The Jumbo Resort in the Kootenays will negatively impact Grizzlies, according to a Grizzly biologist, Dr. Michael Proctor. Dr. Proctor’s findings were highlighted in a press release from Wildsight and picked up by the Nelson Star.
Dave Quinn, of Wildsight, expresses the hope that the province will not approve the controversial resort project in light of Dr. Proctor’s findings:
While it has taken time to decide about the JGR resort application, state of the art science has been going on, and we have the advantage of new and compelling information. When the Province extended JGR’s outdated 2004 Environmental Assessment in 2009, with no changes, they ignored grizzly research from 2007 that showed bear numbers in the Purcells were much lower than anyone expected. Something was wrong. Now we have insights into what. According to Proctor, human use in the backcountry Purcells has reached the point where bear numbers aren’t rebounding from their low numbers. Is this a time to approve a large all-season resort deep in the backcountry of the Purcells?
Jumbo’s EA and the grizzlies
To recap – in April 2004, as part of the environmental assessment of the Jumbo resort, Mr. Matt Austin, a large Carnivore Specialist with the Ministry of Environment, recommended that:
… it be assumed that there will be a substantial impact to grizzly bear habitat effectiveness, mortality risk and, most importantly, the fragmentation of grizzly bear distribution in the Purcell Mountains over the long-term as a result of the project.
Three months later, Mr. Rodger Stewart of the Ministry of Environment wrote to the Environmental Assessment Office stating that:
In review of available information … it has been determined that there is a low risk that the JGR project would result in a reduction of the grizzly bear population of such significance that the population in the Central Purcells GPBU would become threatened.
Mr. Stewart, who is not a grizzly expert, has changed the fence-posts here: under the Environmental Assessment Act the EAO is supposed to evaluate not whether a project poses a risk of a significant adverse environmental effect, not whether there a risk that an entire grizzly population will become threatened (from a single development!). A significant adverse environmental effect might well include significant reductions in a grizzly population that fall short of actually threatening a population.
But in addition, Mr. Stewart’s email did not explain why the Ministry had rejected the advice of Mr. Austin. The EAO, apparently accepting Mr. Stewart’s conclusion, did not explain why Mr. Austin’s recommendations were being ignored. An environmental assessment certificate was granted for a 5 year period under the Environmental Assessment Act.
Fast forward to the end of 2008: The Jumbo Project had still had not been built, and the 5 year Environmental Assessment certificate was set to expire. The project management company seeking to develop the resort applied to the Environmental Assessment Office for an extension under s. 18(2) of the Act. On December 19th, 2010 the EAO asked various government ministries and affected First Nations whether circumstances had changed since the original assessment had been conducted. Unlike all other parts of the Jumbo environmental assessment, the correspondence related to this extension is not currently on the EAO’s website, although the EAO provided me with copies of the relevant correspondence on request, several of which we have uploaded below.
The Ktunaxa First Nation, in a letter dated January 16, 2009, strenuously objected to the extension, citing new information about the health of the local grizzly population. The Ktunaxa quoted a recent study and the findings of a “two day workshop … with grizzly bear experts and representatives from the KNC, MTSA, MoE and the proponent” that concluded:
During the workshop, new … analysis estimating the number of grizzly bears was shared with participants. This data indicated that the population is much lower than previously thought and, if accurate, would suggest that the population is close to a threatened status (based on a conservation risk threshold of 50% of the habitat capability).
The implications of this new data … increased the importance of the anticipated residual grizzly bear impacts (i.e. primarily mortality & displacement associated with the Jumbo development), as the resiliency of the population may be at risk.
The Ministry of Environment’s views on the subject were contained in a one sentence email, dated January 16th, 2009, from Ralph Archibald, the Assistant Deputy Minister of the Environmental Stewardship Branch, of the Ministry:
Ministry of Environment does not believe that there has been any material and specific changes in circumstances since the original EA review that could impact the conclusions reached in the EA certificate.
So far as we are aware, Mr. Archibald is also not a grizzly specialist, and it is striking that the Ministry does not in any way directly address the Ktunaxa’s concerns or reply to the study that they have raised. Although EAO staff have indicated that they believe that the Ministry of Environment did consider the letter, Mr. Archibald’s letter appears to have been in response to the EAO’s original request for input dated December 19th (which had asked for a response by January 16th at the latest), rather than in response to the receipt of the Ktunaxa Nation’s letter.
However, the EAO cited the Ministry’s statement in dismissing the Ktunaxa’s concerns, and issued a 5 year extension of the Certificate on January 26th, 2009. In explaining this decision, the EAO wrote:
The EAO is satisfied that the Ministry of Environment considered the results of the recent Grizzly bear study and the concerns raised by the Ktunaxa Nation Council and, on that basis, advised the EAO that the ministry does not believe that there have been any material specific changes in circumstances since the original EA review [that] would impact the conclusions reached in the Certificate.
Some observations
The EAO was charged, under s. 18 of the Environmental Assessment Act, with conducting a review of the request for an extension; the EAO, and not the Ministry of Environment, was legally required to make a decision based on the results of that review. In my view, the EAO was not entitled to simply defer to the Ministry of Environment on the basis of a one-line “all’s-well” email and a trusting assumption that the Ministry had taken into account the very detailed and technical concerns raised by the Ktunaxa.
But even if they could defer to the Ministry in this way, what does the history of this file, and addressing the concerns around the resort’s impact on the grizzlies, say about the province’s management of the grizzly population and assessment of the risks?
At best the Ministry of Environment has been less than open and transparent in explaining how it has evaluated the risks of the resort to the grizzlies; surely it would have been more appropriate, especially about such a contentious project, to explain, in 2004, why Mr. Austin’s recommendations were not followed and, in 2009, why the study relied upon by the Ktunaxa did not affect the Ministry’s evaluation of the risks of the resort.
At worst, the lack of transparency could indicate that the impacts of the Jumbo on the grizzly populations have not been appropriately evaluated, and whether the Ktunaxa First Nation has been appropriately consulted and accommodated the Ktunaxa First Nation. It’s this history that explains why we’re a little skeptical that Dr. Proctor’s new study, timely and important though it is, will convince the BC government to halt the Jumbo resort until it can ensure that the grizzlies are protected. We’d love to be proved wrong, but it’s not like no one’s pointed out before now that the grizzly could be impacted.
479TS9DXCH2T