Jasper decision deferred
Verdict on controversial project deferred
Controversial plans for a privately owned observation deck extending from a Jasper National Park highway turnout will be deferred for two weeks while the government reviews feedback.
Jasper National Park superintendent Greg Fenton was expected to announce the decision Tuesday on Brewster Travel Canada’s planned Glacier Discovery Walk.
The walk would replace a roadside turnout on Highway 93 with a 400-metre interpretive trail with a glass-floored observation deck extending 30 metres into the Sunwapta Valley.
Instead, park spokeswoman Alisson Ogle said Fenton’s decision was deferred for about two more weeks to review the “large number of comments” the proposal has garnered, as well as further review of a November 2011 environmental assessment compiled by Golder Associates Ltd.
“It’s just taking longer than we thought,” Ogle said. “We appreciate the dialogue we’re having.”
The proposal has sparked opposition from critics who see it as a step toward privatization of Canada’s national parks.
Earlier this month, Green party Leader Elizabeth May called the proposed development “a very slippery slope that threatens the whole principle of national parks.”
A petition started by Jasper Environmental Association co-chair Jill Seaton garnered nearly 180,000 signatures after it was taken up by Avaaz, an international activist organization that emailed 600,000 Canadian subscribers and posted the petition online.
Seaton said she’s glad to hear about the quantity of feedback and the resulting deliberations.
“Parks Canada is always saying they’re not getting support from Canadians anymore,” Seaton said. “It’s very heartening to know that Canadians feel this way.”
Parks Canada estimates about 82,000 tourists each year visit the 500-metre-long roadside turnoff on Highway 93, 6.5 kilometres north of Brewster’s Icefield Centre.
Parks Canada is always saying they’re not getting support from Canadians anymore. It’s very heartening to know that Canadians feel this way.
Jasper Park spokeswoman Alisson Ogle, commenting on the quantity of comments made on the proposal for a privately owned observation deck
That qualifies as a “disturbed” site, Brewster says, minimizing any environmental impact from the proposed walkway.
The attraction would be staffed via Brewster’s Icefield Centre. Public parking would be closed, but the company would ferry visitors to a free viewpoint at the site.
Brewster expects the attraction would double visitors to the site, with guided walks costing between $15 and $30.
The project’s selling points have been highlighted by Brewster, including a design feted at the 2011 World Architecture Festival in Barcelona, cohesion with Parks Canada’s strategic plans to encourage public participation, and approval through consultations with Sucker Creek, Alexis, Big Horn and O’chiese First Nations.
Seaton worries that the project will funnel tourists away from the townsite, increase bus traffic on a stretch of highway closed to commercial trucking.
The 76-page environmental assessment reads “like a tourist brochure,” Seaton said, and doesn’t prove the development wouldn’t harm mountain goat populations.
“The mountain goats are very intolerant of human disturbance, and they’ve done a three-to-four-month study with cameras,” Seaton said. “A study in Grande Cache took 19 years. A three-month study isn’t going to show anything.”
It has been six weeks since the deadline for email feedback, following a series of open houses hosted by Brewster.