The asphalt plant has been pumping black smoke in the air and the smell is too much for many of the community members to take. The Cheakamus Crossing Facebook group has been racked with neighbour complaints about the plant amid concerns about the smell and spikes in the air quality-monitoring chart, indicating intervals of higher-than-normal doses of particulates in the air.
When the rezoning application bylaw was defeated in September, which would have moved the plant 150 metres and pursued aggressive air quality measures, it was a victory for everyone who opposed the asphalt plant being there at all. If the bylaw passed, the plant would remain there indefinitely, possibly for decades. This is no longer the case now that the bylaw has been defeated. To members of No Asphalt Plant, including Tim Koshul, denying the plant any permanent zoning is one step toward making the Alpine Paving asphalt plant move.
Council is not so sure. Mayor Ken Melamed has said that the rezoning bylaw was the best option for the people of Cheakamus Crossing and for Whistler. Council currently has no plans to pursue the issue during winter.
Last month, Ted Milner advised that everyone "chill out," and this winter will likely be a time when everyone concerned with this issue will recharge their batteries - and in the process reflect on what exactly has been learned through this fiasco.
But Pique didn't want to wait for that answer, so we've asked all council members: what lessons have been learned so far?
Mayor Ken Melamed (voted for the zoning bylaw amendment; has maintained that the amendment was the best and only solution for the community; voted against motion to move plant by June 1):
"( Via email ) The only true lesson learned is that in 1997 an ambiguity in the zoning language should have been clarified. This would not have changed the decision to locate the Athletes' (Village) at the current site, but it would have removed the confusion and frustration about the legality issue... The deal on the table - to relocate the asphalt plant, to have the plant upgraded, and to implement a new air quality bylaw - I believe was a good one, which would have moved us forward on a path to cleaner air and a better neighbourhood.
"The other aspects of the debate are ones with which I have become familiar in my years as an elected representative of the community, and are part of the process. Hindsight is a powerful vision, issues will appear late in the process, posturing is inevitable and we often stumble as pressure increases.
"...Democracy is alive and well in Whistler, and council members represent the will of their constituents. I remain troubled by the lack of trust that abounds in our society and is reflected here, and I believe that it is possible to discuss and debate issues without vitriol, and I adhere to this premise in practice."
Ralph Forsyth (voted against the zoning bylaw amendment):
"I'm not sure what to take away from it. It wasn't our best work. It wasn't the best work between council and staff working together. I think a lot of it was we were caught really unprepared.
"The sewage treatment plant was something like this, that we didn't see coming and was hugely contentious and quite divisive. But in that instance the only people on council from that time were the mayor, Councillor Zeidler and myself, but you know what? We put it past us. We had a full debrief to examine how we could have done a better job of handling that and then we moved on. Nobody even talks about it anymore."
"Is there a crystal ball that can tell us this? I don't think there ever is, but with our communications... whenever we say anything, we need to ask ourselves what this is going to sound like in a headline, and I don't know if we do a very good job of that. For example, with transportation in the corridor, we're going to cut funding or we're threatening to cut funding. So we just blabbed that without talking to anyone first, without communicating. So at some point before, we need to get together and say, 'How is this going to play?'... I don't think we make those obvious connections before we make decisions and I think that will probably be helpful (in the future)."
Grant Lamont (voted against the zoning bylaw amendment):
"Really, the biggest thing that we should learn from this process is we shouldn't make knee-jerk planning decisions previous to an OCP review. I think that's our biggest thing here. We were doing zoning on demand here for the last - well, when was the last OCP done? And it was all ad hoc . There was no strategy here. It was all, like, 'let's make a deal.'
"Realistically, the biggest lesson we have to learn here is we're about 15 years late in doing our OCP and this is the type of stuff that happens when you do that."
Ted Milner (voted against the zoning bylaw amendment; motioned last November that the plant move elsewhere by June 1):
"The unfortunate part is a brilliant Olympics was held and all anyone could talk about was this plant. Frankly, if I were moving in down there I'd be way more concerned about the waste treatment plant and the odours coming from that. Nobody's said anything and I know they're working on it. I presume they've recaptured the odour release so I don't know.
"The question about gases leaking out of the closed dump no one even bothered with, but with this asphalt plant everyone just went nuts. But it just proved to me again, in a free society (you never know what people will latch on to). It's like Justin Bieber. Who ever thought? Who even thinks now?... I think that's what makes our job tough and on the other hand interesting. It's interesting to see how people would react to different scenarios.
"Now, I wouldn't have picked this one but there it is, and I think the best way to go about it is to forget about it for the winter - chill out, stop thinking about it and if he chooses to reopen there next summer then we'll deal with it instead of sitting here all winter plotting about how we're going to get him (asphalt plant owner Frank Silveri). I mean, it just doesn't make sense."
Chris Quinlan (voted for the zoning bylaw amendment; voted against motion to move plant by June 1):
"It is about the process and we on council understand the process - or should understand it. It was a pretty good lesson learned on the mistakes of going out and making decisions without having any information about the decision you're making. The decision in November to have it moved by June 1 was a really terrible decision."
"I'm definitely more aware - enlightenment is a pretty tough word to put into that. I've learned lessons about how we handle situations within the municipality and how we can do a better job. It all just goes back to that initial thing where council in November put the staff in a position that they couldn't win in, and that was wrong. It just created an unrealistic expectation, and something that I'm definitely taking away from it is how critical it is, no matter how much political pressure there is, to not make a decision right now.
"You have to be able to understand the issue completely, you have to have the knowledge, you have to have the facts on the issue, and you have to understand what you can and can't do, in order to make a good decision. And that didn't happen."
Tom Thomson (voted for the zoning amendment bylaw):
"With an upgraded plant, with the bag house, with the slight movement involved and surrounding it with air monitoring and bylaw effects, that not only affects the immediate community in there but affects the whole of the community of Whistler - that is the air quality, it's not just the people at Cheakamus Crossing that breathe the air. We all breathe it and if there was a chance to improve the overall quality in Whistler, that was the opportunity. At the moment, that has not been achieved and we are back at square one. I don't see the municipality becoming involved in the near future."
"I would like to have seen Tinker Bell wave her magic wand and everything kind of go away to everyone's satisfaction but that isn't the case in real life. As a result, we have a situation where not a whole lot was resolved."
Eckhard Zeidler (voted against the zoning bylaw amendment):
"( Via email ) No solutions are perfect, and some solutions are considerably more imperfect than others. What I have learned is that when our community is faced with the latter... they prefer to keep options available and open rather than shut them down, and I agree completely."
Of course, this hasn't just been a learning experience for the local government. Everyone who has followed the story, those who have been directly affected by it or have been following it from a safe distance in Alpine, have likely taken something from this process. Pique also asked a few of the most active and vocal community members who opposed the rezoning bylaw amendment this year:
Tim Koshul (Cheakamus Crossing resident; most aggressive advocate in trying to move asphalt plant from the neighbourhood)
"This whole debate should inspire people to get involved with local politics. I mean, you can't just take people's words. Look at how many lies and untruths have been unraveled in 10 months. You can't take what people say at face value, you have to dig, investigate and get to the bottom of stuff. Don't be just a bunch of sheep, like I said a long time ago... There's going to be a new breed of people asking questions of their elected officials, and their staff and their administration. That, I'm happy about. I'm just ecstatic about it because for decades people (in power) just kind of did whatever they wanted to do, unquestioned and unwatched. And now? Good luck."
Dave Buzzard (Critic of the zoning bylaw amendment; Emerald resident)
"You're going to see a political shift coming out of this in Whistler. Take all the asphalt questions aside, you have a lot more people politically tied to the community. They've gone from renting and being semi-permanent to being tied to the community and having a place here. I think that's going to make a very big difference. Now you're bringing 200 families, and that's about 400 or 500 people... or more. You add that and the Rainbow (subdivision) as well. You're going to get a shift, and you're starting to see it already. If you've lived permanently in Whistler, you'd need a significant income, and you haven't really seen this since the 1980s when the people who work in the community are now owning property and living here."
Tina Symko (Cheakmus Crossing resident; active opponent of the asphalt plant and the rezoning bylaw amendment)
"It's been hard to watch. I've always had what some may call a naïve trust and confidence in our local government. I'm a personal friend with a lot of people at the municipality and on council, and I have the utmost respect for most of the people that I know that do their job really well. Just to see the amount of mistakes, miscommunications and, I hate to say it but sometimes it seems there's been some outright deceit.
"That really, really disappoints me as a resident in a small town who thought that she could trust the government to do the right thing. That's been really hard to take. It seems there's been a snowball effect from the beginning of this whole scenario since the beginning in the 1990s even, and everyone's been sort of having to cover up or clean up mistakes or do whatever along the way and nothing has been done really well, and so in the end we're left with a pretty crummy situation for our newest, greenest Olympic neighbourhood. It's just disappointing, that's all. I'm not about blaming people and I don't think it's about that at this point. I think it's about working toward a solution."
