(Editor's note: This is a letter to Premier Prentice by one of our guest bloggers regarding the proposed transmission lines. The topic has many people talking - what do you think? We welcome blog submissions from everyone who is passionate about watershed management and health - making Southern Alberta a great place to live, work and play for generations to come. What are your views? We'd love to hear from you! )
The Honourable Jim Prentice
The Honourable Jim Prentice
Premier of Alberta
Legislature Building
307 - 10800 97 Ave.
Edmonton, AB T5K 2B6
Subject: Livingstone Range landscapes/AltaLink threats/Alberta values—
and the proposed Castle Rock Ridge to Chapel Rock transmission line
and substation
and substation
The view looks southwest across the crest of the Livingstone Range, a serrated knife-edge flyway for the world's greatest concentration of golden eagles—more than 5,000 have been counted here during a single autumn migration. The Piikani know this landscape as Piitaistakis, Place of the Eagles. It's home to rare rough fescue grasslands, endangered limber pines and whitebark pines. These species serve as a floral frame for a stunning array of wildlife species, including threatened pure-strain westslope cutthroat trout and grizzly bears as well as herds of bighorn sheep, elk, mountain goats and an astonishing number of moose.
I wrote in mid-October to express concern that AltaLink planned to erect overhead transmission lines across the revered—and internationally marketed—Livingstone Range landscape. My message conveyed the cutting-edge rarity of the targeted land, and included two images revealing beauty and intrigue that, words alone, couldn't convey.
I brought the AltaLink threat to your attention because I felt it constituted an affront to the people of Alberta, and presented a crippling threat to southwestern Alberta and its world-renowned tourism values.
Energy Minister Frank Oberle, responding to the message I sent you, wrote to me in mid-November. Were it not for his signature on the letter I might have guessed that it came from the Alberta Utilities Commission (AUC).Why? The letter reads just like the AUC website, and gives the impression that the Gov. of AB and the AUC speak with the same voice. I found the letter disturbing in many ways, but particularly from the perspective that Minister Oberle, instead of responding to my concern, asked me to ask AltaLink what I asked of you: to protect Alberta's social, economic and environmental integrity.
AltaLink continues to operate in apparent contradiction to the words of its President and CEO, Scott Thon, and in seeming defiance of the South Saskatchewan Regional Plan (SSRP), a document that's crystal clear in its commitment to concentrate new development within existing industrial corridors. AltaLink's plans, if implemented, would create new industrial corridors and further destroy rare native rough fescue grasslands and endangered tree species. Additionally, the company's proposed roads, lines and lattice towers would, if allowed, invade a virtual Serengeti on the eastern flanks of the Livingstone Range. This is a landscape that's home to bighorn sheep, elk, moose, mountain goats, and two species of deer.
AltaLink, based on my experiences, has consistently failed to demonstrate a commitment to protect iconic landscapes, internationally marketed tourism values, ecological integrity, or this province's increasingly rare heritage rangeland viewscapes. Progressive countries—and electrical companies—are burying power lines within scenic vistas and areas exhibiting rare ecological integrity. Here in Alberta, AltaLink proposes to string new overhead transmission lines across this country's—and Alberta's—most treasured and tourism-marketed landscapes. The footprint of this specific AltaLink-proposed project is huge, the impacts colossal.
Is the proposed Castle Rock Ridge to Chapel Rock transmission line needed? Many reviewers feel it isn't. The cumbersome and complex components of the current processes (involving AUC, AESO and AltaLink) are not transparent, and seem to benefit the named utilities at the expense of society as a whole. Today in Alberta, perceived electrical need and dissemination appear to be of more importance than all other values combined.
The AltaLink targeted landscape is much more than a rural landscape. It's a location on which Hollywood movies are filmed. It's the wide-open-spaces of the Cowboy Trail, the relatively unpeopled corridor through which millions of Albertans move from city homes to recreational, headwaters escapes. It's home to the world's greatest concentration of migrating golden eagles. It's a landscape featured in Travel Alberta's "Remember to Breathe" tourism campaigns. It's Canada's premier sailplane soaring site. It's a place that's remarkable in its beauty, its viewscapes, grandeur and biological diversity. It supports rare species, threatened species and endangered species. It's a landscape marketed as part of National Geographic's Crown of the Continent Geotourism initiative. It's quintessential Alberta. It's here today, but it's going to disappear if it isn't protected for tomorrow.
I participated—for six long years!—in the South Saskatchewan Regional Plan (SSRP), completed workbooks and spent countless days in efforts to aid the final product. As I read the completed plan, I'm struck by how AltaLink's current transmission line proposals fail to meet the intent of the SSRP, despite the fact that its President and CEO, Scott Thon in a public statement (October, 2007) promised that his company would follow the guidelines in the plan. He said this: "Respecting the land and resources means Alberta must adopt new principles of minimizing the footprint, maximizing capacity infrastructure and conserving the land resource. At AltaLink we are taking an innovative approach to transmission by focusing first on reusing existing rights-of-way and reusing the land currently occupied by older, lower capacity lines for new, high capacity lines before we look to cut a new path of land."
From the SSRP: "Land-use decisions should strive to reduce disturbances on Alberta's landscape." Examples of the "built environment" that should not expand include utility rights-of-way.
AltaLink's proposed lines and substation would create a new network of access roads through native rough fescue grassland, already rare in Alberta; cut through forests of endangered limber pines; and interfere with a wildlife corridor—it follows the Rock Creek valley—that is planned to save motorists millions of dollars in vehicle-wildlife accidents while creating safe wildlife movement across Highway #3.
Biologists with Alberta Fish and Wildlife and staff from Southern Alberta Land Trust and the Nature Conservancy of Canada have identified the Rock Creek Corridor as critical for its outstanding conservation values. Addressing the need to foster these values, Alberta Transportation is an active partner in ongoing plans to create Highway 3 overpasses and/or underpasses.
AltaLink's existing transmission lines in the Pincher Creek area have proved deadly for waterfowl, and since this problem was identified (January, 2014), AltaLink has expanded its network of overhead transmission lines in the same area.
AltaLink now proposes to erect overhead transmission lines to the west, crossing bodies of water that are staging areas for tundra and trumpeter swans.
The existing lines, and any new lines, are almost certain to translate into what might be termed line-induced mortality among avian scavengers, including bald and golden eagles. And since the entire Livingstone Landowner Group (LLG) landscape is located within the migration route of the world's greatest concentration of golden eagles (thousands), and countless additional raptors, there's the potential for significant mortality among eagles and other carcass-scavenging birds if lines are allowed to further invade the eagles' core migration route.
All of AltaLink's current proposals, instead of following the AUC's direction, aligning with the SSRP, and living up to AltaLink retoric, call for the creation of new overhead transmission lines in close proximity to one, or more, of the tundra and trumpeter swan staging areas located between the Livingstone Range and Highway 22. This same area, as revealed via LLG's and Miistakis Institute's Land Values Assessment of Livingstone Porcupine Hills and Crowsnest Areas, is significant to grizzly bears, and to multiple species of native ungulates (including deer, elk and moose). It's also home to rare rough fescue grasslands and at least one endangered species (limber pine).
From the SSRP: "Additionally the southern Rocky Mountain areas are critical to the long-term survival of grizzly bears, wolverines and lynx, which require habitat connectivity from Montana north and through Kananaskis."
Also from the SSRP: "Industrial development … increases the risk of invasive species."
AltaLink has an extremely poor track record with respect to weed control under its existing lines and along its access roads. In fact, there are numerous locations within the Livingstone Range landscape on which knapweed and blueweed, both prohibited weeds, almost appear to have been deliberately cultivated and propagated by AltaLink. Exacerbating this problem, transmission lines in areas of high topographic relief are accompanied by road networks that may be as much as five times the length of the serviced transmission lines. Existing roads, often heavily eroded, are typically weed infested.
The SSRP emphasizes the importance of biodiversity and the broad range of ecosystem services provided by the landscape. The eastern slopes of the Livingstone Range are remarkable in terms of wildlife diversity (including threatened cutthroat trout) and plant communities (including rare, threatened and endangered species). The creeks that flow from this knife-edged mountain range are part of the watershed (identified as having the highest value). The natural values must be protected for the ecosystem services they provide, but also to allow tourism and filming opportunities.
From the SSRP: "A competitive tourism industry depends on a sufficient supply of land where the integrity of attractive features, settings and scenery are (sic) maintained and long-term access is provided."
The placement of AltaLink's existing 500 kV line (circa 1983) on the eastern flanks of the Livingstone Range was a terrible aesthetic, ecological and social mistake. Society has been forced to weather its consequences. A progressive and socially responsive electrical provider would bury this line and its chronic problems, its colossal maintenance costs and its high-pitched, maniacal "screaming" noises. (This noise spreads outwards for upwards of 10 km from its countless points of origin.)
It would be tragic to allow history to repeat itself, to permit AltaLink to erect additional lines and towers on this Crown of the Continent-marketed landscape.
It's this land's wild, sweeping views that capture the heart and imagination of those who look out upon it. It's the allure of productive rangelands and the close juxtaposition of foothills and mountains that serve as a magnet. Near my home, I once stopped to ask a busload of photographers what it was that brought them here. The first person to respond said this: "It's more spectacular than the Icefields Parkway." Many artists, with chairs and easels at road's edge, stop and attempt to capture this same sublime enchantment.
Paradise is threatened. Here on heaven's doorstep, we risk losing the appeal that makes Alberta, Alberta. Erecting lattice towers and placing overhead transmission lines across an iconic Canadian landscape would kill the goose that lays the golden geotourism egg.
The SSRP emphasizes promoting efficient use of land as a strategic direction.
From the SSRP: "All land-use planners, land users and decision-makers are encouraged to consider the efficient use of land principles when land-use planning and decision-making on public and private land … to ensure that it occurs in a manner that minimizes the amount of land that is taken up by development."
Why is AltaLink not proposing to upgrade existing lines, and follow existing utility corridors?
From the SSRP: "Linear infrastructure such as …utility corridors…require large areas of land and … fragment the land base. The placement and development of this infrastructure needs to be done in a way that reduces the fragmentation of valued landscapes and also minimizes the overall built environment footprint."
This same please-save-the-land vision is echoed in the "Community Values Assessment for the M.D. of Pincher Creek No. 9" (March 2012). Residents were asked to rate the importance of 38 value statements. Five of the fifteen highest rated value statements pertained to protecting the natural environment and maintaining natural wildlife and fish populations. Survey participants also strongly supported setting aside land in an undisturbed state for habitat protection, and identified the beautiful scenery as the best thing about living in the M.D. of Pincher Creek. (It's significant to note that AltaLink's latest proposed power line network would invade the M.D. of Pincher Creek's designated (2008) Heritage Viewscape. Included within this view: the DU Ranchlands Cabin set against the magnificent Livingstone Range. (This viewscape is expected to be endorsed provincially and nationally.)
The question is this: Will Alberta allow a nationally recognized—and internationally lauded—landscape to be destroyed by industrial intrusions?
I have provided you with the preceding to assist you in your articulated desire to establish Alberta as a global leader in environmental performance, a world leader in the advancement of conservation and protection of the environment.
The Livingstone Range needs your help today.
Sincerely and respectfully,
David McIntyre
Crowsnest Pass, AB
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