Residents say road work betrays promise to safeguard wetlands
The province is betraying its vow to protect ponds and wetlands affected by southwest ring road construction, say critics.
And the project’s main contractor has paid $2.5 million in compensation for the “approved disturbance” of two of the wetlands that have drawn concern, said a provincial official.
A citizen watchdog group whose lobbying helped lead the province to adopt more stringent environmental protocols on the $1.4-billion project contends three water bodies near the Weaselhead area are being damaged by the work, contrary to assurances.
“What does it mean when you issue a ministerial order when you don’t enforce it?” said Jeff Brookman of the group YYC Cares.
“It’s supposed to have gotten better — it’s gotten worse. The system is broken.”
He said 30-metre construction setbacks have often been ignored, while rain runoff from bulldozed earth has fouled water features after a berm breach.
“It turned a cappuccino colour, it had been clear,” Brookman said of the so-called Beaver Pond in the area that’s popular with naturelovers and student groups.
“A year ago there was a fence protecting it and now it’s gone.”
Last January, following recommendations by the province’s Environment Appeals Board, Alberta Environment Minister Shannon Phillips said protection of wetlands along the 31-kilometre construction route would be improved, citing a failure to adhere to mitigation policies.
Alberta Environment and Parks officials say a ministerial order has been properly followed by construction crews and that provincial officials have been monitoring the effects of work.
But there have been some problems recently with rains that “breached both a primary and secondary berm into Wetland 07 … and there was flow-through to the Beaver Pond, which shouldn’t have occurred,” said Matt Dykstra, spokesman for Phillips.
“There was no adverse effect on the wetland.”
Brookman said he and a colleague observed a bulldozer filling in Wetland 07, contrary to the ministerial order, and that “the operator and the supervisor in the pickup saw us photographing the wetland (and) the bulldozer moved out of the wetland and parked southwest of the location.”
But Dykstra said the crew has “approval to disturb that area.”
Nonetheless, he said repairs and improvements to protective berms and installation of an additional silt fence and matting have been done. Contractor KGL has paid $2.5 million to fund wetlands replacement “as compensation for the approved disturbance of Wetlands 07 and 08,” said Dykstra, adding such payments are common under provincial policy.
“Impacts to some wetlands simply could not be avoided in constructing the southwest Calgary ring road,” he said, adding most of that sum was paid under the previous wetlands policy. “They are complying with all parts of the ministerial order.”
Failure to finish the work by May 2022 would see a major portion of its right-of-way revert to the ownership of the Tsuut’ina First Nation, which would keep its $342 million in compensation.
The road is meant to ease gridlock in the city’s southwest.