Edmonton city council is preparing for a volatile dust-up over the use of our prized river valley that will have consequences for generations to come.
Qualico Developments wants to build a gravel pit on the northern bank of the North Saskatchewan River valley in the deep southwest, more or less down the bank at the end of 215 Street. A citizen campaign, the North Saskatchewan River Valley Conservation Society, sprang up in the surrounding neighbourhood to oppose the development and has grown to include members from across Edmonton.
Media pundits have quixotically cast the passionate conservation society with a $50,000 budget as Goliath, and Qualico, one of western Canada’s largest multimillion-dollar real estate development operations, as a diminutive David.
This is a serious issue that deserves more careful consideration than it has so far received. The group seeks only to have city council uphold its existing bylaws and land use policies, including a precedent-setting commitment to conservation.
The land is roughly the size of Fort Edmonton Park. When it was under provincial jurisdiction, it was designated a restricted development area. After getting absorbed into Edmonton during the most recent amalgamation, it is now subject to the River Valley Area Redevelopment Plan and Edmonton’s municipal development plan.
The river valley and ravine system is our most distinctive feature, one we champion whenever we call ourselves “River City.” The river valley is recognized as an important regional biological corridor, and continuous natural areas is the linchpin of “Natural Connections,” Edmonton’s natural areas conservation strategy.
Edmonton’s conservation plan got the city invited to a unique biodiversity program sponsored by ICLEI, an international organization of local governments committed to sustainability. Edmonton is part of a select group of only 20 cities,along with Barcelona, São Paolo and Johannesburg (www.iclei.org/lab). Edmonton’s participation in that program, along with our waste and wastewater treatment programs, led ICLEI to choose Edmonton as the location for the 2009 ICLEI World Congress in June–just when the proposed gravel pit, if approved, would begin operations.
The gravel pit would destroy a large natural area that provides an important wildlife habitat, and dramatically put the lie to council’s much-lauded commitment to conservation.
This single proposal represents a real challenge to all Edmontonians. The river valley, of which we’re justifiably proud, which the city manages to benefit all residents, is only one-third publicly owned. That means that zoning along protects the remaining privately owned two thirds from inappropriate uses. The authority to uphold existing zoning rests with city council.
Speculating on land values, which is what developers do, runs the same risks attributable to public policy that accompany speculating on energy or mining stocks. Even the provincial government does not permit new oil and gas drilling in protected areas. Edmonton’s river valley has already been judged unsuitable for residential development; it is even less suitable for mining.
City bylaws define gravel extraction as “heavy industry” that is “incompatible with residential, commercial, and other land uses,” and prohibit strip mining, and the city made a lot of fuss about their new natural areas policy. If these bylaws and policies can be easily dismissed, what useful purpose do they serve? Calgary would never approve a strip mine on the Stampede grounds. Vancouver would never timber harvesting in Stanley Park.
This is not a question just for residents of Edmonton’s southwest. This is an issue for all of us who are proud of our river valley and wish to see its natural areas maintained, a conservation ethic that has brought Edmonton international recognition.
There is probably gravel on virtually every floodplain in the river valley. If the city decides that protecting the river valley is unimportant and approves Qualico’s proposal to put heavy industry in the river valley, what authority does it have to prohibit similar such development in the other two-thirds of the river valley that is privately owned? City council is effectively tossing its commitment to conservation out the window at the precise time it will host international delegations to demonstrate Edmonton’s environmental excellence.
Council would be wise to consider established precedent should it disregard its own bylaws and land use policies to approve heavy industrial development within the river valley. It would be wiser to reject the proposal without reservation. Qualico, a good corporate citizen, would be wiser still to withdraw its proposal. As citizens of Edmonton, we need to have a healthy debate.
Burn Evans was a provincial parks planner, taught parks planning
and conservation at the University of Alberta and is a board member of the Land Stewardship Centre
of Canada.
