As I understand it, the road up to the proposed ski area will likely cost upwards of $10,000,000 and that number was quoted to me in 1990′s era money – much higher these days. The engineering involved with a development of this magnitude will likely sink the ship before it leaves the dock; and as an engineer I do not want anything to do with this ship in my backyard – wrong place, wrong time.

Sonnie, good on you for setting down roots in a sustainable way. I too recently bought a townhouse in Brackendale and now have scrapped my car (literally throught the BC Scrapit program) and ride a mountain bike around town. Keep up the great work!

Nobody’s perfect Mr.Cocktosin, especially me (thanks for pointing that out) but consider that three people live in our very modest home full time, all year round, we walk to work, we walk to the market, we even own businesses here and we try as hard as we can to support our neighbors and localization in general. Building 6000 part time residential units/vacation homes in an extremely sensitive and water deprived area 15 minutes commute from any village center (via the Landrover) can only cause more harm than good I recon, would you disagree? Especially when you have to dodge starving bears and cougars and golf courses. Perhaps in time this will appear to make sense, but for now, GAS doesn’t seem viable for this specific part of the world, it’s an unrealistic and unsustainable proposition. I feel that this PARTICULAR project is extremely unintelligent, yes. But thanks for taking your time to turn this around and point your finger at me John, do you have any other thoughts about Brohm Ridge? Please share…

I’m also not blanket anti-development; Hell, my JOB is to help clients navigate their way through all the legislation and environmental permitting processes required to move new developments ahead. But, as Sonnie alluded to in the thread, there is a big difference between remediating and redeveloping brownfields in the town core (smart development, of most benfit to the local community) and irreversibly altering/damaging relatively pristine and much more fragile alpine terrain and supporting ecosystems for ultimately individual, rather than commmunity benefit.

I am an Environmental Assessment specialist, but not every project I’m asked to work on is one that I can support, either professionally or personally. I have serious concerns over the environmental impacts of this development on the area, especially in terms of it’s effect on water resources, habitat and the long-term effects on the community that so many people world-wide have grown to love and feel a part of. I also feel that the potential for cumulative impacts with other ongoing projects (2010 upgrades, for example) has been underestimated. Growth in the valley will continue, and this planned development would place a tremendous load on local resources making it almost impossible for Squamish council to maintain a balanced, healthy, sustainable community. All the cash flow in the world can’t replace naturally functioning ecosystems once they’ve been so heavily modified.

I am not a full-time resident of Squamish, and I don’t want to be pigeon-holed as yet another non-resident trying to tell the community what to do and how to do it. Having said that, I’m encouraged to hear that so many people showed up to voice their opinion to Council. In the interests of providing more info to anyone who wants it, I’ve posted the link to the latest Environmental Assessment application for the GAS project. It can be found at the BC Environmental Assessment Office website:

http://a100.gov.bc.ca/appsdata/epic/html/deploy/epic_project_home_286.html

It is currently listed as “under review” so, no environmental assessment certificate (approval) has been issued for this project by the Province yet. Yet. Take a read through, look carefully at the maps and then carefully consider if the development as planned would really be a net benefit for the community, no matter where it might be sited.

There will a lot more media over the coming weeks. Stayed tuned.

the veiled question for me here is, if this is in fact not a fight against development in general, but just this specific area – then where would a development like this be welcomed? what makes the GAS so different from any other ski hill development? i mean no matter where ski hills develop, there will always be an effect to the environment.

like i said, i’m not necessarily for or against, i’m just wondering if the opponents are against all developments and if not then, where would they put it?

First of all, i would say what a superb writing skills and words u have and every single words inspired me to try things that i never thought possible before and the passion that u have for something that u love such as Squamish…

Although i never been to Canada before, i`m very sure that u guys have a lot of beautiful place and mountains that`s too precious to be trimmed down for any kind of construction or unnecessary development.. I`ll have the same feeling and would do the same thing if some dollar slave want to destroy what i love the most just to fulfill their own greed and using ‘development’ as a cover up.. I`m sure Squamish meant ‘life’ for u and all the local community and for that i would say don`t give up protecting something that we love Sonnie..

Hope you can keep us update with what happen in Squamish and you will always have our support from Climbing Community in Malaysia