Sustainability in Action

In 2004, armed with a preliminary Bid Phase design, Whistler Nordic Venue Project Manager Doug Ewing and his team began to update and rethink the original venue and site design. They wanted to create outstanding athlete and spectator experiences while both minimizing the impact on the natural environment and containing construction costs.

Working with design consultants, national and international sport federations, and VANOC’s internal sport, venue and sustainability teams, Ewing and his group examined every aspect of the design. They were also informed by government agencies, First Nations, stakeholders and the public through the EA process.

“The planning process has taken a lot of time, thought, dedicated effort and collaboration by many people,” Ewing said. “But in the end the project has cost us a lot less and the result is better.”

The Nordic site was chosen for its terrain and snow conditions. The site had been previously logged, was adjacent to a former mining operation and was a recreation spot frequented by cross-country skiers and snowmobile enthusiasts.

The Whistler Nordic Venue includes: 

In the preliminary design, the ski jump would have disturbed 3.8 hectares of old growth forest. The revised design moved the ski jump out of this existing pocket of old growth forest and away from a vulnerable wetland area. Today, the only intrusion into old growth forests is a small length of cross-country ski trail.

“The reason everything fits in so well is that this wasn’t a project done using maps and drawing boards,” Ewing explained. “We were actually in the field, on snowshoes, moving about the land, deciding how best to fit the structures into the natural landscape.”

The many streams and wetland areas at the site are important habitat for fish, birds, mammals and amphibians. Protecting these sensitive ecosystems was a priority.

The venue team established 30-metre protective buffers on fish-bearing streams or wetlands and 15-metre protective setbacks on non-fish-bearing streams or wetlands.

“We’re not obligated to do any more than a 30-metre setback in sensitive areas,” Ewing explained. “But we opted to extend them to up to 100 metres in key portions of the competition area which added 32 hectares of protective zone.”

The team also redesigned the trails to reduce stream crossings from 20 (in the original designs) to 12. Site access roads were also redesigned to reduce stream crossings from 16 to one. Additionally, the venue will feature onsite wastewater treatment of the highest quality to further protect streams.

Ewing and his team succeeded in reducing the overall footprint of the Nordic venue by 30 per cent. In so doing, the team created a world-class design that is better for athletes and Games-time spectators, better for the environment and leaves an improved legacy for both competitive and recreational users.

Tailed frogs ( Ascaphus truei) are designated as a species of “special concern” by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) and as “vulnerable” by the Province of British Columbia. Tailed frogs are particularly sensitive to human and natural disturbances. These tiny frogs — just three centimetres long as adults — have a 20-year lifespan and spend up to five years living in cool mountain streams as tadpoles. Relatively common in Whistler, tailed frogs were identified in Boyd Creek at the Whistler Creekside alpine venue. VANOC developed an EMP for protecting both the tailed frogs and their in-stream habitat as part of its EA commitments. EMP includes directives to conduct surveying and monitoring before construction to avoid disturbing in-stream frog habitat wherever possible. Where in-stream habitat disturbance is unavoidable, we will use best practices and move tailed frogs and tadpoles by hand, relocating them 40 metres upstream.

Construction of the Whistler Nordic Venue resulted in significant woody debris from site preparation. This posed an environmental challenge for the venue development team — a challenge that led them to three innovative solutions.

“Typically, in a large commercial development, the woody debris would be burned emitting greenhouse gases and other air contaminants such as particulate matter,” said Tina Symko, VANOC’s sustainability coordinator in Whistler. “But one of our objectives is to minimize air quality impacts. We needed to turn something that was negative into a positive.”

The challenge became an opportunity to use the wood waste in ways that kept most of the organic material in its original ecological system and enhanced conservation.

Recycling woody debris as fill
First, the project team recycled large woody debris as fill, creating foundations for the many temporary compounds on the venue site that will be used for Games parking lots and service trailers. The technique involved laying larger wood waste down to create a natural filter layer, then adding a layer of rockfill and finishing with a gravel layer. This design allows for rainwater and snowmelt to permeate through parking compounds while maintaining natural drainage in the area. After the Games, the ground will be revegetated and will slowly return to natural contours and vegetation cover.

“The process was reasonably straightforward,” said George McKay, VANOC’s director of environmental approvals. “But the result was one of the most significant things we did to reduce environmental impact on the site because we minimized burning and maintained natural systems.”

Donating wood waste for fish habitat enhancement
Next, the team worked with local stream restoration organizations, such as the Whistler Fisheries Stewardship Group and the BC Conservation Foundation, donating root wads for use as coarse woody debris in regional fish habitat improvement projects.

Composting wood waste for revegetation and erosion control
Finally, the remaining vegetation debris was chipped on site, supplemented with natural organics (such as those from the Whistler wastewater treatment plant) and collected in recycled and recyclable plastic agriculture bags. After the waste breaks down in the bags, a mix of seeds native to the area is added. The mix will then be sprayed onto disturbed soils on the site to promote vegetation and regrowth as part of the regeneration and erosion control work planned for 2007. Not only does this process enrich and rebuild soil, but it stabilizes affected slopes and provides habitat through restored vegetation. Using waste materials for site restoration also eliminates air pollution and GHG emissions from truck traffic. (Trucks are typically used in waste removal and delivery of erosion-control materials.)

“The real benefit,” said McKay, “is that we have closed the loop on wood waste in the Nordic venue — chipped it, composted it, seeded it and placed it back on the same hillsides that it came from. These solutions came from thinking about natural systems, seeing waste as a resource and working collaboratively to apply innovative solutions.”

The sun blazed down on Cypress Provincial Park as Vancouver 2010 and Cypress community partners worked to save samples of 12 plant species from demolition on a hot day in early July. The “locally significant” plants were found growing in a small wetland – the site for a future snow-making reservoir.

“It’s important to salvage any uncommon plants that have value to the public ... If we just shrugged our shoulders then that would be a loss,” said Alex Wallace, member of the Friends of Cypress Provincial Park Society, a charity dedicated to the protection of Cypress Park's environment.

Wallace said that the plants – including species such as the common butterwort, three-leafed goldthread and round-leaved sundew – are not rare, but are not usually found in environments such as the reservoir site.

The plants were discovered in an environmental assessment of the site. While not required to salvage the plants, Vancouver 2010, its partners and environmental consultants decided that saving them would benefit the park.

“Right from the beginning, we had a commitment to delivering great Games on a sustainability platform, and that includes being smart about preparing and staging the Games on as small an environmental footprint as possible,” said Ann Duffy, the program director of sustainability at Vancouver 2010. “When the local community said this was something it really cared about, we said ‘okay, we’ll address that.’”

An excavator was used to dig up large swaths of earth, but a number of plants in sensitive or hard-to-reach areas were moved by hand. Volunteers from Vancouver 2010 donned rubber boots and hard hats at 8:30 am. They spent the day shin-deep in muddy water, carefully loosening muddy plots of vegetation with gardening shovels.

Ian Ponsford was one of about a half-dozen VANOC employees who volunteered to help move the plants.

“We talk about it [the environment] and we write about it all the time, but we don’t normally get our hands in it too much,” said Ponsford, who works in environmental approvals and management at Vancouver 2010. “I’m better at writing reports than I am at getting my hands dirty, so today felt very good.”

After excavation, volunteers carefully moved the tiny plants to their new site at a muddy ditch nearby. A local water current had been routed through the ditch earlier that day, providing the plants with enough moisture to survive.

VANOC’s environmental monitor, Alex Sartori, said that in addition to the day spent moving the plants, the project required a week of preparatory labour and more than one month of planning.

“Everyone involved – be it Cypress Bowl, Vancouver 2010 contractors or the Cypress community – has really come together to make this possible,” Sartori said.

The project is breaking ground in more ways than one. Little is known about relocating plants in a sub-alpine environment, and specialists hope to learn more through observing the plants. As a means of extra precaution, a portion of the plant samples were taken to the nursery of Frank Skelton, a leading expert in native wetland plants.

In addition to the Friends of Cypress, BC Parks, Cypress Bowl Recreation Limited and environmental consultants, North Construction (a local construction contractor specializing in extreme terrain development) donated man power and equipment time.

“This is partnership at work,” said Dan Doyle, the executive vice president at Vancouver 2010 responsible for venue construction. “One of the things that we want to do with our Games venues is to be a friend to the environment and produce sustainable venues and this is another example of that.”

Doyle added, “This is the kind of work that we at VANOC want to be known for when we leave in 2010.”