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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Snow is flying in the Jumbo Valley, covering both the rapidly constructed foundations of a ski lift and day lodge and the campsite where, throughout the summer, opponents have monitored activities at the site of a proposed all-season ski resort centred around four glaciers in the heart of the Kootenays.

For now, it’s a waiting game — no surprise to the many players on both sides of the controversial proposal who have been involved throughout the 24-year saga.

Glacier Resorts Ltd. is hoping the foundations, built in October, will prove to the provincial Environmental Assessment Office that significant progress has been made on construction of the billion-dollar proposed Jumbo Glacier Resort.

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In 2004 the company was granted an environmental assessment certificate with 195 conditions. The certificate was renewed in 2009 and, under legislation, cannot be renewed again. For the certificate to become permanent, Glacier Resorts must show that the project was “substantially started” by Oct. 12.

Three days before that deadline, the 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. However, the warning about non-compliance does not have any direct bearing on the decision about whether the project has made significant progress, said an Environment Ministry spokesman.

The term “substantially started” is not defined in legislation. The Environmental Assessment Office will make a recommendation to Environment Minister Mary Polak, who will make the final decision.

“There is no set timeframe in which the minister must make the determination about whether a project was substantially started by the deadline,” said the ministry spokesman.

Until a decision is made, it is not only the weather that has put a stop to construction. The company has been warned not to continue work until a decision is made, although restoration work on the non-compliance problems is allowed.

Mountain Guide Critical of Construction 'Rush Job'

A 10-centimetre snowfall in the Jumbo Valley means the “concrete slab” foundations are “out of sight, but not out of mind,” said retired mountain guide Arnor Larson, a tireless opponent of the resort proposal.

Larson has submitted a document and photos to the Environmental Assessment Office raising questions about the “unusual” quality of the foundation work on the day lodge and ski lift.

“Rush jobs often mean cutting corners, but it was still a surprise that, throughout the area covered by the forms, the ground was never properly leveled and compacted, nor was the necessary topping layer of fine aggregate material ever installed, leveled or compacted,” he wrote.

“Believing in foundations that have no foundation is like something out of Alice In Wonderland.”

Foundation for Day Lodge Adjacent to 'Avalanche Meadow'

Larson, armed with pages of photos and documentation, also has serious concerns with the location of the day lodge.

“As a professional mountain climbing guide since 1970, I stood there and had a thought that went like this — in the winter, when avalanche conditions are ripe, I would find the risk too high to set up my tent here for even one single night. Yet they are going to erect a permanent building here,” he said.

“Who the heck signed the paper saying this was a safe place to build?”

Larson pointed out in his submission that the site of the day lodge has changed from the original plans and the lodge doors at the new site would open on to “the aptly named Avalanche Meadow.” It is an area where, in 2009, a massive avalanche tore down a ski run.

The resort’s Master Plan calls for avalanche control measures, such as helicopter bombing potential avalanche sites, but critics such as renowned Canadian mountaineer and photographer Pat Morrow, who lives in the East Kootenays, does not believe the area can be made safe.

“As you get further and further into the proposed townsite, you are getting further and further into avalanche territory,” he said.

“No other resorts have base areas that are threatened as much as this.”

NDP Leader John Horgan Says Day Lodge in Class 4 Avalanche Zone

Growing concerns about building a day lodge adjacent to an avalanche path — even though proponent Oberto Oberti has said the buildings will be just outside the high-risk area — were taken up this week in Question Period by NDP leader John Horgan.

Jumbo Glacier Resort specifically committed to building residential and commercial structures outside avalanche zones, Horgan said.

“Yet the Jumbo Glacier Resort has put the only foundation that they’ve been able to pour to this point in time, their day lodge, right in a Class 4 avalanche zone,” he said.

“For the minister’s edification, a Class 4 avalanche zone is really, really bad. In fact, it says ‘a Class 4 could destroy a railway car, large truck, several buildings and forests up to four hectares.’ It’s a big deal.”

However Polak, who recently visited the area and met with the Ktunaxa First Nation, rejected calls from Horgan for her to immediately withdraw the permit.

“It is very important that we allow the process to unfold, that we allow First Nations to respond appropriately, providing us with that information,” she said.

Robyn Duncan of Wildsight, a non-profit group that has led much of the opposition to the proposal, said Wildsight has been working with Ecojustice to make last-minute submissions to the Environmental Assessment Office and, if the Jumbo Resort project gets the go-ahead or, if there is an attempt to again extend the certificate, a legal challenge might be considered.

The proposal is already being challenged by the Ktuxana First Nation, which is appealing a B.C Supreme Court decision that the consultation was reasonable and the resort would not substantially interfere with Ktunaxa spiritual beliefs and practices. The area in which the resort is planned is known to the Ktunaxa as Qat’muk, the place where the Grizzly Bear Spirit was born, goes to heal itself and returns to the spirit world.

The West Kootenay EcoSociety is also challenging the incorporation of the Jumbo Glacier Mountain Resort Municipality, a municipality with no residents which is being supported with taxpayer dollars.

Others who have taken part in the annual protest and monitoring camps are watching carefully and are ready to spring into action again if it proves necessary.

“I have been working to keep Jumbo Wild for over 15 years,” said KL Kivi, who spent much of her summer at the monitoring camp.

“This is the largest unroaded wilderness in southern B.C. and our lives are inextricably linked to the health of this place. It would fracture the spine of an incredibly important ecological region,” she said.

Tommaso Oberti, vice president of Pheidias Project Management, who has acted as spokesman for previous stories, did not respond to questions.

However, a letter written by Oberto Oberti, on behalf of Glacier Resorts, to Jumbo Municipality Mayor Gregory Deck, underlines his confidence that the project will go ahead.

“In the most unlikely event that physical and legal disruptions do not permit the start of construction, the government will have an obligation to extend or remove the deadline, as in any construction case of force majeure,” he wrote in February.

“I am certain that, in this case, Glacier will seek legal advice and legal routes to ensure that its rights are not compromised.”

Photo: Lucas Jmief, Lucasimagephoto.ca

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When Pat Morrow looks around at the mountains, towering on either side of the Jumbo Valley, his concern is palpable.

Avalanche paths are clearly visible, both beside Jumbo Creek Road and on slopes surrounding the meadows and valley where Glacier Resorts Ltd. wants to build a 6,000-bed all-season ski resort.

“Looking down the valley, we are seeing how vulnerable it is to massive avalanche damage. There are three or four fresh ones. The avalanche paths are just slowly eating their way across the slope as the years go along,” Morrow said.

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Few people who are familiar with Morrow’s accomplishments are going to argue with his expertise.

Morrow, who lives in the East Kootenay community of Wilmer, is a mountain climber, photographer and filmmaker and was the first person in the world to climb the highest peaks of all seven continents. In 1982 he was a member of the first Canadian team to climb Mount Everest and in 1987 he was awarded the Order of Canada for his international mountaineering exploits.

“I have been in hazardous terrain all my adult life — sizing it up — and in there I felt really exposed,” said Morrow, as his truck rattled over the rough road, heading home after a day hiking the Jumbo Glacier Resort area.

Morrow is a director of the Jumbo Creek Conservation Society and supporter of Wildsight, one of the non-profit groups fighting against the Jumbo proposal. On a sunny day in September, as he again looked at the site, his concerns grew.

Morrow does not believe there are any other ski resorts with such high risks at the base site, as well as along the access road and on the glacier ski runs.

“Where are they going to park the cars,” he asked.

“You’re not going to park them in the middle of an avalanche zone.”

An illustration of the power of avalanches — which sweep down one side of the mountain, across the road and swoosh up the opposite side — came this year. A bevy of provincial government cabinet ministers were scheduled to visit the area in June, but had to take a helicopter tour of the site, instead of driving, as the road was still blocked from spring avalanche debris.

The ministers included Energy and Mines Minister Bill Bennett, who has pushed provincial support for Jumbo, and, after the visit, Bennett told a Columbia Valley newspaper that the resort proponent needs improved access. The road, until it reaches the resort boundary, is the responsibility of the province.

In addition to avalanche risks, there are the challenges of bringing supplies along an uneven, unpaved access road and Morrow shakes his head as he tries to estimate the expense of rebuilding the road and helicopter bombing potential avalanche sites.

“It doesn’t make sense,” said Morrow, who grew up in the area and honed his mountain climbing and photography skills in the Purcells.

However, the Jumbo Glacier Resort Master Plan assesses the avalanche hazard at a low to moderate risk, similar to other ski areas in B.C. and Alberta.

An avalanche study, conducted in 1995 for the company by Peter Schaerer of Stetham and Associates, concluded that avalanche risks could be managed with road closures during hazardous times combined with dropping explosive charges from helicopters.

“The avalanche hazard to traffic on the Jumbo Creek Road would be low with the predicted initial traffic volume of 160 vehicles per day and would increase to moderate when volume exceeds about 260 vehicles per day,” says the report.

Avalanche paths sweep down towards the road leading in to Farnham Glacier and the Lake of the Hanging Glacier. Photo: Judith Lavoie.

The reports were compiled by some of Canada’s leading avalanche experts, said Tommaso Oberti, spokesman for the resort proponents.

Rod Gibbons, senior guide with RK Heliski, a company with a 44-year history in the area, said no mountainous area is completely safe from avalanches, but the key is ensuring the level of risk is acceptable.

“Because of the avalanche hazard, there are going to be some extreme costs in keeping that road within Ministry of Transport allowances,” said Gibbons, who has spent 28 winters working in the Purcells.

“It’s going to take a lot of money to make that road fit.”

Helicopters would be required to drop explosives on potential avalanche sites and “a lot of the time, the helicopter will not be able to access those points to do avalanche control,” Gibbons said.

Pilots need good visibility to fly and to assess where to put explosive charges to get the best results, meaning flights are weather dependent.

“There could be multiple days that road will have to be closed,” said Gibbons, who believes he has spent more time in the Jumbo-area mountains than anyone else.

“I’m out there every day,” he said.

RK uses explosives on potential avalanche areas, but last year a German client was killed by an avalanche in the Jumbo area.

Mary Clayton of Avalanche Canada, formerly the Canadian Avalanche Centre, said avalanche terrain is found throughout B.C. and there is nothing unusual about the Jumbo area.

However, of all avalanche fatalities in Canada, 80 per cent occur in B.C. and the majority of those are in the Columbia Region, she said.

Glacier Resorts’ environmental assessment certificate, first issued in 2004, expired October 12 unless proponents can prove there has been substantial progress.

Main image: Mountaineer and photographer Pat Morrow studies the slopes for avalanche paths. Credit: Judith Lavoie.

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