INTERPRETATION (memo):
The proposed project comprises of a year-round mountain resort located on Brohm Ridge (15 km north of Squamish, 80 km north of Vancouver, 45 km south of Whistler and along Highway 99) this Garibaldi at Squamish project (approved in 2016) consists of varied components to meet the objectives and customer services in the area including 124 ski trails and 21 lifts, and resort accommodation and commercial developments. The project also aims to provide 900 construction jobs to build the project and 2500 jobs during operation. The economic and ecological feasibility of this project has been a topic of detailed discussion and critique.
My role in this scenario if of a natural resource planner who is responsible for evaluating feasibility and critique of the project and recommending the priorities that should be strongly influence and be considered as part of the planning and development process.
Critical habitat of red listed species, old growth forest cover in the area, road and stream networks of the region, critical stream/riparian buffer requirements for fish and riparian habitat, and areas unsuitable for skiing/boarding were delineated considering elevation, snowline and slope. The related data only available at a nation-wide scale was clipped to accommodate into the project boundary to maintain focus. Furthermore, these delineated areas, when combined indicate areas unsuitable for/of highest concern needing priority consideration and evaluating in the planning, development and operation stages of the project.
The analysis indicated that 52.70% of the proposed project area was under protection (considering red listed species habitat, critical ungulate habitat, old growth forest cover, and fish/riparian habitat buffers) and 29.92% of the area was below 555 m and hence, below the snowline and did not receive enough snow cover for recreational activities such as skiing/boarding etc. These delineations are quite a large proportion of the project area that might threaten the economic viability and degree of access to the resort.
The two greatest environmental concerns are protection of old growth forests and stream buffers, and too large/widespread road network and access that might allow too large human footprint and resulting disturbance. The resort can be built keeping in mind wildlife corridors, and retaining large stream buffers while developing the resort. Also, the accommodations and residences can be kept focused to the foothills nearest to the highway to allow easy access as well as mitigating spread of road network across the rest of the property. The skiing area can be kept focused away from the protected areas or can be built close to them but with adequate implementation of forest/habitat protection regulations. Building culverts across streams should be carefully managed and supervised in order to prevent installation of culverts that might be perched in the long run and/or might be too long for fish to swim across and be metabolically feasible for them and/or might not imitate fish habitat and natural stream flow. Installing culverts should be minimized to avoid accumulated effects of roads and resulting sediment in streams: this can cause heavy sediment loading can immediately affect critical fish spawning grounds. Wildlife biologists/ conservationists can be included in the decision-making process to outline ideal habitat/living conditions for the local wildlife and endangered species. This outline can be used as a reference and can guide the landscape scale design of the resort keeping these areas of concern as high priority. Furthermore, technology can be utilized to make the resort as self-sufficient as possible by using technologies that harness renewable energy sources, for example, using solar power for electricity, using gravity to irrigate landscaping and gardens etc. within the resort. Road networks can be designed in such a way to efficiently allow connectivity as well as minimize land-area used in construction etc.
ETHICS AND THE GARIBALDI PROJECT:
Ethics are subjective and hence, are perceived differently depending the stakeholder that is perceiving the project. In such a case, it is crucial to see the entire system at play and to weigh all the aspects of the project. It is also weigh these aspects in context of the temporal scale and to make sure that long term benefits and wellbeing of the ecosystem in the area as well as the communities is not compromised for short term gains. If a balanced and cautious plan is devised for all the processes of planning, evaluation, construction and operation, it is possible to meet most objectives and ethical measures. However, having said that, according to my perspective, the project should not be carried out as in my view, the short term gains might not be worth the long term issues it might bring.
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