Bighorn sheep licking de-icer salt on Highway 16 in Jasper National Park

Report to Parks Canada and the Public on the Current State of

Jasper National Park

with Reference to Observations and Recommendations from 2002

Prepared for submission to Parks Canada, Jasper National Park                   

Prepared by Jasper Environmental Association

Box 2198, Jasper, Alberta  T0E 1E0  ·  780-852-4152  ·  jea2@telus.net

www.jasperenvironmental.org

January 29, 2007

Summary

The Jasper Environmental Association monitors Parks Canada’s efforts to manage the ecological health of Jasper National Park. This document follows up on our 2002 “report card” for the park.

As of 2006, we find that Parks Canada has made progress in protecting fish, removing motorized watercraft, getting commercial raft companies off the Maligne River, doing prescribed burns, closing some trails and areas to benefit grizzlies and elk, consolidating some of the agency’s facilities, operating campgrounds located in wildlife corridors more carefully, doing research on wildlife movement, prohibiting dogs in critical caribou habitat, prohibiting invasive forms of geo-caching, rehabilitating Pyramid Island and resolving trail-related problems at Cavell Meadows. We congratulate Parks Canada for these efforts.

We continue to find fault with Parks Canada for failing to arrange public transport to Mt. Edith Cavell, for selling logs cut in a controversial tree-thinning program, for not heeding the Auditor General’s warning about promoting the park for tourism at the expense of ecological integrity, for continuing to charge entry fees to school groups, for not controlling human-use to better protect wildlife habitat in the Three Valley Confluence area surrounding the town of Jasper, for sacrificing habitat to business activities in the Maligne Valley, for failing to get control of mountain-biking and outfitted horse use, for failing to properly protect a caribou herd in imminent danger of extirpation, for letting the operations of outfitters and lodges in the Tonquin Valley continue to do harm, for continuing to use wildlife-attracting sodium chloride as a de-icer on park highways despite the general adoption of non-attracting liquid magnesium chloride in other jurisdictions, for failing to ensure proper enforcement of speed limits in the park’s wildlife-kill zones and for failing to lessen the light pollution at Whistlers tramway terminal, Marmot Basin and the Jasper Park Lodge entry road.

Since our 2002 report we note that Parks Canada has allowed Marmot Basin ski area to open the Outer Limits run into Whistlers Creek, to begin making artificial snow, to investigate summer operation at the area and to continue piecemeal development without providing the agency with a required long-range plan. We are also disappointed that Parks Canada has allowed guided mountain-biking to begin, has supported the Jasper chamber of commerce in a new plan to force all businesses in the park to pay for joint tourism promotion (even going so far as to offer to collect the fees), to use money intended for improving ecological integrity to fund the Jasper Trails Project, which will actually encourage more human use of critical wildlife habitat in the Three Valley Confluence and provide new trails there, to accept Canadian National Railway’s inadequate response to their spilled-grain problem (attracts wildlife to the tracks) or to ensure that the railway reduces wildlife mortality on the eve of what promises to be a large increase in train traffic, or to have a plan in place for the large workforce anticipated as the oil pipeline through the park is doubled.

In future, we see a major increase in park visitation from China, India and other Asian countries experiencing economic booms; we think that the agency will be pressured to devolve its business-licensing authority to the Jasper municipal government, and we worry that climate change will have a serious impact on the ecological integrity of the park. Parks Canada seems not to be doing much about these obvious and troubling issues.

To protect Jasper National Park better, we think that Parks Canada should stop helping the tourism industry promote the park, should ensure that speed limits are properly enforced, should switch over from rock salt de-icer to liquid magnesium chloride anti-icer, should prevent passing in wildlife-kill zones, should close the upper Maligne road in winter to protect caribou, should stop selling the trees it is cutting, should re-direct the Jasper Trails Project to prevent further human incursion into the critical wildlife habitat surrounding the town, should get on with designating only certain trails as open to mountain biking and do field enforcement, should end guided mountain-biking before it gets out of control, should clean up the disgraceful horse-and-lodge situation in the Tonquin Valley, should refuse any further development at Marmot Basin ski area (especially in the absence of a long-range plan), should demand that Canadian National Railways quit attracting wildlife to its tracks and offer better protection for park animals generally, should stop charging entry fees to school groups, and should offer more park interpretation.

1. Introduction

The Jasper Environmental Association is a local conservation group that has been actively monitoring the ecological health of Jasper National Park since 1989. The purpose of this report is to briefly present our information and concerns about the park in 2006, updating our “report card” on the park from 2002. This update is timely, because Parks Canada is in the process of evaluating and possibly modifying its management plan. Park officials have been asking for input from interested parties and groups such as ours. The park recently held its Jasper National Park Management Planning Forum, which some of our members attended.

2. Management decisions taken in 2002 that clearly have benefited the park

In 2002 we noted that Parks Canada had made progress in protecting the park by taking the following actions in the five years previous to 2002:

• The reintroduction of mountain whitefish into Lac Beauvert.

• The removal of motorboats and jet-skis from Pyramid Lake.

• Transferring the Maligne River rafting companies to the Sunwapta River. Not particularly good for the Sunwapta, but essential for the Maligne.

• Prescribed burns to recover from too much fire suppression in the past.

• Closures in summer of both the Opal Hills and Maccarib Pass areas when necessary to let grizzlies use these places undisturbed.

• Continued seasonal closures of elk-calving areas to protect people and elk.

• Moving the wardens’ office, modifying the fencing at the Maligne Horse Range and phasing out the Miette woodlot.

• Adjusting operation of Whistler’s Campground to accommodate seasonal wildlife movements.

• Undertaking wildlife movement research in the montane ecoregion.

• Closing Trail #7 to cross-country skiing to improve wildlife use of the Signal Mountain Wildlife Corridor.
  
  

3. Management decisions since 2002 that clearly have benefited the park

We are pleased to note that Parks Canada has made the following improvements in park operations:

• Prohibition of dogs in critical caribou habitat in the Cavell, Maligne Lake, Whistlers Creek, Maligne Range (Skyline Trail), Jonas Creek, Poboktan Creek and Tonquin Valley areas.

• Prohibition of public physical geo-caching (hiding objects where they can be found by anyone using a GPS unit and following directions that are found on the internet). “Virtual” geo-caching, in which a location is given but no physical object is cached, and the location is an easily accessible spot that will not be harmed by further visitation, is acceptable.

• Rehabilitation of Pyramid Island—including restoration of vegetation, establishment of clearly defined trails, a new bridge and provision of picnic tables—as a joint project with the Friends of Jasper National Park.

• Upgrading of the Cavell Meadows trail and installation of directive signage to help prevent further erosion, trail-braiding and off-trail walking, another joint project with the Friends of Jasper National Park. To prevent damage, this trail is being kept closed in spring until the snow has melted and the trail has dried out. Parks Canada should continue to close this trail in spring to protect the vegetation and any caribou that may still use the area for calving.
  
  
  

4. Issues on which action was required in 2002, but that still exist today

We are not pleased to report that the following problems from 2002 remain unresolved in 2006:

• Still no apparent progress on public transport to Mt. Edith Cavell

• Lack of government funding has put Parks in the position of having to sell    logs in order to pay for tree removal to protect built-up areas from fire. The JEA fears this could lead to more logging to generate money for other Parks projects the government should be funding.

• While Parks Canada states that it is working to “increase awareness and support for the natural and cultural heritage of the park,” the Auditor General cautioned against recruiting tourism at the expense of ecological integrity.

• School groups continue to be charged entry fees. This is clearly against the national-parks mandate for education, and it is preventing many school groups from making educational use of the park.

• Little progress has been made in ensuring the viability of wildlife corridors, habitat effectiveness and security areas for prey and predators in the Three Valley Confluence area surrounding the town of Jasper. Grizzly security areas in the 3VC are at 53 percent effectiveness but should be at 68 percent.

• No promised “key actions” have been taken to maintain and improve grizzly bear habitat in the Maligne Valley. Instead, Parks Canada is allowing an increase of staff accommodation by 500 percent at Maligne Lake at the end of the Maligne Road. Nor is there any speed-limit enforcement on this road. Parks has still not established any criteria, as promised, for the staff accommodation. Nor is there any action plan in place for the Maligne Valley generally, as stipulated in the management plan.

• Still no sign of designated trails for mountain bikers, in spite of the assurance in the 2000 Management Plan that “Mountain bike use will only be permitted on designated trails.” Trail-user-conflicts appear to be increasing. Rogue trails are still being opened and used by bikers, horse-riders and hikers. Outfitted trips by the two local stables continue to do enormous damage to public trails on the Pyramid Bench and surrounding Jasper Park Lodge.

• Parks Canada still refuses to countenance any closure of the Maligne Road to protect the Maligne caribou herd, the only caribou in the Canadian Rocky Mountains that stay on protected lands year-round. The herd now apparently numbers only eight animals and is in imminent danger of extirpation.

• While the Tonquin caribou herd is in better shape, there is still no move to limit day-trips into the herd’s essential summer-grazing and fall-rutting habitat in Clitheroe Basin and around Moat Lake.

• No steps have been taken to remedy the damage done in the Tonquin Valley by horses. A “key action” in the JNP management plan was to improve conditions “by reducing the number of horses, horse nights, scheduled trips and controlling free ranging horses.” None of this has been done.

• The use of snowmobiles from the Cavell Road parking lot to the Tonquin Valley lodges via the Astoria River is providing easy access for wolves into caribou winter habitat.

• One of the lodges still persists in cutting dead trees, which are extremely valuable ecologically at these elevations, instead of switching to propane.

• Parks Canada continues to use sodium chloride (rock salt) to melt ice on park highways, despite its attractant effect on park wildlife. Grit is also applied, using a size that is inordinately large by industry standards—rock chips up to 3/4-inch long—resulting in a lot of windshield damage. The agency seems not to be heeding a long-standing general federal-government directive to move away from sodium-chloride de-icer and to employ less-corrosive chemicals, such as calcium chloride or liquid magnesium chloride. The latter is now in general use in Europe and in many parts of the United States, including Colorado and Montana, which experience temperatures as low as ours. British Columbia is now using liquid magnesium carbonate on many roads, with good results. Grit need not be applied. Research in Finland shows that caribou are not attracted to liquid magnesium chloride, and we expect the same for other wildlife.

• Inadequate enforcement of speed limits throughout the park is still a major factor in wildlife mortality.
  
  

5. New issues

Here are some of the concerns that have arisen since our 2002 report:

• Parks Canada has introduced summer use at the Marmot Basin Ski Area into on-going negotiations between Parks Canada and the corporation, in spite of clearly and publicly stating in December 1999 that to “minimize direct disturbance and alienation of secure habitat for wary wildlife,” summer use was neither “proposed nor contemplated.”

• In its Eagle Ridge Chair environmental assessment, 2000, Marmot Basin stated that “the Eagle Ridge lift must not and does not ease the difficulty for skiers to access the out of bounds terrain behind Marmot peak, or the upper part of Whistlers Creek. This was a critical issue in the original plan approval, and continues to be an important objective to maintain the security and effectiveness of the goat and caribou habitat behind the ski area.” However, in 2005 Parks Canada permitted Marmot to establish two ski runs into the Whistlers Creek drainage north of the main ski area. Tree-cutting was not required for these runs, and no lifts or other facilities have been built, but we felt that further development was bound to follow, and it soon did (see next item).

• In March of 2006, Parks Canada allowed Marmot Basin to plan an egress trail on the Whistlers Creek valley slope, outside their development footprint. The Screening Report for this action should have been a Comprehensive Report. The proposal was stopped through the intervention of the Sierra Legal Defence Fund.

• Marmot Basin has been allowed to install a permanent snow-making system. This is bound to increase the number of skiers at the area, with an attendant increase in downhill-skiing-related problems for the park.

• The permit for snowmaking was given even though there is no data on water resources on the hill. If the water is insufficient, will the next demand be for using Whistlers or Portal Creek water?

• Parks Canada has permitted guided mountain-biking to get started here, a first for any Canadian national park. This is a serious error, and given the way the agency handled the approval—suddenly and with very little research—it was a highly suspect decision. It could be compared to the decision in the 1980s to allow whitewater rafting by one company on the Maligne River: six trips on the river in 1986 became 1700 trips just five years later.

• Despite the Auditor General’s warning about increased tourism representing a threat to ecological integrity in the park, Parks Canada has not voiced any objection to Jasper Tourism and Commerce’s proposed new levy on all businesses in the park to fund the “Jasper Collective Marketing Initiative,” which will aggressively promote increased park visitation. The objective of JCMI is to increase the number of visitors by 140,000 per year, mostly in the autumn and the spring, when wildlife are especially vulnerable to disturbance. Parks Canada issues and controls all business licences in the park. Parks Canada would collect the levy as part of the business-licence fee. Thus, the agency could easily quash this move if it desired. Yet it has not. Further, in an appearance before a major Tourism Industry Association of Canada conference at Jasper Park Lodge in October of 2006, Parks Canada CEO Alan Latourelle publicly offered Parks Canada’s support for increased tourism promotion in Jasper National Park.

• The Jasper Trails Project, an initiative funded by Parks Canada, is upgrading trails in the wildlife-critical Three Valley Confluence area surrounding the town. Two new trails have already been built and others may be added, despite Parks Canada studies that show that further growth in human use of the area will be detrimental to wildlife. Ironically, money for the Jasper Trails Project is coming from federal funds intended to protect ecological integrity.

• Canadian National Railways now vacuums-up some of the grain spilled from their cars by means of a special suction unit deployed in the park “as needed.” We applaud CN for doing this, but we note that the equipment does not do an adequate job, and wildlife such as grizzly bears are still finding enough grain on the tracks to keep them coming back for more.

• Regarding the Kinder-Morgan pipeline “loop,” where will the large workforce of over 300 people be housed for this operation? It should not be permitted in any important wildlife habitat—such as the Snaring area. Workers should be housed in the Jasper or Hinton areas and transported by buses, not by private cars or trucks.

• Light pollution is becoming a problem in the park. This concern was evident in the Management Plan under Key Actions 3.7.3. In addition to the Whistlers tramway, there are bright lights at Marmot Basin and along the Jasper Park Lodge entry road.

6. Issues we see ahead   

• There will be greatly increased flow of rail traffic through the park when the new Prince Rupert container terminal becomes operational in December of this year. What will Parks Canada do to protect wildlife?

• We expect to see a rapid increase in tourism from China, India and other Asian countries now experiencing enormous growth in the number of citizens with sufficient disposable income to make our area a holiday destination. Parks Canada will come under enormous pressure, not just in handling the increased number of visitors while trying to protect park wildlife and wilderness values, but also in responding to the park’s commercial sector, which will be seeking expansion of hotels, restaurants and tourist facilities of all kinds. Flight-seeing may increase significantly. How will the agency deal with all this?

• As the authority of Jasper’s municipal government continues to grow, Parks Canada will come under increasing pressure to devolve the issuance of in-town business licences to the municipality. This would relieve Parks Canada of a responsibility that absorbs some of its very limited funding and staff time, and we fear that the agency will accede to the town in this regard—a mistake, in that the federal government would have lost one of the very few significant means of control over the local commercial sector.

• Global warming is going to affect all human activities, but it will have even more impact on park wildlife and vegetation. How will Parks Canada respond to this threat? Is there a plan in place? If not, will one be developed?

7. Urgent actions that need to be taken to protect Jasper National Park

The following are well within the capabilities of Parks Canada, and they should be undertaken immediately:

• Parks Canada should not be promoting increased park visitation. It should be responding adequately to the number of visitors already coming to the park, and not by allowing more commercial development.

• Parks Canada, in co-operation with the RCMP and on its own if park wardens are tasked once again with general policing, should enforce the speed limits all over the park—especially on the Maligne Road and in the 70-km/h kill zones along Highway 16.

• Passing is still allowed in some parts of those Highway 16 kill zones, with lane designations that actually encourage it (lanes for turning off are painted as if they were passing lanes). Passing should be completely prohibited in these zones, and for some distance on either side of them. Lane designations need to be re-painted to ensure that passing opportunities are not presented.

• Parks Canada should stop using wildlife-attracting road salt on highways in winter. Instead, the park should convert to using liquid magnesium chloride anti-icer/de-icer. The cost has come down considerably in the past few years, and as an added benefit, windshield-damaging rock chips would no longer be required.

• In order to protect critical wintering habitat of the Maligne caribou herd, the Maligne Road must be closed in winter beyond Medicine Lake, and from that point south the valley should be closed to human use in winter.

• If tree-thinning around the town is to continue, and some of our members have problems with various aspects of this program, it should be funded without selling the trees that are cut.

• The Jasper Trails Project should be limited mainly to re-routing trails around existing places used heavily by wildlife. No trail improvements or new trails should be funded, except the repair of trails damaged by horses and bicycles—these trails (except for a few designated ones, as described in the next item) not to be used by horses or bicycles any longer. Money currently allocated to the Jasper Trails Project should be spent on switching from sodium-chloride de-icer and grit to liquid magnesium chloride, an action that would truly assist the maintenance of ecological integrity in the park.

• Further re the Jasper Trails Project, one of its functions should be to rationalize the town-area trail system, such that mountain bikes and horses are prohibited on most trails. Any trails on which mountain bikes are allowed must be designated as such, enforcement must ensue, and bicyclists caught off-pavement anywhere else should be ticketed. Any trails on which horses are allowed should be rebuilt to a proper standard for such use. The cost of rebuilding trails used by outfitters should be borne by the outfitters.

• End guided mountain-biking as soon as the trial period is over next year. Otherwise it is bound to grow and get out of control, as has so often been the case with new, inadequately pre-researched commercial activities in the park.

• Horse-outfitting in and around the Tonquin Valley, and snowmobile supply in winter, should be phased out. The lodges there should be offered the privilege of being supplied by helicopter, one direct flight each, no more than once per month. All guests would have to walk or ski to reach the lodges; horses would no longer be allowed on the Astoria River or Maccarib Pass trails. Further cutting of wood in the Tonquin Valley would be a ticketable offence.

• Marmot Basin Ski Area should be denied any developments in the valley of Whistlers Creek. No summer use of the ski hill should be allowed. Like the other ski areas, Marmot is supposed to be submitting a long-range plan for its activities. Parks Canada must be firm in demanding that this plan be presented by a certain date. Parks Canada should set a suitable limit on the number of skiers allowed in the area each day and ensure that this figure is not exceeded. (The current “suggested” maximum is too large and regularly being exceeded.) Now that snow-making has been approved, it is up to Parks Canada to diligently monitor the system’s water use. Marmot must not be allowed to get water from any source other than direct drainage into its existing collection system.

• Via Rail trains travel through the park at speeds reaching 120 kph and should be forced to slow down. Wildlife are particularly vulnerable because the trains travel quickly and relatively quietly compared with the freight trains.

• Canadian National Railways should be asked to make a renewed effort to reduce the wildlife mortality by making sure that their hopper cars are not leaking grain either through lack of repairs or through carelessness when closing them.

• Parks Canada should reject the “Jasper Collective Marketing Initiative.” The agency should not collect the funds for this ill-conceived tourism promotion scheme. Nor should Parks Canada surrender its authority to issue business licences.

• Parks Canada should stop charging park-entry fees to school groups. Rather, it should provide such groups with park interpreters, as it once did.

• Park interpretation is an essential educational function that should be better funded, such that any park visitor can enjoy an evening interpretive program or a guided walk with a park interpreter, and at no extra charge.