ECOLOGICAL DESTRUCTION

“The principal motivation behind South Korea’s bid to host the 1988 Olympics was economic: to enhance the national image in order to attract foreign investment and develop business ties for exporting.”
(Fair Play for Housing Rights, p. 82)

Despite rhetoric about ‘sustainability’ and ‘green Games’, the Olympic industry is by nature ecologically destructive. This is due to large-scale construction of venues, expanded infrastructure, the large numbers of toursim, and increased levels of consumerism.

Winter Olympics are more ecologically destructive than Summer ones, since many events must occur outside the city in rural areas (i.e., mountain areas, ski resorts, etc.). According to Chris Shaw (2010 Games Watch), the 2010 Olympics will be one of the most environmentally destructive games ever held!

Sea-to-Sky Highway – Eagleridge Bluffs

Expansion of the Sea-to-Sky Highway was the first Olympic-related construction to be the target of protests, beginning in April 2006 when the Eagleridge Bluffs Coalition began blockading work on the highway in N. Vancouver.

Protesters claimed the government failed to consider alternate measures, including a tunnel, that would have reduced the impact of the expansion. On May 26, 2006, twenty-four protesters were arrested & removed by West Vancouver Police to allow construction work to continue.

In January 2007, 71-year old Pacheedaht elder Harriet Nahanee, one of the first to be arrested at the blockade, was sentenced to 14 days in jail after she refused to apologize to the court, citing the 1763 Royal Proclamation and Indigenous sovereignty as her defense. She served her time at the Surrey Pre-Trial Center, where she contracted pneumonia. Shortly after her release, she was hospitalized and died on Feb. 24, 2007.

Later, Betty Krawcyzk, a 78-year old environmentalist also arrested at the blockade, was sentenced to 10 months in jail (due to her record and because she went back to the site and was re-arrested).

Expansion of the Sea-to-Sky Highway has involved an army of heavy machinery, at times working 24-hours a day, with extensive logging and blasting. Construction is carried out by Kiewet Construction, Murrin Construction, and Pacific Site Concrete. The total cost of the expansion is over $600 million.

In mid-June, 2006, over $50,000 in damage was done to heavy equipment used on the highway expansion in an act of sabotage. The machinery belonged to Kiewet & Murrin Construction.

The Sea-to-Sky Highway was originally a concern for the IOC due to potential traffic problems on the narrow, winding highway leading to Whistler. One official commented that it was “too long.” In 2007, the highway was hit with numerous vehicle accidents, incidents which closed the highway for hours at a time.

In February 2007, a massive landslide closed the highway for 7 hours as crews worked to remove tones of debris and boulders. Residents in the area blamed blasting used in highway expansion as the cause, triggered by heavy rains. The highway is described as a “vulnerable corridor” to Whistler and remains a top concern for VANOC and the government.

Following two accidents in September 2007 that closed the highway for several hours each time, VANOC executive vice-president Terry Wright stated that VANOC had not yet completed contingency plans for traffic accidents on the highway during 2010. Media ask if the highway is the “Olympic’s Achilles heel.”

Clear-Cut City: Callaghan Valley

The Whistler Olympic Center is a large complex being built in the Callaghan Valley, near Whistler. (It was originally called the Nordic Center, but perhaps this was too obvious). Although there was some logging in the area, it still contained large amounts of old growth forest and was largely untouched.

Construction of the Nordic Center will result in large-scale ecological destruction, with between 89,000 to 126,000 trees cut down (according to Chris Shaw, Five Ring Circus, draft copy, p. 420). For comparison, some 10,000 trees were knocked down during severe wind storms in 2007 in Stanley Park (which caused a public outpouring of grief).

This mass deforestation will result from some 50 km of new cross-country ski trails, along with parking lots, 3 stadiums, 2 ski jumps, a biathlon route, a Nordic day lodge, as well as maintenance facilities inc. sewage, water, & power.

The entire area of the Whistler (Nordic) Olympic Center itself is to be 260 hectares in size. Construction for this venue has included building a 9 km access road.

In the summer of 2007, a record number of black bears were hit by vehicles on the Sea-to-Sky Highway, about twice the usual number. At least 11 died, while the remainder dragged themselves into the forest, to recover or to die later.

In addition, conservation officers in the area responded to a much larger number of complaints regarding bear-human interactions. According to conservation officer Chris Doyle,

“It has been probably the busiest July and August for the conservation office in Whistler since records have been kept.”
(“Conflict deadly for bears,” by Clare Ogilvie, The Province, September 18, 2007)

According to Sylvia Dolson of Whistler’s Get Bear Smart Society,

“This valley bottom is an important habitat for bears… Now we are continuing to develop and clearcut areas like the site of the [2010 Winter Olympics] Athletes Village, which is in prime bear habitat. We have to ask ourselves, ‘Where else are they supposed to feed?’”
(The Province, September 18, 2007)

Cypress Mountain Clear-Cuts

Cypress Mountain, located near North Vancouver, had a small ski resort established by the 1980s, was designated as the venue location for freestyle & snowboard events for the 2010 Games. As a result, a large-scale expansion was undertaken with 9 new ski runs being cut into the mountain side, three new chair lifts being built, a new lodge, and a “state of the art snow making system.” Despite this ecological destruction, developers continue to claim it is one of the most "environmentally sustainable" resort expansions to occur!

Concrete City: Gravel Mining & Fish Kills

Construction for Olympic venues and related infrastructure (including highway expansion, the RAV/Canada Line, etc.) is based on concrete, requiring massive amounts of gravel & sand, which comprise up to 80 % of concrete and over 90 % of asphalt.

The Canada Line, a transit system from downtown Vancouver to the airport, will alone require some 400,000 tonnes of gravel & sand for concrete production. The $105 million Sliding Centre at Whistler, used for bobsleigh, luge and skeleton tracks, used 350 tonnes of concrete (“Whistler’s 2010 Olympic venues officially complete,” by Clare Ogilvie, The Province, December 14, 2007).

In March 2006 near Chilliwack, BC (a rural area near Vancouver), a construction company built a road into the Fraser River to access a small island known as Big Bar. The company was extracting large quantities of sand & gravel from the river, which the island provided access to. The result of the road-building, authorized by the Department of Fisheries & Oceans (DFO), resulted in the deaths of some 2 million Salmon (www.thetyee.ca).

According to a January 2006 press release by Mosquito Consolidated Gold Mines, Ltd.,

“The demand for high quality gravel and sand products is at an all-time high and is expected to continue beyond the 2010 Olympics. Local supplies have been or are being depleted and new supplies are desperately required.”
(Mosquito Consolidated, Press Release, January 2006)

Gravel and sand, referred to as ‘aggregate’, is mined from pits, blasted and crushed from hard rock quarries, or removed from rivers. The Fraser River alone accounts for some 20 % of all gravel & sand acquired from the Georgia Basin (the lower mainland region of rivers & deltas).

In recent years (beginning in 2004 when DFO & Land & Water BC greatly expanded quarry operations), this has been done under the pretext of flood control—removing large amounts of gravel that result from extremely high spring run-offs of mountain snow packs. Despite this, many of the gravel/sand removals have occurred in areas that do little to remove the dangers of flooding.

In mid-January 2008, the BC government announced a major gravel mining operation would occur that same month, despite the threat it presents to wild salmon. The government would spend $564,000 to build a causeway part way across the Fraser River so that gravel miners could remove up to 400,000 cubic meters of river gravel from Seabird Island, near Chilliwack.

“In addition, the government is waiving a potential $200,000 in royalties on a commodity that could be worth tens of millions of dollars in economic activity, with the Seabird Island First Nation the principal beneficiary…”
(“Gravel mining on Fraser River called threat to fish,” by Scott Simpson, Vancouver Sun, January 12, 2008).

Solicitor General John Les cited the necessity of gravel mining to reduce the risk of flooding in the Fraser Valley, and that it was done in consultation with the Department of Oceans & Fisheries (DFO). However,

“An operation on the Fraser two years ago erupted in controversy after fisheries students at BC Institute of Technology found that a temporary causeway installed at another gravel bar had rerouted the river way from spawning beds, leading to the death of millions of infant salmon.

“A federal study last year found negligible flood protection benefits to gravel mining in the river, compared to the potential threat to infant pink salmon and other salmon species that are nested within the river’s gravel bed in late winter and early spring…”
(Vancouver Sun, January 12, 2008)

According to John Werring, a salmon conservation biologist with the Suzuki Foundation, in some parts of the river lowering the stream bed through excavation could reduce the risk of flooding, although only in a minor way, stating

“But that’s not where they’re mining. They’re just taking easily accessible grave. Scalping gravel bars won’t have any benefit against flooding… Meanwhile there is a huge impact on the fish.”
(Vancouver Sun, January 12, 2008)

Frank Kwak, president of the Fraser Valley Salmon Society, who studied the impact of gravel mining in 2006 on Salmon spawning, said the impact then was “huge”:

“At the moment this 400,000 [cubic-meter removal] is going to be the biggest that’s ever occurred on the Fraser in one shot… I’m also concerned that they [the government] continue to argue that this is for flood protection when in reality there is all kinds of science out there that shows it’s not going to help.”
(Vancouver Sun, January 12, 2008)

BCIT instructor Marvin Rosenau, who was on-site during the 2006 fish kill, said “there is the potential for a major de-watering of the river again. It looks remarkably like the 2006 project” (Vancouver Sun, January 12, 2008).

Vancouver Sun columnist Stephen Hume noted that “every year since 1993 the Fraser has been prominent on the annual list of endangered rivers. Threats include gravel extraction, logging, farming and suburban sprawl So it’s no surprise that, even as we get more grim news about the prospects for wild salmon survival, another huge gravel mining operation prepares to scalp salmon spawning habitat.

After studying 30 years of data, the David Suzuki Foundation found shocking salmon declines. Since 1990, stocks plummeted by 70 to 93 per cent among ten representative BC populations.”
(“If it’s salmon or money, the salmon lose every time,” Stephen Hume, Vancouver Sun, January 30, 2008)

Humes links DFO’s mismanagement as a major reason BC salmon stocks are in such decline, including the department’s subservience to industry.

Ski Resort Expansion & 2010

“The mountains, pure & undisturbed, are essential to the survival of all people. Mountain ecosystems provide us Indian people with all of our physical, cultural and spiritual needs… the mountains are our shelter and protection… The most powerful medicines are collected in the mountains. The source of all water comes from the mountains. The mountains are the most spiritual place for us.”
(Elder quoted in “Our Elders Tell Us,” Our Mountain Worlds & Traditional Knowledge, 2002)

Since 2000, the main Native struggles in the BC southern interior have been against the construction, or expansion, of mountain ski resorts.

At Sun Peaks (Skwelkwek’welt) ski resort near Kamloops, over 70 arrests have been made of mostly Secwepemc youth & elders. They’ve blocked roads, occupied buildings, established protection camps and sent delegations to Europe, Japan, and across N. America. This is all part of their campaign against a massive $294-million expansion of Sun Peaks, including new hotels & condominiums, more ski hills and golf courses, all of which involve large-scale destruction of mountain habitat.

At Melvin Creek, just north of Mt. Currie, the St’at’imc have established the Sutikalh camp to stop a planned $530-million ski resort. The camp was first set up in May 2000, and continues to be occupied to this day. It has served as a rallying point for community resistance to the resort, which also forced many chiefs & councilors to publicly oppose it as well.

In Cheam, 2003, several Pilalt were arrested after blockading a train during protests over logging on Mt. Cheam, the site of a proposed ski resort by Resorts West. Plans include 20 ski lifts on 8 different peaks, three resort villages, a golf course, and as many as 500,000 visitors a year.

Two resorts are planned for Merritt (Nlaka’Pamux territory), along the Coquilhala Highway.
At Valemount, Revelstoke & Blue River, new resorts have also been approved, while the Jumbo Glacier Alpine Resort (near Invermere), has been approved for a $450-million expansion (all of these are in Secwepemc territory). Near Kelowna (Okanagan), Big White and Crystal Mountain were both approved for over $100 million in expansion. And there are more.

This sharp increase in resort development is largely due to government promotion of the industry, which included the establishment of a Ski Resort Task Force in 2004. The task force was largely comprised of members of the resort industry (inc. Darcy Alexander, Vice-President of Sun Peaks), and their primary goal was to increase ski resort development in the province. The group released a Resort Strategy & Action Plan in 2004, which made clear the connection between the industry’s rapid growth and 2010:

“The Resort Strategy links to the Spirit of 2010 Tourism Strategy & the International Trade & Investment to 2010 Strategy. All these strategies are designed to grow tourism throughout the province, maximize opportunities created by hosting 2010… and attract national & international investment.”
Expansion of the ski resort industry was accomplished largely through Land & Water BC, Inc., a government agency that sells & leases ‘Crown’ land. The LWBC streamlined the application process and made other changes to increase certainty for investors, improve transportation infrastructure, etc.
Despite their portrayal as being eco-friendly, ‘low-impact’ tourism, ski resorts cause large-scale ecological destruction to mountain habitat. If you think about it, building a resort town along with massive ski runs & chairlifts on top of a mountain obviously has a big impact on the environment. There is extensive logging for roads, ski runs, parking lots, town centers, golf courses, and townhouses. Then there’s water, sewage, & electrical systems. On top of all this there is the operation of the ski resort itself.
Besides the influx of millions of tourists into mountain resorts annually, their activities include not only skiing, but also heli-skiing, cat-skiing, and snow-mobiling. Most ski resorts also use fake snow that contaminates the land & nearby water (and many are beginning to use recycled ‘waste’ water to make fake snow). In the summer there may be mountain biking, dirt-biking, festivals, etc. All these people & ‘sports’ activities, in mountain habitats, adds to the ecological impact of resorts on wildlife, land, & water systems.

Nor are ski resorts just about skiers & snowboarders; they are also major sources of money in real estate deals (as are the Olympics), the selling & leasing of land. Most mountains are claimed by Canada as Crown land, and it is the provincial government that is both the regulator of the resort industry, as well as its main promoter. The government & resort corporations are also the main beneficiaries, gaining huge profits from real estate deals.

The government often leases out areas for ski runs, while selling land to be used for the resort town, far below market value. In turn, the resort corporation then re-sells or leases parcels out for condominiums, shops, hotels, etc. For the provincial government, selling land below market value encourages investment by corporations, and is a form of subsidizing them (like tax-breaks & building infrastructure such as roads). In the end, what’s it to government? The land is stolen & represents primitive accumulation; that is, capital acquired at little or no cost, so it’s all profit anyway!

Investment to 2010 Strategy and Gateway

“As Canada’s trade focus shifts to the rapidly growing economies in the Asia-Pacific region, BC’s prominence as the Pacific Gateway is increasing both nationally and internationally. Booming trade between N. America and the Asia-Pacific gives BC an opportunity to capitalize on its geographic advantage…”
(“Collaboration is key for Canada’s Pacific Gateway,” Port of Vancouver Special Advertising Report to The Vancouver Sun, November 2007)

According to a 2007 Statistics Canada report:
“Canada’s merchandise exports to China in the first seven months of 2007 have grown at more than twice the pace of its imports on the strength of the Asian giant’s demand for Canada’s natural resources… Canadian exports to China surged 43 % from a year earlier… Exports to China nearly doubled to almost $8 billion between 2002 and 2006, the report said.”
(Eric Beauchesne, “Benefit for Canada in China’s appetite,” The Province, Nov. 9, 2007)

The Investment to 2010 Strategy and Asia Pacific Gateway Strategy are interrelated plans to greatly expand economic trade with Asia, especially the export of resources, using 2010 as leverage to build new infrastructure and to attract investment.

The Asia Pacific Gateway Strategy involves both federal and provincial funding (between $7-10 billion) to expand or build new port facilities in both Vancouver & Prince Rupert, rail-lines, highways, roads, bridges, and oil & gas pipelines. It includes the $3-billion ‘Gateway Project’ in Vancouver’s lower mainland, which involves twinning of the Port Mann Bridge, expansion of Highway 1 and Delta Port facilities & access routes.

The primary resources for export to Asian markets (primarily China) include coal, potash, sulfur, grain, lumber, pulp, oil and gas. These resources are transported by container truck and railway to ports in either Vancouver or Prince Rupert, where they are placed on cargo ships for transport.

A significant part of these plans is the Enbridge Gateway Pipeline, a proposed $4 billion pipeline to bring oil and gas from Alberta’s tar sands to the port at Prince Rupert, for export to the US and China.

Since the early 2000’s, the BC Liberal government has changed legislation and permit requirements for a number of industries, in particular mining, oil and gas, and ski resorts. For some industries, the government also introduced tax deductions. These changes have made it easier—and more profitable-- for companies to gain access to natural resources, to gain permits and licenses, etc. This has resulted in huge increases in all 3 sectors:

• In 2006, exploratory investment in BC mining set a new record of $265 million. In 1999, BC had attracted only $25 million in exploratory investment.

• From 2001 to 2004, oil & gas production in BC increased by 25 per cent. The number of oil wells increased from 750 to 1,144.

• During the same time period, the number of ski resort expansions and new resorts also increased (see above).

Anti-Gateway Opposition
In Vancouver & the lower mainland, several community groups have formed to oppose the
Gateway Project (not the entire Asia-Pacific Gateway Strategy, of which it forms a part). Their main concerns are:

• increased air pollution & impact on air quality from increased CO2 emissions.

• More traffic congestion (not less)

• Public transit (inefficient)

• Escalating costs of project

• Loss of farm land

More Info:

Mining Watch: www.miningwatch.ca
Society Promoting Environmental Conservation
(SPEC): www.spec.bc.ca
Alberta Oil Sands: www.oilsandstruth.org

Eagle Ridge Bluffs: www.eagleridgebluffs.ca

Gateway Program: www.gatewaysucks.org
Stop Gateway: www.stopgateway.ca
Livable Region Coalition: www.livableregion.ca
Citizens Concerned with Highway Expansion
(CCHE): www.cche.vcn.bc.ca

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