is an impossible case), Glacier would simply re-apply for the [environmental assessment] certificate.”

Deck does not see any problem with the municipality continuing to do business.

“I wouldn’t rule out a development proposal yet…and I am optimistic the municipality will survive,” he said.

However, Jumbo council has decided to defer accepting the annual Small Community Grant of $200,000.

“We thought it prudent to say ‘hang on to it for now,’” Deck said.

“There is a notion that we would be profligate just because we are in favour of destination resorts, but we are very frugal with the funding we have and our previous funding allows us to continue for the rest of the year.”

The municipality initially received a $260,000 provincial grant and, since 2012, has received the grant of $200,000 a year, most of which has been spent on building a bridge into the municipality and legal fees. About $50,000 in federal gas tax money has also flowed to Jumbo.

Another threat to the municipality’s existence is an application to the B.C. Supreme Court by the West Kootenay EcoSociety to dissolve the municipality.

Lawyers for the EcoSociety argued in court last week that the province exceeded its discretionary powers by creating a municipality with no voters. Justice Grace Choi has reserved her decision.

EcoSociety executive director David Reid said he is not expecting a fast decision, as it is a complicated case that challenges the discretion of the cabinet and the use of public resources to support corporate interests.

Even though the environmental assessment certificate for the resort has been yanked, the Jumbo Valley remains at risk for as long as the municipality exists, Reid said.

“Does it sit there forever? Is there no deadline?” he asked.

Image Credit: Lynne Martel via Pique Magazine

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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

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

A decision on whether pouring two building foundations and clearing trees constitutes a “substantial start” for the Jumbo Glacier Resort project will be made by the Environmental Assessment Office in June and the report will include information on buildings located within avalanche zones.

That assessment will then go to Environment Minister Mary Polak for the final verdict on whether the controversial billion-dollar resort should go ahead.

“Our current plan is to have a decision on whether the project has been substantially started by early to mid-June,” said an Environment Ministry spokesman.

“Before finalizing the report we will be providing Glacier Resort Ltd., Ktunaxa Nation Council and the Shuswap Indian Band an opportunity to review a confidential draft of the report.”

That could include comments on the effect of an Environmental Assessment Office order to stop work on the two buildings because of avalanche threats, he said.

The stop work order was issued after a report found the service building was in a high-risk avalanche red zone and the day lodge — which was originally planned for another site — was in the moderate-risk blue zone.

Plans for the 6,300 bed resort on Crown land west of Invermere have been in the works for 24 years.

The project was granted an Environmental Assessment Certificate in 2004, which was renewed in 2009, but little work was done on the site until a flurry of activity shortly before last fall’s deadline. For the certificate to become permanent, Glacier Resorts must prove that construction was well underway before the deadline.

Tommaso Oberti, vice-president of the project’s management company, said the location of the day lodge and the service building had to be changed at the last minute because of deadline pressures and the new sites were chosen based on available avalanche mapping.

The project team believed “without a doubt that, following the opening of the ski area, the avalanches would have been, in the worst case, smaller, not larger, because of planned and effective mitigation measures such as bombing,” Oberti said in an email.

The service building will not be used in winter, to respect the determination of a 30-year risk occurrence, but the day lodge is safe and there are numerous examples of how risks are managed at other resorts, Oberti insisted.

“It is safe and it must be permissible to build a day lodge in a blue zone with application of avalanche risk mitigation measures that reduce the risk to people and structures to an acceptable low risk level,” he said.

The main resort and overnight tourist accommodation are in a part of the valley without avalanche risks, Oberti said.

Invermere Mayor Gerry Taft, who opposes the project, said the stop work order means little as, after the deadline, the company was not permitted to continue building until there is a decision on whether to hand them an Environmental Assessment certificate.

The order makes it appear as if the province is strictly enforcing its rules, but it is more like a public relations move, said Taft, who added that few people in Invermere are confident that the provincial government will make the right decision.

“I don’t have much faith in the government…I look at things quite cynically,” he said.

Image Credit: Jumbo Glacier Resort via Flickr

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A provincial stop work order on the only two buildings under construction on the proposed Jumbo Glacier Resort site comes as no surprise to those familiar with the Jumbo Valley, which is marked by the bare swaths of avalanche paths sweeping down mountainsides and across the valley.

“I think it was a foregone conclusion,” said Rod Gibbons, senior guide with RK Heli-ski, a company that has operated in the area for more than 40 years.

“We were the ones that turned in the report to government to let them know (Glacier Resorts Ltd.) had just put the footings in the runoff zone for an avalanche path,” he said.

Renowned mountaineer and photographer Pat Morrow, who, as a director of the Jumbo Creek Conservation Society, has been at the forefront of an ongoing battle to stop development of the glacial wilderness resort, said the proponent appears to be arguing that avalanches don’t go through trees or create new paths.

“This was not a surprise at all,” he said.

In a letter sent last week to Oberto Oberti of Glacier Resorts, Autumn Cousins, compliance manager for the Environmental Assessment Office, said the company must stop construction on the day lodge and service building, at least until new avalanche safety conditions are met.

A report by Dynamic Avalanche Consulting found that the service building is constructed in a high-risk red zone, where construction of new buildings is normally not permitted, and the day lodge is in the moderate-risk blue zone, where structures must be reinforced, explosive avalanche controls used and a detailed evacuation plan in place.

The controversial proposal for a billion-dollar, 6,300-bed resort, on Crown land 55-kilometres west of Invermere, has been in the works for 24 years. It was granted an Environmental Assessment Certificate in 2004, which was renewed in 2009, but, for the certificate to become permanent, the company must prove that construction substantially started before last fall’s deadline.

For the last decade, progress on the resort has been almost non-existent, but, shortly before the deadline, foundations were poured for the two buildings and preliminary work started on the ski lift site.

Foundation for the Jumbo Glacier Resort day lodge. Photo: Jumbo Glacier Resort via Facebook

However, locating the buildings in avalanche zones means the company is not in compliance with one of the Environmental Assessment Certificate conditions.

If the province gives the go-ahead, the certificate will have to be amended, even if mitigation measures are in place, Cousins said in the letter.

“It is the (Environmental Assessment Office’s) view that it is not possible for Glacier Resorts Ltd. to achieve compliance with condition 36 with the two structures as currently located,” she wrote.

The compliance investigation is separate from the process to determine whether the project has substantially started, Cousins said in the letter.

Morrow believes the avalanche report should convince Environment Minister Mary Polak to put a final halt to the resort plans.

“If she tries to cancel the independent avalanche consulting firm’s findings, it would be going too far,” he said.

If the foundations of the two buildings are removed from the equation, a new bridge would be the only new construction — and that was paid for by the Jumbo Glacier Mountain Resort Municipality, meaning it was funded by provincial taxpayers, Gibbons said.

Bridge construction. Photo: Jumbo Glacier Resort via Facebook

“I am now waiting with bated breath to hear what government is going to do about that substantial start,” he said.

John Bergenske, conservation director for Wildsight, an environmental group that opposes the project, said Jumbo is a test for the provincial government and its willingness to adhere to its own regulations.

“I certainly can’t imagine what rationale there would be to say that the project has substantially started,” he said.

The proponents have failed to meet the conditions of the Environmental Assessment Certificate and have not proved that they have any major investors, Bergenske said.

“This would be handing a permit to people who have absolutely failed to come through on anything they have promised…This business has been given every conceivable break — is the province going to change the rules every time someone wants to do something different?” he asked.

“If, in fact, there are any rules, there’s only one decision that the minister can make.”

The original resort plans show the day lodge was to be built in another part of the valley outside avalanche zones.

“They changed their minds for some reason at the last minute,” Morrow said.

“It’s mystifying — who knows what they were thinking.”

Gibbons is also nonplussed by the decision to move the lodge.

“I suspect it was for economic purposes. Maybe it was quicker and easier to put it there,” he said.

Lift towers are at even more risk from avalanches than the two buildings, said Morrow, who is hoping the province is looking at the whole picture.

“It’s almost impossible to put them any place that is completely safe,” he said.

“Even the wind from an avalanche can knock a gondola right off the cable. The winds can cut trees in half.”

DeSmog Canada was unable to contact Glacier Resorts Monday, but in a written response to the Environmental Assessment Office, the company said mitigation efforts for the day lodge will include structural reinforcement, comprehensive avalanche control and an evacuation plan for employees and the general public.

“The service building will be converted to a structurally reinforced storage building that will not be accessed during winter,” said the company response.

Image Credit: Jumbo Glacier Resort via Facebook

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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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This is a guest post by Gerry Taft, the mayor of Invermere.

When most of us think of a small town, we think of friendly neighbours and quiet streets — the type of place where you know almost everyone. I’m privileged to be elected as mayor of Invermere, B.C., which is pretty close to being a perfect small town. 

However, about 55 kilometres from Invermere, down rough old logging and mining roads, lies another kind of “small town.”

The “small town” of Jumbo, also known as the Jumbo Glacier Mountain Resort Municipality, is not home to friendly neighbours or quiet streets. In fact, it is completely empty — a wilderness with no residents and no buildings.

On Nov. 15th, when every other town in B.C. will vote for new municipal leaders, there will be no voting in Jumbo.

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How did it come to this?

Glacier Resorts Ltd. has wanted to build a 6,300-bed ski resort on Crown land for 24 years. While the proponents envision a village of condos, shops and hotels and more than 20 ski lifts, many locals like myself oppose a new dense urban development in an area already awash with ski resorts operating below capacity. (A 2008 random survey by McAllister Opinion Research found 63 per cent of Kootenay residents oppose the resort, with 19 per cent in favour and 18 per cent undecided.)

Faced with strong local opposition, the province has tried to fit a round peg into a square hole. Instead of admitting it won’t fit, the province has changed the hole until that peg fits.

The only reason there is a “municipality” here in the mountain wilderness is because in 2012, the provincial government amended the Local Government Act to allow the creation of a municipality without residents. Next, the province appointed a mayor and two councillors. And then a provincial order-in-council mandated that the council adhere to the terms of Jumbo Glacier Resort’s Master Plan — not to citizens.

This series of events ruffled many feathers, but what came next was even worse. Jumbo received a $260,000 provincial grant and $50,000 in federal gas tax money.

Why would a “town” with no residents and no services require taxpayer dollars? Well, there are bridges to build and infrastructure to construct before real estate can be sold. Given the Jumbo Glacier Resort is a private development, you’d think the infrastructure would be fully funded by the developer – but not in the case of Jumbo.

Jumbo Glacier Mountain Resort Municipality has asked for $200,000 a year from the province for the next five years. In its five-year financial plan, the municipality is predicting $0 in tax revenue, $0 in funding from the developer and 100 per cent of funding to come from government grants.

At the recent Union of B.C. Municipalities convention, my motion to oppose provincial funding for towns without residents was adopted unanimously by local politicians from all over our province.

Aside from grasping for taxpayer dollars, the reason Jumbo municipality exists is to circumnavigate a key condition of the resort’s environmental assessment certificate, which dictates that final land use decisions be made by local government. Of course, the intent was for elected, accountable local government to make the decisions, not a puppet appointed council.

Residents of the Columbia Valley want to map their region’s own future. The environmental assessment was focused solely on mitigating environmental impacts. The question of whether we want a dense urban development and private real estate speculation in the mountain wilderness has never been posed to our community.

The environmental assessment certificate for the Jumbo resort expired on Oct. 12, unless the province rules that the proponent has made substantial progress. In yet another case of corners being cut, the resort was hastily laying foundations the week before the deadline in a last-minute push to show progress.

Three days before the construction deadline, B.C.’s Environmental Assessment Office wrote to Glacier Resorts saying the company was not in compliance with three pre-construction conditions, primarily relating to water quality and fish habitat monitoring. Last week, a debate at the Legislature raised the question of whether the foundation for a lodge was built in a Class 4 Avalanche Zone.

The big question now is when the province of B.C. will call an end to the farce of the “town” called Jumbo. The cost of failing to act is at least $1.3 million in taxpayer funding, the sell-off of Crown land at bargain basement prices and, most of all, the complete disregard for the basic concept of what democracies are … and what small towns should be.

Photo: #Democracyforjumbo via @Tweetwild

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