Canadian Press reports that Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans has slammed the B.C. provincial government’s proposal to expand the Sea-to-Sky Highway, a key part of Vancouver’s 2010 bid.
In a letter to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency last month, Debra Hughes of the Fisheries’ habitat enhancement branch says her department “is concerned with the Ministry of Transportation’s assertion that this project will not result in any residual effects”.
The department recommended that the project application be rejected as it stands because, among other things, it doesn’t spell out how fish-bearing streams on the route will be protected or in some cases justify why they have to be damaged.
The $600-million project is intended to upgrade the treacherous two-lane highway to Whistler, site of some of the 2010 Winter Games venues, about a 90-minute drive north of Vancouver.
Hughes also indicates in her letter that the application provided only preliminary information on the expanded highway’s alignment, types of stream crossings and ways of minimizing the impact on fish habitat.
It also doesn’t explain whether the province had exhausted other options before affecting salmon streams – a Fisheries requirement.
Meanwhile, the CBC reports that a local geological engineer, Frank Baumann, is sounding the alarm about the possibility of a landslide in Whistler following heavy rains in the area.
Baumann says the wet weather caused a massive chunk of earth poised above Whistler to begin slipping down the mountain.
He added that scientists have known about the possibility of a slide for years – but says he’s never seen the unstable land mass move as much as it has in recent weeks.
“So really, at any time, you could get a big chunk of this breaking off and blocking Fitzsimmons Creek, and creating what we call a debris flood which would then, in about 10 minutes, make it down to the main village area”.
Baumann told the CBC it could have an impact on the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games.
He says building a debris bypass barrier could stop the slide from reaching the village. But it’s unclear whether the province or Whistler would build the barrier because the province owns the land but it’s within Whistler’s boundaries.
