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Posts: 52
Joined: 01-08-2007
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The Threat to BC's Bear Heaven
Grizzlies in the Flathead River Valley.
In Flathead Valley, zero people makes paradise for other predators. Not for long? Part one of two.
o
TheTyee.ca
Bruce McLellan has caught more than 150 grizzlies in the Flathead Valley in the past 29 years, some more than once, but he still vividly remembers his first capture.
"We got really excited when we drove in and could see this big bear... bouncing around," McLellan recalls. Then alarm set in -- the tree that had anchored the snare was gone. "He'd gnawed it down!"
Luckily, the cable remained attached to the stump and the young biologist soon had the 290-kilogram bear tranquillized and radio-collared. It was the start of what's become one of the world's longest-running, most in-depth studies of this species.
Since 1978, McLellan -- now a provincial Ministry of Forests senior wildlife habitat ecologist and University of British Columbia adjunct professor -- hasn't missed a year in the Flathead. His research shows that this 1,575-square-kilometre watershed in British Columbia's southeast corner has the highest documented density of grizzlies in inland North America: 65 to 80 for every 1,000 square kilometres. Only salmon-fed coastal grizzlies occur at higher densities.
"What's special about the Flathead," McLellan says, "is that it's a big, wide valley with no people living in it, so the bears can use the whole valley bottom and do what bears do when there's no people around. That's what makes it unique, more than the density.
"And it's not just bears," he adds. Other predators and their prey thrive in the Flathead simply "because no people live there." Unlike every other major valley in southern B.C., this one has no ranches, farms, towns or resorts. Instead, and not coincidentally, it is home to numerous top-of-the-food-chain predators, including grizzlies, black bears, wolves, wolverines, cougars, lynx, martens and fishers.
A 2001 Wildlife Conservation Society report on the Flathead Valley, which stretches across the Canada-U.S. border, states that it "may be the single most important basin for carnivores in the Rocky Mountains," because of its unmatched carnivore species diversity and its "strategic position as a linkage between national parks in both countries" -- Waterton Lakes and Glacier to the south, Banff, Yoho and Kootenay to the north.
History of resource extraction
The Flathead River flows just 50 kilometres within B.C., from its origin about 20 kilometres southeast of Fernie, to the international border. In Montana, where it is called the North Fork of the Flathead, it continues 75 kilometres south, then empties into Flathead Lake. Marking the western boundary of Glacier National Park, the North Fork is federally designated as a Wild and Scenic River.
The entire Flathead Valley is broad and open, rising gently in a series of flat benches and rolling hills. To the east, it is bounded by the dramatic Clark and Livingstone ranges. To the west are the more subdued Macdonald and Whitefish ranges.
One July afternoon two years ago, I paddled the lower Flathead starting about 15 kilometres north of the border. Although there was no sign of any grizzlies, the muddy banks were laced with tracks: sharp hoof-marks of moose, deer and elk -- main prey of the valley's large carnivores -- and wolf prints, some as wide as my hand.
Enveloped by lush riverside greenery, the Flathead felt wild and far removed from civilization. Back on the road, however, there was no denying the human presence.
The Flathead has a century-long history of exploration for oil, gas, coal, and coal-bed methane reserves, with promising discoveries, though no commercial production. Industrial-scale logging started later, in the 1950s, but has been more intensive. In 1980, at the height of a decade-long mountain pine beetle outbreak, more than 200,000 cubic metres of wood rolled out of the valley. The legacy of these activities is an extensive network of gravel roads that criss-cross the watershed.
New roads continue to be built, most recently across a forested ridge above Foisey Creek, a headwater tributary of the Flathead. This is where Sudbury-based Cline Mining Corporation intends to develop an open-pit coal mine, hoping to extract two million tonnes of coal annually for 20 years. The proposal is currently being evaluated by B.C.'s environmental assessment office -- and fought by environmentalists.
'Staggeringly high' selenium levels
"Right now, the most immediate threat to the Flathead is coal development," says John Bergenske, executive director of Wildsight, an East Kootenays-based conservation organization. "We don't want to see any coal mining in the Flathead, full stop."
Of particular concern are potential impacts on the watershed's 300 or more species of aquatic invertebrates and 10 fish species, including bull trout and westslope cutthroat trout.
For Cline Mining CEO Ken Bates, the nearby Elk River, with its long coal-mining history, is proof that the Foisey Creek project poses no threat. "On the Elk River, there are mines that produce 26 million tonnes of coal a year without any problem," Bates says. "The Elk is a pristine river. The fishing's great."
Richard Hauer sees it differently. "I personally would never eat a fish out the Elk River," declares the University of Montana professor of limnology, who has been studying freshwater ecosystems in the Flathead Valley since 1976.
Among the findings from Hauer's research on Michel Creek, an Elk River tributary associated with the active Coal Mountain mine, are concentrations of selenium that are "staggeringly, stunningly higher" than those in Foisey Creek or the Flathead River, as well as significantly reduced invertebrate diversity. "The sensitive species all get knocked out," says Hauer, "and only the tolerant species are left."
Industry eyes the valley
Like many Montanans, Rich Moy shares Hauer's passion for protecting the Flathead. "It's probably one of the most undisturbed ecosystems left in the lower 48 states," says Moy, chairman of Montana's Flathead Basin Commission. "And we're downstream. We have nothing to gain and everything to lose."
In the late 1970s, Montanans steadfastly opposed an open-pit coal mine proposed for a B.C. site just west of the river and 10 kilometres north of the border. The scheme was finally shelved after being rejected by the International Joint Commission.
Now industry is eyeing the valley again. In addition to Cline Mining's proposal, Western Canadian Coal Corp. is promoting an open-pit mine on the Flathead floodplain, just downstream from Foisey Creek, and BP Canada Energy Co. plans to spend three to five years and $100 million investigating coal-bed methane production in an area that includes the upper Flathead Valley.
In 2003, renewed interest in the Flathead's resources prompted B.C. and Montana to sign an environmental co-operation pact. Four years later, the two governments are still arguing over the action plan.
Frustrated by the lack of progress, Montana governor Brian Schweitzer recently joined the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and American Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in calling for a cumulative-effects assessment of all anticipated developments in the valley, under Canada's Environmental Assessment Act. Fisheries and Oceans Canada has acknowledged the act's applicability to the Cline Mining proposal, but an assessment won't be undertaken until federal and provincial officials agree on the process.
Deal with logging firm
Discussions about forestry activities in the valley have progressed somewhat more smoothly. In May 2005, three conservation groups -- Wildsight, ForestEthics and the World Wildlife Fund -- signed an agreement with Tembec Inc. as part of the company's successful bid for Forest Stewardship Council certification in B.C.
"The essence of the agreement is that we will manage identified HCVFs [High Conservation Value Forests] and maintain their attributes," explains Troy Hromadnik, Tembec's vice president for western Canada. "It's the rules of engagement for how we will do this."
Under the agreement, Tembec, the main forestry company operating in the Flathead, has suspended logging and road building in almost half of the valley, to give conservation organizations time to pursue long-term protection strategies. The deferral won't last forever, though; according to Tembec, the company "will very likely require operational access to this area within the next four years."
"It's not that we don't want to see any logging in the Flathead," Bergenske says. "What we're looking for is to make sure it's managed appropriately and that there are [unlogged] reserves in key parts of the watershed."
National park envisioned
Despite the regenerating clearcuts and remnants of old petroleum exploration camps, despite the crates of mining test cores stacked beside a raw new road, the Flathead still feels unspoiled. But a piecemeal approach to keeping it wild may not work for much longer. That's why Wildsight, the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, and the Yellowstone to Yukon (Y2Y) Conservation Initiative are jointly pushing for more permanent protection.
The groups are seeking national park status for the corner of the valley that lies adjacent to Alberta's Waterton Lakes National Park and Montana's Glacier National Park. They also want the B.C. government to establish a Wildlife Management Area that would encompass the Flathead and parts of the neighbouring Wigwam, Elk and Bull watersheds. This proposed corridor would allow wide-ranging mammals, such as grizzlies and wolves, safe passage between the Flathead-Waterton-Glacier core wildlife reserve and the more northerly haven formed by Banff, Kootenay and Yoho national parks.
It's an ambitious proposition, but according to Bergenske, no less than the Flathead deserves. "The diversity of plant and animal life in this valley is unparalleled in North America," he says. "We need a plan that protects this magnificent place." Tomorrow, part 2: the push to make the Flathead Valley a national park.
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Joined: 01-08-2007
Flathead: Next National Park?
The Flathead River Valley. Photo Sabine Jesson.
Pristine valley 'vital' for grizzlies, ripe for development. Last of two parts.
By Frances Backhouse
Published: January 3, 2008
TheTyee.ca
The section of the Rocky Mountains that straddles the Canada-U.S. border has long been recognized as a region of outstanding biological diversity, often referred to as the Crown of the Continent ecosystem. But few British Columbians realize that their province owns a share of this treasure in the form of the little-known Flathead Valley.
In recognition of the Crown of the Continent's natural beauty and abundant wildlife, Waterton Lakes National Park was established in Alberta's southern Rockies in 1895. Fifteen years later, the Americans created Glacier National Park next door in northern Montana. In 1932, the two parks were honoured as the world's first international peace park.
In 1995, UNESCO designated Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park a World Heritage Site. But it noted that the adjoining section of British Columbia's Flathead Valley was "a missing element," and recommended that the site boundaries eventually be expanded to include it.
This was not a new idea. Waterton's first superintendent, John George "Kootenai" Brown, wrote in 1911: "It seems advisable to greatly enlarge this park . . . it might be well to have a preserve and breeding grounds in conjunction with the United States Glacier Park." Others also espoused this idea throughout the following decades, all without success.
In 1980, the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society took up the cause and began pushing for establishment of a large provincial park in the Flathead's southeast corner. "Fifteen years later, we got Akamina-Kishinena Provincial Park," recalls Bob Peart, one of the original campaigners, "but it was woefully inadequate." At 109 square kilometres, he says, it was too small, lacked important valley-bottom habitat, and, like many B.C. parks, remained open to hunting.
'Peace Park Plus'
Undeterred, conservationists set their sights on a new goal: a national park. As proposed by CPAWS, the 405-square-kilometre park would incorporate Akamina-Kishinena Provincial Park and extend from the U.S. border to Haig Brook, about 25 kilometres to the north, and from the Flathead River's west side to the Alberta border. According to a 2001 Wildlife Conservation Society report, this area, which represents approximately one third of B.C.'s share of the watershed, is "especially vital for carnivores."
Dubbed "Peace Park Plus," this new proposal quickly gained momentum. First, forestry company Tembec Inc. offered to relinquish its logging rights within the projected park area in exchange for financial assistance to upgrade its mill at nearby Elko. Then in 2002, Jean Chrétien, as prime minister, announced federal interest in the park idea.
Since that time, however, the plan has been in limbo. Tembec's original offer is no longer on the table, as the company has already completed the mill upgrade, and lack of cooperation from the B.C. government has prevented Parks Canada from moving forward.
"The province isn't interested in a feasibility study for a national park and that's kind of the beginning and the end of it," says Doug Harvey, Parks Canada's chief for new park proposals. On the other hand, there is support for a feasibility study from the Regional District of East Kootenay, the City of Fernie, and the Ktunaxa Nation, whose traditional territory includes the Flathead Valley.
'We don't need any more parks'
One outspoken critic of the proposal is Mike Sosnowski, a Fernie-based backcountry snowmobile-tour operator who was elected as a regional district director in 2005. "People in the area are opposed to the Flathead area becoming a park because of the restrictive nature of national parks," Sosnowski says. "If it's a national park there can't be any more logging, there can't be any mining, there can't be any oil and gas, any hunting, any fishing, any random camping. . . . We don't need any more parks."
Even if the provincial government was to give its blessing for a feasibility study, it could still take a decade for the park-establishment process to unfold. No matter, Peart says; he isn't about to give up now. "I've been working on this issue for more than 20 years," he says. "I'm still as keen as ever."
Meanwhile, for provincial biologist Bruce McLellan the debate about establishing a national park in B.C.'s corner of the Crown of the Continent ecosystem obscures a more critical issue. After nearly three decades of studying the Flathead Valley's grizzlies he believes that the one thing that would most undermine the bears' prosperity here is development.
Settlers coming?
"The biggest threat in the long term is that someone decides we should settle the valley and put in homes and ranches and all that," McLellan says. "People are not good with attractants and bears get lured into people's yards by compost or beehives or fruit trees or garbage." When wild bears become "problem bears," they are relocated or shot. "That's why there are relatively few bears in all these settled valleys," he says. And why the B.C. portion of the Flathead, which has no resident humans, supports the highest documented density of grizzlies in inland North America.
While other conservation groups concentrate on watershed-wide initiatives in the Flathead, the Nature Conservancy of Canada has focused its attention on the valley's privately owned real estate. In 2002, the group purchased a small riverside property along the international border where a hunting guide-outfitter and his family had lived.
"It's the only piece of private property down in that part of the Flathead Valley and when we purchased the property it was unzoned, so it was quite ripe for some type of development," says Dave Hillary, the conservancy's Canadian Rocky Mountains program manager. Under the conservancy's stewardship, the land -- just under one square kilometre -- will remain in its natural state.
Timber company eyes development
Another area of interest is a 9.9-square-kilometre block of private land that straddles the Flathead River near the valley's north end. Commonly known as the Flathead townsite, the property, now owned by Tembec, was surveyed in the 1920s in anticipation of an oil boom; but the oil wells were never drilled and the town never built. Now, with recreational property sales booming around Fernie, there is renewed interest in the site's settlement possibilities.
In October 2006, Tembec included the property in a portfolio of company lands being offered for sale. These properties, explains Dennis Rounsville, Tembec's president of forest products, "potentially have value beyond just growing trees."
In its information package for prospective buyers, Tembec acknowledges its 2004 agreement with the Nature Conservancy to place a 10-year moratorium on subdivision or residential development of the townsite. It also notes that: "The agreement does not restrict other uses within the zoning such as backcountry lodges or guest ranches."
Whether the yet-unsold townsite property will be the wedge that opens the Flathead Valley to settlement -- with the attendant risks McLellan predicts for grizzlies and other wildlife -- remains to be seen.
Joined: 01-08-2007
What ever happened to the Nature Conservancy of Canada?
There are so many areas in or near the proposed Mist Mountain area that have nature conservancy signs at the start of the trails but do these signs mean anything? Are they non motorized trails? or has the Nature Conservancy just vanished?
How is this Mist Mountain proposal going to affect our recreational areas? What is going to happen to all the amazing trails from Corbin to Ram Creek? Is the Wigwam in danger now as well? The only right decision is for the RDEK and the City of Fernie to not support this project and to withhold support of anything less than a Wilderness and Rereation Conservation area for everything From Waterton to Coal Creek and Coal Creek to Grasmere. Fernie and area needs to make the decision do we want to be a world tourism destination known for our amazing nature and wilderness or do we want to be a Methane producer known for our motels and bar fights.
Joined: 06-03-2007
Absolutely not!
We want to be known for our transient winter population and bar fights.
We also want to be known for all of our poor paying service industry jobs and astronomical housing costs. We want to be known as a the community that shuns and chases away all resource industry jobs that pay REAL MONEY!
Oh and lets not forget, we want to be known as the community where people always got their hand stuck out looking for subsidies for this and that because they really can't afford to live here!
This is definitely the direction we want to go!
Joined: 01-08-2007
SO ARE YOU GOING TO BE ONE OF THE QUALIFIED GUYS MAKING THE REAL MONEY ON THESE WELLS?
I know that I could work on this project but I'm also qualified trained and experienced. However I'd rather make minimum wage then have this project go through and destroy everything that makes Fernie great and a true world destination. I want my children to be able to experience nature the way I have. I don't want to just tell them stories of when I was theie age we had....
Joined: 23-12-2006
ya, even if you are qualified on the drilling team, that is such a short term project that will actually be happening as part of the cbm process.
Once the well is drilled and the gas is flowing there is only going to be a few servicemen jobs to go check the wells from time to time.
Nothing like the mines which are providing well paid long-term jobs with security here in the valley.
For all you PRO CBM people out there... be sure to send a comment to the government stating your support for the project. You can do it quickly and conveniently here - http://cccbm.org/take-action-write-e-mail.... ANTI CBM people can of course use the form to send their concerns as well.
Joined: 01-08-2007
SO ARE YOU GOING TO BE ONE OF THE QUALIFIED GUYS MAKING THE REAL MONEY ON THESE WELLS?
I know that I could work on this project but I'm also qualified trained and experienced. However I'd rather make minimum wage then have this project go through and destroy everything that makes Fernie great and a true world destination. I want my children to be able to experience nature the way I have. I don't want to just tell them stories of when I was their age we had....
Joined: 06-03-2007
No, hell no, I'm with you! I want to get a job as a waiter or something and kiss tourist a$$'s for tips. Then I could afford to get together with 3 or 4 other dirt bags and rent the room above some yuppy's garage or maybe his basement suite for 2k a month or so. This is what makes Fernie great!
Joined: 23-12-2006
LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT MAN!
Joined: 18-07-2007
Fernie free heels nails it on the head once again. He or she has got the hutzpa to tell it like it is. The hypocrasy of sannook and others on this site know no bounds. Typical nimby bullshit.
Joined: 23-12-2006
steve your being the hypocrite, if it wasn't for the booming tourism and development here you would be out of business.