Planning for a Ski Resort

This lab supports plans to construct a Ski Resort in Gardibaldi, Squamish by conducting an Environmental Impact Assessment.

Environmental Assessment

The Northland Properties and Aquilini Investment Group of Vancouver have only just recently in January 2016 received an environmental assessment approval certificate from the provincial government for a proposed ski resort. Although the Garibaldi at Squamish ski resort has been approved, it bears 40 legally binding conditions that must be met by the proponents before construction can occur.

As a natural resource planner, responsibilities include working with all sources of available assistance to plan for the allocation, management and protection of natural resources.  In the case of this project, involvement has been in the form of acquiring, manipulating and visualizing digital data of the Squamish area so as to be able to provide well-informed recommendations for the proposed ski resort with special reflection on environmental impacts. The final product, as seen to the right, maps the projected area and identifies the most important environmental features of the area, which must be considered before processing the proposal.

The first set of features that hold importance are practicality related: including areas within the boundary that fall below the 555m snowline which are of interest give that a 1974 report rules out “reliable skiing on the lower 555m of vertical” in the interest of climatological considerations. Another issue of practicality is associated with the various existing roads with regards to the issue of access to the ski resort. The second set of features hold great importance and explicitly environment related which includes: rivers for the interest of fish habitats, old growth management areas that cannot be altered for the ski resort, the winter habitats of ungulate mammals and areas that contain red-listed species that require special protection.

The data required was obtained from DataBC and underwent multi-level analysis. Following the acquisition of data, it was necessary to segregate the area of focus from the remaining data by applying the clip function in accordance with the project boundary area. In order to be able to evaluate the elevation of the area under two different categories (>600 and <600), it was necessary to covert the layer from raster to polygon. In having completed this step, it gave an insight into which areas are not as likely to receive an adequate amount of snow for reliable skiing, thus suggesting ski runs cannot be located there. Undoubtedly one may suggest that the proponents could install artificial snow producing machines however for the purpose of this analysis, this is being ignored.

The next step was to recognize the areas of environmental concern, beginning with identifying the presence of red-listed ecosystems within the project area through the use of the Terrestrial Ecosystem Mapping Layer. It was revealed that the projected area is home to six of the most common red-listed ecosystems in the area, including: Cat’s-tail Moss, Cladina, Falsebox, Flat Moss, Kinnikinnick and Salal. These identified area were then merged to form one new layer, with several coloured categories so as to be able to distinguish between the species, and rule out the areas where ski runs cannot be constructed. The same similar analysis had to be carried out for river ecosystems. A buffer had to added around the rivers to identify the areas that are likely to be fish bearing and thus need to be protected. Given that streams that are above 600 m are considered less likely to be fish bearing and are given a buffer of 50m whereas streams below 600 m are given a buffer of 100 m. With regards to ungulate habitat areas and areas of old growth management (OGM), the approach was much simpler in that there was no need for extra analysis.

In order to be able to quantify the total percentage of the projected area that must be protected and not tampered with during the construction of the ski slope, the 4 areas of environmental concern had the union tool applied and revealed that 47.7% of the area falls in the protected zones. Individually the distribution of protected areas is as follows: OGM (6.8%), ungulate (7.9%), red listed (24.8%) and fish bearing streams (15.6%). Evidently if you were to add these individual values, they would total more than 47.7% as a lot of the features overlap and share the same area. Aside from these environmental features, the areas below 600m vertical are also unsuitable to be built on, covering approximately 29.9% of the area.

On reflection, the two greatest environmental concerns to this project’s development are the areas that contain red listed species and fish bearing streams. These two areas are extremely important given that they cover the largest percentages of the projected area meaning that are an important component of this ecosystem. When reflecting on the map, it is evident that almost the entire area which is <600m vertical, coincides with the red listed species and large proportion of the fish habitat riparian management zones. This makes this area very ecologically important from the perspective of biodiversity.

With regards to mitigation, it would be necessary to construct the ski resort avoiding these areas of environmental concern as they take the greater priority. A good way to approach this from a practical perspective would be to allow the ski resort to be built solely on areas about 600m, where protected areas are not present. Its worth considering that although this would be a good solution in the effort to prtect the red-listed zones, given that rivers form a network this would mean that changes upstream i.e. >600m vertical, will eventually affect the system downstream. In an effort to combat this, it would be necessary to ensure the river bearing streams have extra zones of protection i.e there cannot be any interference within an “x” amount of meters of the zones (based on relevant expertise).

The extensive amounts of environmental concerns that must be considered in this project are overwhelming. In this very concise analysis, 5 areas pose challenges already and with the additional 40 conditions outlined by the federal government, I’m surprised the proponents have persevered with the project given that protection of the identified zones will come at a great cost. Undoubtedly there will be additional environmental impacts that have not yet been recognised.

Reflection on Ethics

It is evident that this project is threatening the surrounding area and undoubtedly will disrupt the natural ecosystem. As a consequence, this project should not be permitted to continue. This does not reflect the stance in the memo, as instead I was trying to identify potential ways the damage may be mitigated rather than aborting the project altogether.

Accomplishment Statement  

Is able to conduct GIS analysis as needed for a particular job specification and review the scenario from an non-personal perspective. Can also independently acquire online spatial datasets and filter these accordingly based on objectives. Has also further develop cartographic and written communication skills by producing a map and short memo summarising the results for a non-technical audience.