With a pair of oil pipelines running through Jasper National Park, construction and development projects ongoing and rail cars chugging through the townsite daily, there are a host of potential environmental risks in the park.
But to help mitigate those risks, Parks Canada has strict guidelines in place.
Jurgen Deagle is an environmental management specialist for the park. His job is to make sure projects that are potentially harmful adhere to the strict environmental guidelines set out by the agency.
He explained that before a construction project gets off the ground, it first has to go through an environmental impact analysis.
Those analyses take a detailed look at any potential environmental effects that would result from a project, and they also consider what Parks can do to mitigate or remove them. From there, Parks will issue a permit that sets out conditions the contractor has to follow, and those conditions are tightly enforced.
鈥淭he operators in the park recognize that this is a special place, and the standards they apply to themselves are higher when they are in a national park,鈥� Deagle said. 鈥淭hey pull up their socks.鈥�
Operators do so in part because they know that Parks employees like Deagle will be watching them closely.
For example, regulations in Alberta state that toxic chemical spills of 200 litres or more must be reported, while in Jasper, Deagle pointed out, that number is five litres.
There are also guidelines in the park that state that heavy machinery must be parked on special tarps to protect the ground, said Deagle, who noted that he even gets after operators who let their machines idle too long.
Lisa Clement represents Kinder Morgan, the company that operates the Trans Mountain pipeline that runs through the park. She agreed it is more complicated operating in Jasper than outside of a national park.
Kinder Morgan had to get creative with the placement of its pump stations because it wasn鈥檛 allowed to put any inside the park鈥檚 boundaries, for example.
The company also attempted to preserve all the plants it removed during construction, by transplanting them into greenhouses, something that would almost certainly never have happened outside of Jasper.
鈥淲e tend to treat construction similar, but there are definitely special considerations in [national parks],鈥� Clement said.
Jasper certainly changes the way large companies operate, but even daily life in the park is guided by strict environmental considerations.
Laws surrounding pets and waste management are strict and enforced. Gardeners have to pay extra attention to ensure non-native plant species don鈥檛 spread. Also, residents in town have to make a concerted effort to harvest their fruit to keep bears away.
This year almost 30 grizzly bears died in Alberta after human encounters, many close to industrial roads.
Geoff Skinner, a human wildlife conflict specialist in Jasper, pointed out that, as far as Parks knows, no grizzlies have been poached in Jasper in at least 35 years, if not longer.
Jasper鈥檚 wide expanse of forests, undisturbed by roads, limits bear encounters with humans and significantly minimizes their risk of being killed.
That natural protection, combined with Parks鈥� efforts to educate people on how to avoid bears, means grizzlies in Jasper are probably safer than anywhere else in the province.
鈥淚n general the more human access there is the more chance of human-caused mortality,鈥� Skinner said.
Events like animal poaching and chemical spills outside the park highlight the impact environmental stewardship has in Jasper.
Deagle pointed out that 98 per cent of the park is wilderness, and that wilderness remains more or less pristine thanks to a host of regulations.
He said policies that go beyond regular provincial standards are what make Jasper so important. Bears won鈥檛 likely be shot because humans have less access to them; major chemical spills are much less likely because mining projects aren鈥檛 allowed in the park; damage from construction is limited because contractors know Parks is constantly looking over their shoulders, enforcing stricter rules than they are accustomed to.
Of course, Deagle admits, there are still environmental risks in Jasper. He said he works hard with operators to create and update safety plans, and is confident that the risk of an environmental disaster is low.
鈥淥ur goal, obviously, is to protect the natural and cultural resources in the park,鈥� he said. With environmental threats recently popping up across Alberta, accomplishing that goal takes on renewed significance.
聽Trevor Nichols
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