Editor:
I read the interesting letter from Louise Menard, chief operating officer of Golder Associates in Canada, in response to a letter from Jim Pissot, executive director of the WildCanada Conservation Alliance.
Ms. Menard’s letter completely fails to address critical issues arising from Golder’s recent Environmental Impact Statement and the review of that report conducted by the Town’s consultant, MSES of Calgary.
My own experience includes five years as chief engineer of Canmore Mines Ltd. and 40 years of consulting while living in Canmore and working, as president of Norwest Resource Consultants from a head office in Calgary, for clients in the resource business, coal and oilsands. This included 10 years directing Norwest’s work on the Three Sisters lands from 1990 to 2000.
I find it strange that MSES worked with Golder on their EIS, assisting in the collection of baseline data, and then had the unenviable task of carrying out an independent review of the same report for the Town.
In all my time consulting I never encountered such an arrangement. Nevertheless, MSES did an excellent job of reviewing Golder’s work and found a host of deficiencies, particularly disappointing for Golder and their client, PriceWaterhouse, considering that MSES assisted them with the report and must have expressed their concerns during its preparation.
Ms. Menard’s comments on the high quality of the work done by Golder in this report are, perhaps, a trifle optimistic.
But that is not all. When my company, Norwest, worked on the project we recommended that the area now occupied by Three Sisters golf course should be reserved for that purpose because:
The area was heavily undermined by workings in up to three coal seams and would be impossible to mitigate safely for residential construction at a reasonable cost though mitigation for a golf course would be possible (Based on the successful construction of Stewart Creek golf course under similar mining conditions);
and the golf course would act as a buffer, and an extension, of the adjacent very narrow wildlife corridor making it “suitable for purpose” rather than a bottleneck.
Golder’s 2002 report followed the same strategy. Indeed, on page 44 their report recommends usage of the area adjacent to the wildlife corridor to be:
Immediately adjacent to the corridor a conservation easement;
next to this a golf course;
then a trail for public use;
and, furthest away from the golf course, large residential lots.
The Three Sisters Golf Course was constructed using these principles and I am told is now 90 per cent complete. Importantly, the 2002 Golder report notes that the wildlife corridors proposed were in keeping with the recommendations contained in the NRCB decision in 1992.
Today Canmore, including its supposedly gullible citizenry, and its supposedly compliant representatives, is presented with a spanking new Environmental Impact Statement by Golder that totally abandons the principles outlined in their 2002 report and, wonder of wonders, suggests that, at the behest of the receiver, the golf course becomes a residential area. A contradiction of their own 2002 report.
So Ms. Menard should not be terribly surprised when Mr. Pissot says that PwC have probably insisted that the EIS prepared by Golder must accept that the almost complete Three Sisters golf course should be abandoned while the land on which it is located, and a large area to the northeast of the golf course, should be planned for mid- and low-density housing even if, in the view of many people, including yours truly, this destroys the wildlife corridor.
She should not be surprised since PwC are the client and if they make a serious mistake Golder has two choices: One is to extricate itself from the project, which Norwest did in similar circumstances in 2000. The other is to continue to do their best in a difficult situation, preparing a report which leaves a great deal to be desired and adopts a desperate idea like a wildlife fence to save the situation. It reminds me of the drowning man clutching at a straw. Except in this case the man is clutching at a fence, and an electrified one at that.
Gerry Stephenson,
Canmore
