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Chief Battle Sparks Park Fears

Preservationists see the plan to build a gondola up the Squamish Chief as a symptom of deeper trouble for BC Parks.

Lisa Richardson 9 Sep 2004TheTyee.ca
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The Squamish Chief is no stranger to controversy. More than a decade ago, a proposal to turn the base of the spectacular granite monolith into a quarry was thwarted. The quarry protests helped pave the way for the area to become a provincial park in 1995. The 600-hectare Stawamus Chief Provincial Park and the adjoining Shannon Falls Provincial Park now see approximately half a million visitors a year.

At the official ceremony celebrating its designation as a Class A Park in October 1995, disgruntled loggers from the resource-dependent community exploited the occassion to protest forestry cuts. Logging trucks circled the ceremony like sharks. Bloody fistfights ensued.

Cut to 2004. Squamish forestry workers have lost the war to save local jobs and the region wants tourism to drive the economy into the future. A bigger battle is playing out over the Chief -- and it has implications for all provincial parks.

In August, two Whistler-based developers, Peter Alder of Peter Alder Enterprises and Paul Mathews of Ecosign Mountain Resort Planners, were revealed as the proponents behind a hush-hush plan to construct an aerial sightseeing gondola on the Stawamus Chief [read about it in the Tyee story: Gondolas Up the Chief? ].

The outcry was immediate.

Squamish's Megan Olesky, spokesperson for newly formed Friends of the Chief, hikes the Chief at least once a week. She contends that a gondola up the Chief is anathema to the town's growing reputation as an outdoor recreation centre. "A quick gondola ride to a viewpoint symbolizes everything that outdoor recreation is not," she says. "And the fact that this is in a provincial park makes it even worse. To me it sends the message that our protected areas are for sale to private companies. This is a terrifying precedent to set."

Parks 'open for business'?

Gwen Barlee, of the Western Canada Wilderness Committee, is also concerned that the province might set a precedent if it approves the $12 million private development. She worries that it might be the first domino to fall in parks across the province, thanks to new legislation that relaxes restrictions in parks and allows the province to ignore local rules. "What we're seeing with this proposal, with the introduction of parking meters, with the reduction of the boundaries of the South Chilcotin [Mountains Provincial Park], is an all-out war on our parks. These are public parks, and they aren't the Liberals' to give away."

The Significant Projects Streamlining Act allows the government fast-track approval and override its own and local laws and regulations for "provincially significant" projects. The subsequent Parks and Protected Areas Statute Amendment Act permits recreational and tourism development in parks that is "consistent with or complementary to" recreational values. No definition of "recreational values" is provided.

Bill Barisoff, Minister of Water Land and Air Protection, which oversees BC Parks, set the future's tone when he introduced his 2004-2005 budget estimates. "The Premier has talked about building a park system that is open to everyone. We need a range of use options beyond traditional camping that keep pace as our population ages. Our goal is to attract more people to our parks."

The government's Recreation Stewardship Panel, which delivered its report in November 2002, also troubled preservationists and recreation advocates, who objected to its "invitation only" public consultations, which took place over a mere four days. The panel, chaired by former Social Credit environment minister Bruce Strachan, recommended more user fees, more private service delivery, and more commercial, revenue-focused facilities. Strachan told CBC Radio's Almanac that the Panel wanted to see five to seven parks designated as "intensive, revenue-focused recreation locations."

New or expanded commercial operations would have to be "endorsed in an approved park management plan that included opportunities for public input." Development proponents must obtain a park use permit under the Park Act, and applications are reviewed to ensure they are consistent with the act and the management plan.

Chief plan excludes gondolas

The Stawamus Chief management plan was completed in 1997, after two years of extensive consultations. The plan states its aims to "provide non-mechanised recreation opportunities for different users to experience the park in ways compatible with the special features and natural values". The plan also marketing and promotion of the Chief, given its already high usage, estimated at the time at 25,000 rock-climbers and 50,000 hikers a year.

Contrast this with gondola proponent Peter Alder's vision: "Sulphur Mountain [at Banff] is probably the closest similar installation to the one we've proposed. We're planning to build a viewing platform over about two and a half acres, a warming shelter and chemical toilets at the top. At Sulphur Mountain, they've found that the maximum stay on the summit is about 15 minutes." Five million people are currently driving past the Chief every year, and Alder believes he can get at least 80 percent of them to go up the Chief gondola at least once.

The Wilderness Committee's Barlee wonders what the point of a management plan is if it can be overridden. "The public are so against this. I don't think the government, with an election just seven months away, would want to shine the media spotlight on this issue."

Ministry having a 'hemorrhage'

Alder is aware of the project's political sensitivity, and says the ministry is "very insecure" about it. "A lot of it probably has to do with the political nature of the comments we're getting back," he told The Tyee. "The Campbell government has buggered up three major things they've tried to do," citing the privatization of liquor stores, the sale of BC Rail and the contracting out of the Coquihalla Highway's operation. "So they want to have a very transparent process, which is fine."

Barisoff insists that the management plan won't be amended unless it represents "the desire of the community." He told The Tyee that he has instructed the gondola's proponents to take the proposal before the community and convince the citizens and council of Squamish that it's worth amending the management plan for the gondola project.

The proponents have since revealed that their delay in announcing the project to the public was at the behest of the ministry. "They're having a shit hemorrhage on this one," says Alder. "They asked us not to release any information to the public until we'd gone through the process they outlined, going to the District of Squamish, the Squamish First Nations, the Ministry of Highways and [the 2010 Olympics organizing committee], and giving them each 60 days to give us feedback. Then the minister would tell us when we could release it to the public."

The ministry now refers questions about the proposal to the proponents, "as nothing new has happened, and the minister can't spend all his time dealing with the media."

Process lacks 'fairness'

Opponents of the gondola are concerned that public consultation has been handed off to the project proponent. Barlee wonders how equity and fairness, or the appearance of equity and fairness, can be achieved in such a situation. "I don't think you can have an industrial developer run the public consultation and achieve that," she says, adding that she's troubled by the way the government directed the proposal.

Spencer Fitschen, co-chair of the Squamish chapter of the Sierra Club, and a representative on both the Squamish Select Committee for the Environment and Sea to Sky Land and Resource Management Plan, told The Tyee that "this whole proposal didn't come from ground up, but from top down. It started in the Premier's Office and came down and that raised a lot of alarm bells right off."

Fitschen said he hasn't encountered any support for the gondola proposal from local residents or the local government in Squamish. Although the District of Squamish hasn't made its position public, staff were asked by the Ministry of Water, Land and Air Protection months ago to provide a recommendation on the project. "I've been told that an opinion was sent to Victoria, recommending against it," said Fitschen.

Acting mayor of Squamish, Sonya Lebans, was not available for comment on the allegation.

Park land swap lacked input

Fitschen said that although he believes the province would like to set a precedent with commercial development in a provincial park, the Chief gondola proposal is too controversial too close to an election to get the go-ahead. "I don't think the Chief would be their first choice of a test case." Fitschen does agree, however, that if the Chief gondola gets a park-use permit the floodgates will open.

A ministry official told The Tyee that although they routinely receive enquiries about commercial development in parks, "at this time we have no other third party proposals for infrastructure developments."

Still, the Western Canada Wilderness Committee has other areas of concern. A road was built through Monck Provincial Park to provide access to a private housing development. At Cathedral Grove, the government is planning to use two hectares of old-growth forest in the 20-hectare park for expanded parking, despite fears that the disruption to the forest canopy could increase the number of blowdowns in the park.

Park watchers are also concerned about deals being concluded behind closed doors.

In 2002, Intrawest's Whistler Blackcomb swapped land in the Fitzsimmons Creek drainage for 87 hectares of Garibalid Park surrounding Flute peak. No public consultation occurred. The company announced the expansion of its skiable area with great fanfare this summer. There is also concern that independent power projects may locate some infrastructure within provincial parks.

"It's all happening under the public radar," said Barlee. "These are public lands, the public commons." She said people have worked for decades to preserve them -- in the case of the South Chilcotin Mountains Provincial Park. it was 50 years -- yet the current government is cutting protections away at the behest of private commercial and industrial interests. "And the public doesn't even know what's going in. That is wrong. It's really wrong."

[Note: This beginning of this story was altered on Sept. 14, 2004 to ensure it accurately reflects the events leading up to and including the Stawamus Chief Provincial Park's dedication.]

Lisa Richardson is a journalist based in Squamish.  [Tyee]

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