Jumbo dead...Jumbo lives.

So here we are again, Jumbo Glacier Resort jumps through another seemingly impossible hoop as the casket is being closed on the Jumbo project. The proponents won the appeal by the Ktunaxa Nation to void the provincials government's approval of the resort's development. That just leaves the pesky environmental permit. The five years of the original permit saw no development, they were able to renew for yet another five years terminating last October. In order to continue with the resort, Jumbo had to prove that substantial construction had commenced by the October 2014 deadline. If you have been following Jumbo at all these last few years you might have been paying close attention to the construction that took place in the final weeks of environmental permit. They managed to pour the base for the day lodge and one lift tower footing. The location of the day lodge has been questioned. A last minute change of location put the foundation of the day lodge on the edge of a category 4 slide path. Whoops.

So in June of 2015 the minister of environment Mary Polak deemed the project not substantially started and terminated the environmental permit. This should have been the final nail in the coffin for the Jumbo dream but if the development is small enough, an environmental permit is not required under BC's all season resort policy. While 5500 beds and 23 lifts would require a permit, 2000 beds and a reduced lift infrastructure bypasses the need of the environmental assessment. If the smaller resort is built one can only imagine gaining the environmental permit from that point would be a breeze. The resort has not come out with the details of the new Jumbo Resort plan but have announced that a scaled down Jumbo is being planned and will go forward. This has been a 23 year battle and both the proponents and the opposition refuse to back down. More information is due sometime in the fall until then I'll be here, on the edge of my seat.