Our group, the Kirksland Restoration Society, has been advocating low impact land use options and community based planning and management for the former Kirks property that stretches from Radium to Spur Valley. We have established our advocacy over the past 5 years through partnerships with other conservation groups and community groups (see Appendix 1 - partnership letters), through educational activities, and through discussions with government decision-making bodies and with the new owners.

Kirksland Restoration Society’s Main Objectives

We understand that Radium Council has passed a by-law which calls for annexing 800+ acres of the former Kirks property, now owned by the Schickedanz Corp. into its municipal boundary.

The Radium Council also supports the Schickedanz Corp. in their application to remove this land from the BC Agricultural Land Reserve.

The Village of Radium and the Schickedanz Corp. seek RDEK support for the municipal boundary extension and the ALR exclusion.

This is an outline of some of the main reasons our society opposes both the extent of the municipal boundary change, and the exclusion of the land from the agricultural reserve.

Our area is rural. We have had a traditional land and resource based economy for a hundred years. For the past 10-15 years, urban pressures have steadily increased. The urbanization and sub-urbanization of the Columbia Valley has been relentless, and advancing at a much too rapid rate. The space and pace of rural life are important attributes that are being marketed and sold, but at the same time stripped and degraded by that very marketing.

Working agricultural operations have been selling out to developers. The "cottage" driven inflation of land values has lured ranchers to cave in to offers they can’t refuse. But cottages are no longer the rustic get-aways they once were. They have become huge pleasure palaces that year-round local residents could never hope to afford. The "cottage" population now exceeds the full-time population of our valley. The character of our area is changing, and we who have been making our life here are becoming marginalized.

We want a say in how these changes unfold. We want to preserve the values that brought us here. The issue is larger than a Radium municipal matter and affects more than the future of Radium townsite. The developments that have sprung up to the south are not necessarily the models that should be followed. As Rene Dubose observed, "Trend is not destiny."

Landscape, views, and open space are being lost - replaced by motels, resorts, mini-golf, restaurants, and proliferating golf courses. These strips and clusters of commercial activity are not always in harmony with the beautiful natural features of the valley, and more seriously, they impinge on the safe movement of wildlife through their habitat, creating barriers and hazards to migration and grazing.

There is an argument that a cluster of development is preferable to a strip of development, but when the development dramatically increases the population of an area, the environmental, social and cultural impacts are important concerns, no matter how that population is configured. People use cars. Cars create environmental problems. People use resources. They move around for their daily activities, no matter how compactly their residential units might be designed. A small, dense cluster or a sprawling strip can be equally damaging to the landscape because people move around.

Is the choice between 24 titles of rural acreages or 50 times that many urban lots a viable choice? The fragmentation of habitat posed by strip development along existing roads is perhaps preferable to the massive impact of a very dense subdivision with thousands of people and their vehicles. The "small footprint" is an oxymoron!

Are there other possibilities that have not yet been considered?

The current year round population of Radium is approximately 600 people. The plan outlined in the Schickedanz brochure proposes 81 hectares (200 acres) of residential and 14 hectares (35 acres) of commercial development. On the 200 residential acres, they propose 6 residential units per acre. This would mean 1200 new residences. The current year-round population of Radium is approximately 600. If each of the proposed units houses 2 people, the population of Radium would be 2400 + the 600 current residents; the new population would be 3000 - an increase of 500%! If each unit houses 3 people, the population would be 4000, an increase of nearly 700%. If each unit houses 4 people, the total population of Radium would approach 5000, an increase in excess of 800%. Most families have at least 2 vehicles. If the new residents of Radium were to own cars, motorcycles, or RVs, the increase in traffic would be exponential!

The single most serious threat to wildlife survival is road-kill. Will the bighorn and elk populations have a hope of withstanding the pressure of thousands more cars in their habitat?

The last known remaining badger in this part of the Columbia Valley is Blanche.

Badgers are a threatened/ endangered species. Local biologists have been studying badgers for a few years, and because there are so few of them in this part of the world, each one has been given an individual name. Blanche was radio collared in August of 1996. When her transmitter batteries went dead in July of 1999, the last place she was tracked was just north of Radium. The biologists have not been able to re-trap Blanche to replace her batteries, but they have seen fresh diggings around some of Blanche’s old haunts, so they believe she is still alive. All the other badgers on the east side of the Columbia River in the study have been road-killed. Does Blanche have a hope of survival with thousands more cars in her habitat? (See Appendix 2 - Letter from Sylvan Consulting.)

The presence of Blanche and several endangered species of plants in the area proposed for development has not been noted in the development application.

Sinclair Canyon is the notch through which most of this additional traffic will have to come. Is another massive upgrade to that road possible? Is it desirable? What will happen to the wildlife? They use that passage too. They have already been subjected to the enormous increase of traffic resulting from the growth in Fairmont, Panorama, Windermere, Invermere, and the east side of the Lake. A new phenomenon is the proliferation of huge tour buses. Bringing in thousands more vehicles through the fragile and already over-taxed Sinclair Canyon would be environmentally irresponsible.

Radium has the honour of being the home range of one of the world’s last remaining populations of bighorn sheep. In recent years, people of Radium have been becoming increasingly conscious of the responsibility of enhancing the survival of their wild neighbours. Kootenay National Park provides a safe haven, but wildlife do not recognize park or municipal boundaries, and they need their range.

Elk are also known to range around Radium, especially during spring and fall migrations. During these seasons, they frequent the areas proposed for municipal expansion.

NDT4 grasslands (wild grasslands of sage, bunch grass, and other native plants) are one of BC’s most endangered ecosystems. The benchland near Radium is just such an area. It is a fire dependent landscape that is renewed by periodic wild fire or by controlled burning. Neither approach would be compatible with urban land use. Many species (including bighorn sheep, badgers, elk, meadowlarks, juncoes, grouse, etc.) depend on grassland habitats.

The land proposed for expansion of Radium lies between two internationally significant ecosystems: the Mountain National Parks, the largest protected wilderness in the world, and North America’s largest wetland, the Columbia River Wetland, which Robert Bateman has recently described as "the jewel of the world!" Kootenay National Park is home to all the dramatic wild species for which Canada is renowned, and the wetlands are an important migration corridor for many bird species, river animals, moose, and elk.

Large predator species such as cougar, grizzly, and black bear would have little or no chance of survival if hundreds or thousands more human settlers move into their neighbourhood. We have already seen examples of conflict between humans and wild predators. In such instances it is always the wild creature who must die.

On page 11 the Radium Village boundary extension proposal booklet claims that this overall development proposal is good because "...wildlife values of the remaining lands between Radium and Edgewater are protected." We see no actual evidence of this. What covenants have been established to protect wildlife corridors? Any proposed development would have to be carefully limited with legally binding wildlife corridors so as not to jeopardize species survival or habitat health.

The beauty of the landscape and the frequent opportunities to see wildlife are what makes this area so appealing to visitors. This valley is unique in the biodiversity that abounds here. The Okanagan Valley was once the most biodiverse region of BC, but overdevelopment of human activity has erased that distinction. Will the same happen here?

The BC Rockies are amazing - unlike anyplace else in the world. Creating more suburban subdivision will make Radium more like everywhere else. Making more and more of the same urban and suburban enclaves will destroy the unique character of this amazing place. Tourists will no longer want to stop in awe. They’ll just drive on through.

We would like to put in a strong word here about gated communities. We have recently seen these springing up around Radium, Edgewater, and in other areas of the valley, and we would like to discourage the possibility of adding more. Gated communities are an affront to the rural atmosphere of our valley, but in terms of tourism, they are unattractive, unwelcoming, and even forbidding for visitors.

This zoning was established to protect rapidly vanishing agricultural land from the pressures of development. Removing 800+ acres from the ALR would be a huge step. It should not be taken lightly. Once residential settlement is established, it will be impossible to reclaim the land for agricultural purposes. Only 2-3% of BC’s land is currently in the Agricultural Reserve. Why should a developer and a municipality be allowed to exclude such a large parcel?

The developer, when he purchased the land at agricultural prices, was fully aware of its A2 designation. The land has never been meant for urban purposes. If he wished to create urban developments, why did he buy rural agricultural land? The so called "trade-offs" being proposed by the developer of enhanced irrigation potential on "consolidation units", and the improvements of the Elk Park Ranch are normal maintenance and restoration and should not be undertaken in exchange for permission to exclude 800 acres from the Agricultural Reserve.

What guarantees does the developer offer in terms of future subdivision or urbanization? Should the Agricultural Reserve be broken in one area of the valley, what would prevent future proposals from being approved in other areas?

We see the existing cattle range as compatible with the maintenance of healthy native grassland wildlife habitat. The grassland researchers of The Land Conservancy have found that properly managed cattle grazing actually enhances the growth of natural meadows. The Kirksland Restoration Society’s aims and our concern with wildlife habitat are much more aligned with agricultural land uses than with urban development.

We have several concerns about the consolidations the developer proposes. Probably at considerable expense, he has hired an agricultural consultant to add legitimacy to his plan; however, we are not convinced that this proposal is a compelling agricultural concept.

Why did the developer not combine all proposed non-development land into a single consolidation unit? This concept would be agriculturally sound because it would allow for sufficient range and irrigated land base to make Elk Park Ranch a very attractive and viable cattle operation.

A second agriculturally logical combination might have been creating a single consolidation unit encompassing the developer’s proposed consolidation unit #2 and consolidation unit #3, offering a single large agricultural block on the east side of Highway 95.

In examining how the developer did draw the lines on the map, it is evident that the split of consolidation unit #2 and consolidation unit #3 has been made specifically to create two frontages on the Baptiste Lake Reservoir (which supplies the drinking water for the townsite of Edgewater). This configuration makes the consolidation units more attractive and marketable as lakefront recreational/residential real estate.

Despite the developer’s so called "trade-off" improvements to the three proposed consolidation units, it seems doubtful that he has any intention of creating a real, sustainable agricultural future for that land.

Let it not be overlooked that a "trade-off" has already been made - a very deep loss in terms of agricultural potential for the former Kirksland. Last fall, the northern half of the property was auctioned off in 15 lots to 9 new owners, fragmenting that portion of the land to the point that large, economically viable ranching is no longer possible. Range lease arrangements may still be feasible, but for the northern block (Edgewater to Spur Valley), coherent land management is now out of the question. Another unfortunate result of the auctioning of the northern block was the fragmentation of access to the historically significant Vermilion Irrigation Flume. Before the auction, the developer refused to agree to covenants that would have enabled the Irrigation District to maintain their right to access to and operation of their flume. This refusal clearly shows the developer’s lack of appreciation for this essential lifeline for agricultural sustainablity for the whole district.

If any further "trade-off" is to be considered, perhaps the existing 26 lots could be traded for 26 urban development lot titles - with a maximum exclusion area of 26 acres, or more generously 26 hectares. This would be a "trade-off" much more in scale with Radium’s realistic expansion needs. (See Appendix 3 - Letters from Provincial Agricultural Land Commission)

Access issues have already occurred as a result of last year’s sale of the northern part of the property. Access has been lost to the historic Vermilion Irrigation Flume, to the Crown Land on the benches adjacent to Kootenay Park, and to the heritage Luxor Vermilion Aboriginal Trail.

The property proposed for the Radium boundary extension and the developer’s "Consolidation Units" currently offers informal access to the Columbia Valley Nordic Club’s cross country ski trails, and to the Columbia River. We would like to see covenants set to allow continued access.

This boundary extension and development proposal would set the precedent for the entire region - indeed, for the entire province. What is decided here will influence the farm and ranch community all over the province. The project and its wider implications for the people of Area G, for the Columbia Valley, and for the whole of the East Kootenay deserve much more careful consideration and widespread public discussion prior to submission for regional, or provincial approval.

The Radium Village Boundary Extension Proposal booklet claims on page 5 that "A total of 150 local residents attended the Open House (hosted by the developer in December 1998) and voiced general support." This statement is simply not true. Residents were not allowed to speak. Only the developer’s voice was actually heard. Many of the written comments submitted to the developer were questions (that were never answered) or critiques of the proposal. Since the Open House, Radium Council has not made a full public presentation of their boundary extension proposal, nor asked for public response. We do not believe support for the proposal is as widespread as the Radium Council claims.

On page 5 and again on page 11 of the Radium Boundary Extension Proposal package, the claim is made that there has been extensive community consultation. There was some initial, but not mutually satisfactory consultation with the Kirksland Restoration Society. Although in October of 1998, our organization signed a joint letter with Radium Council, Kootenay Park, the Area G RDEK Director, and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, offering assistance and advice on the conceptual land use planning for this project, no further consultation with our society was ever attempted. We have not been supportive of the impact of the proposal, especially in terms of the density of human population, the footprint, or the habitat issues, and we are not supportive of the exclusion of 800+ acres from the Agricultural Land Reserve.

One of the most serious problems with Radium’s and Schickedanz Corp’s proposal is that the plan affects Edgewater, and the other communities to the north. No process has been set up to seek response from Edgewater and the people to the north. (See Appendix 4 - Letters to Mr. Cronsberry, Mr. Chambers, and Radium Council regarding participation in land use planning process)

The Village of Radium wants to take over municipal responsibility for rural land currently in RDEK Area G; yet there has been no public discussion, debate, response, or referendum to allow Area G residents a voice.

Radium Council has not seen fit to include the Kirksland Restoration Society or Area G residents in deliberations leading to important land use decisions. (See Appendix 5 - Letter from Village of Radium Hot Springs.) Kirksland Restoration Society represents a wide range of Area G stakeholders. We believe the entire process must be more inclusive.

If a population growth of 800% were approved for your community, or one adjacent to your community, would you not want to have information and some voice in how that would occur? Should approvals be granted before a widespread consensus has been attempted? Discussion and public access to the details of the proposal should occur prior to decisions by the RDEK and other provincial levels of government.

Currently there is no official land use plan for the Upper Columbia Valley. In December of 1998, the Kirksland Restoration Society requested that the RDEK update the old Edgewater Settlement Plan and create a new regional land use plan. We were told at that time that resources were not available. We had hoped that funding for such a planning process could be included in the RDEK’s 2000 budget, but apparently this was not the case. (See Appendix 6 - Letter from Regional District of East Kootenay.)

We still request that such a process can be undertaken before any approvals are considered for major development.

We realize how difficult it must be for the Board of Directors of the RDEK to make sound decisions in the absence of clear and comprehensive regional guidelines.

We believe a broad based envisioning process needs to be undertaken so that clear and progressive plans can be devised. Such a process would insure that both residents and developers will be comfortable with decisions. Communities need to proceed with intelligent and logical guidelines about where and how development will unfold.

Although the developer has spent over 2 years preparing the proposal, the time since Radium Village Council passed its by-law on May 24 and the August 4 meeting set for RDEK approval has been not much more than a 2 month span. This is quite hasty, and especially in the absence of a regional land use plan, has not allowed for a public process.

Timelines need to be adapted to allow for intelligence to be imposed upon growth, so that it can enhance the quality of life for all in the Upper Columbia Valley.