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Growing AWAREness

From a notice in a newspaper Whistler’s environmental watchdog has evolved into a political powerhouse

By Erica Osburn

It all started with a small ad in the Oct. 27 th 1988 issue of The Whistler Question. “Any Whistler residents interested in starting a recycling program, please call Michele at 932-**** or leave a message.”

Michele Bush’s humble classified ad was the seed of what is now the influential environmental watchdog of Whistler, otherwise known as AWARE.

Frustrated with the lack of green initiatives in Whistler at the time, Bush got the idea to change the status quo during a routine errand. “I was picking up my mail at the old post office — where Gone Bakery is now,” she recalls. “It was a weekend, and there was this huge pile of junk mail at my feet. I thought: what a waste.”

At that moment, a fully loaded logging truck barrelled down the highway. “I was standing up to my ankles in garbage and I remember thinking, they’re just going to cut down more beautiful trees for more junk mail!”

Other community members must have concurred with Bush’s sentiments. “I got lots of phone calls and about 15 people showed up at our first meeting at Citta’s,” Bush says.

Cathy Jewett, a Whistler resident since 1976, was present that night. “I don’t know how much Michele was involved after putting that ad in the paper but she got the impetus going to start the group.”

The first order of business was discussing possible names for the fledgling organization, which did not become a registered non-profit society until 1989.

“There were two name options: WASTE (Whistler Association to Save The Environment) or AWARE (Association of Whistler Residents for the Environment),” Jewett remembers. “We decided to go with AWARE because it was more positive.”

Whistler resident Chris Wilding was also present. “An ad hoc committee was formed at Citta’s. We all said, ‘let’s stop bitching about this and do something about it.’ Bart Imler was the first president. I was the secretary.”

Bush was on the first Board of AWARE as well, but left Whistler a few months later to join her boyfriend in the Ringling Bros. Circus. “Bart (Imler) knew how to put a non-profit together,” she says. “He corralled us into a schedule.”

But Bush had little desire to stick around for the minutiae and planning that had to be done. “That wasn’t my bag at all. I like to start things but I have no patience for that stuff.”

Wilding remembers preparing for the first AWARE fundraiser. “Charlie Doyle created our first logo and we made a banner out of used fabric. I sewed the whole thing by hand,” she remembers.

AWARE held an Earth Day Expo in Village Square, in front of the pharmacy. “We had demos for the kids on how to make recycled paper, and displays of eco products that you could buy at Nesters,” she says. “It was a sexy issue then, and it’s a sexy issue now. I guess it goes in cycles.”

The fundraiser lasted well into the evening hours. “We had a big dance that night — a band from Lytton played, called Zumac, and they powered their electric guitars with generators.”

The money raised at the Earth Day event went towards funding a municipal waste management study, “to determine what our waste stream was,” says Wilding. Funds were used to weigh trucks and monitor what was entering the dump.

“Back then we had to drive our recyclables down to the city,” says Jewett. “Cliff Jennings was the municipal official at that time, and he was very amenable to recycling.”

Jennings, father of current AWARE president Sarah Jennings, sat on the first AWARE board, but stepped down after two years. “It became a conflict of interest because one of my responsibilities at the Muni was the landfill,” he admits. “It became the Muni vs. AWARE.”

According to Jennings, the municipality at that time was not forward thinking on environmental matters.

“The administrator, Peter Kent, was very old school, and he didn’t believe in imposing tipping fees for businesses. To him, it was much easier to have a big, open dump.”

Introducing user fees meant that the dump had to be supervised, with a gate and other security measures. “The Muni was worried that introducing tipping fees would lead to people dumping their garbage all over the place,” explains Jennings, who is now retired. “This still happens today, particularly in the spring when all the seasonal workers leave town.”

In spite of the challenges, AWARE was successful in getting the recycling program established and the group was able to shift its attention to other concerns.

“It wasn’t long before the Muni decided to take on the recycling project,” says Mayor Ken Melamed, who was AWARE’s president from 1990 to 1996. “AWARE moved on to other things; we began to focus our attention on protecting old-growth forests and wetlands.”

Speaking up for the environment and protection of sensitive areas became one of AWARE’s primary areas of focus as the economy recovered in the late 1980s and development accelerated in the 1990s. AWARE was front and centre in its opposition to development proposals like Nicklaus North and the Norwood Group’s Freestyle Lands project next to Adventures West.

“The late ’80s were a boom period for Whistler. That was when Intrawest came in and the Chateau was built and the Upper Village really started the second growth spurt,” says Jewett.

Golf course development in valley bottom wetlands was a “contentious issue,” Melamed recalls, referring to what became Nicklaus North.

“This was very productive land for wildlife, bears, and birds. In the end, we were successful in preserving a 72-acre plot bordering the golf course.”

And with each contentious development project, the community’s collective understanding of wetlands and the value of ecosystems increased ever so slightly. But development and land issues weren’t the only focus. Jewett remembers trying to change the thinking at her workplace.

“Back then it was Styrofoam everything,” she says. “I remember having these long discussions with the Food and Beverage managers at Whistler, telling them about the risks of Styrofoam. They responded by telling me that is was safe and there was no harm in it.

“I said, ‘let’s use dishes up here (in the Roundhouse) but there was the issue of getting the water up there.”

While she faced much opposition at the time, Jewett’s prodding had an impact. “We may have been ahead of our time, but now they use plates and there is a sewer line going down the mountain.”

AWARE continued to bring environmental issues to public attention through the mid- and late-90s, but some of the early momentum had disappeared. Part of that was due to frustration with government inaction, whether perceived or real. At AWARE’s 1998 AGM outgoing president Max Gotz expressed his dissatisfaction.

“…for the 10 years I've been in Whistler I've seen almost no movement forward towards preserving land, towards making this a reality. It just hasn't happened. I think one of the main reasons is the municipal staff, and the municipal directors in particular, haven't a single person on the municipal payroll with an environmental background,” Gotz said.

While things may not have been happening quickly enough for some, the municipality was taking the first steps to monitor air quality, map sensitive areas and initiate a fish stewardship program with the Rotary and angling clubs.

But there were still a myriad of issues that AWARE was trying to tackle, including the spruce forest once designated for a golf driving range, the Emerald Forest deal, the bid for the 2010 Olympics, logging in the Stoltmann/Elaho Wilderness area and educational programs. This shotgun approach had led to member burnout. It came to a head at the 1999 annual general meeting.

AWARE was “on its last legs” recalls Councillor Eckhard Zeidler who, along with Brad Kasselman, Inge Flanagan and Mitch Rhodes, showed up at the AGM and decided to join the board.

“We had 115 issues on the table and we weren’t doing any one thing well,” Zeidler says. “We immediately started with a strategic planning session and reviewed the mission statement.”

At the same time, the environment was getting more attention within municipal hall as focus shifted to long-term, post-development policies. Municipal staff was working on an environmental strategy while Melamed, in his role as a councillor, argued the environmental angle to things like the transportation policy and land use decisions.

As the municipality’s environmental strategy neared completion Whistler was introduced to the Natural Step, the framework for sustainability founded by Swedish researcher Dr. Karl-Henrik Robert. The Natural Step was embraced by a number of key players.

“Natural Step was extremely successful as we got the big players at the table, including the Muni, Whistler-Blackcomb, Tourism Whistler and Fairmont Chateau Whistler,” says Zeidler. “We published toolkits and distributed them to all homes in Whistler. We also created separate toolkits for the schools and businesses.”

It was a long way from the early days of the Muni vs. AWARE.

The increased influence and respect of AWARE was evident in 2002, when environmental groups throughout the Sea to Sky region asked AWARE to represent environmental interests at the provincial government’s Land Resource Management Plan. The LRMP (which is concerned only with land use, not land ownership) will determine how Crown land in the area is used for years to come, and has involved representatives from various “user groups”, including the logging industry, recreation, labour unions, First Nations and agriculture.

How was it that AWARE was asked to represent environmental interests at the LRMP forum?

“We showed up!” laughs Zeidler. “We have an excellent negotiator in Johnny Mikes. He was involved in another LRMP for the Rockies — which resulted in the highest amount of protected areas in the province. We were extremely fortunate that he resided in Whistler and was willing to take this on.”

The funds to pay for a negotiator came from municipal grants in aid, but Zeidler adds that Mikes took a fraction of his usual fee to do the job.

“We felt we had a level playing field with someone so experienced when we were sitting across the table from the forestry negotiator,” says Zeidler. He is optimistic that the results of the LRMP, which will be made public in a few months, will have good news for Whistler.

Past president Brad Kasselman knows there are no black and white solutions for Whistler and that there is a delicate balance between doing business in a resort town and keeping environmental concerns front and centre.

“The goal of AWARE is to have things done with as much environmental sensitivity as possible,” he says, whether the issue is the 2010 Olympics or Whistler-Blackcomb’s Peak-to-Peak Gondola project.

“We are not a bunch of earthy crunchy granolas,” he insists. “AWARE’s members are bankers, accountants, lawyers. It is a very intelligent group of people.”

However, Kasselman is not satisfied with current membership numbers. “AWARE has about 200 members in Whistler but the Western Canada Wilderness Committee has about 700 members here. It would be great to see that membership move to AWARE,” he says. “There’s too much responsibility on too few shoulders.”

He adds that WCWC has 20 full-time staff and professional canvassers, whereas AWARE is completely run by volunteers. Furthermore, the $10 per year membership fee is “largely symbolic” says Kasselman.

Total membership fees contributed only $360 to revenues last year, according to AWARE’s 2006 financial statements. Coner (Jamie) McKay, AWARE’s outgoing treasurer, says keeping annual dues low was a conscious decision made by the board several years ago, in order to “ concentrate on projects for the benefit of the environment rather than for the organization.”

Significant funding for specific AWARE campaigns last year came from the Whistler Blackcomb Foundation and the Community Foundation of Whistler. The municipality’s Community Enrichment Program provides additional funds. Income from donations, gifts, memberships, the two foundations and the CEP was nearly $36,000 for 2006, while AWARE’s operating budget was close to $38,000.

Board member Bryce Leigh says the goal for 2008 is to have a full time executive director to focus more effort on fundraising and to be better able to attend events, meetings and conferences on behalf of AWARE.

“Other groups like the WCWC and the Federation of Mountain Clubs have full time staff. Being volunteers, we can’t always leave our jobs to attend important meetings and get our message across.”

Regardless of AWARE’s small membership base, environmental issues are very much on the agenda at municipal hall. AWARE is represented on many municipal committees and task forces.

And Kasselman is convinced that electing Ken Melamed as mayor sent a message that the town wanted environmental issues dealt with.

“He had nine years as a councillor, where he really cut his teeth for the mayor’s job,” Kasselman says.

And the mayor has his environmental priorities.

“We have got to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions,” says Melamed. “If we don’t, it will be the end of skiing in Whistler. It may not happen at the end of my lifetime but it may be in my children’s lifetimes.”

Melamed also sees protection of ecologically sensitive areas as an ongoing, pressing matter for Whistler. “We need protection of the Millar Creek wetlands and the Alpha Creek wetlands. We need to protect that entire area.”

Another concern for AWARE members is the increasing amount of snowmobiling in the backcountry. According to Leigh, there have been new restrictions placed on snowmobiling in Washington and Oregon, “so they are all coming here.” Leigh is not just concerned with the number of sledders using Whistler’s backcountry, but the effect that the two-stroke engines have on the environment.

“At least 20 per cent of a snowmobile’s fuel is not efficiently burned,” says Leigh, who calls snowmobiling “polluting for pleasure.”

“I’ll bet there are 20 sleds at the bottom of Callaghan Lake,” he adds. “What do you think that is doing to the habitat there?”

“I am not against snowmobilers but the way things are going now, if the snowmobilers don’t begin to regulate themselves, they are going to be regulated soon,” Zeidler warns. “They need to develop a code of responsibility. Right now it’s a free for all.”

Michele Bush is no longer a member of AWARE, but still feels strongly about environmental issues and sees much room for improvement among some village businesses.

“I have a big problem with many of the stores that keep their doors open,” she says. “Market research has shown that customers are more likely to enter a store if the door is open, regardless of whether the place is heated or air-conditioned. It’s like this at Eddie Bauer, The Gap — doors are wide open in the middle of winter. It’s not right.”

Kasselman believes the most important way to effect change in matters like these is though education, which he says is a top priority for AWARE. Sarah Jennings, who recently replaced Kasselman as president, and represents a new generation of Whistler activists, is excited about the several programs that AWARE will be offering in the coming months.

“There will be a free kid’s camp for 6-12 year olds for about two hours each month, open to tourists and locals. We hope we can get them to think about how their choices affect the environment.”

Other programs include staging an educational skit at Whistler Secondary School and a sustainable speaker series for adults.

AWARE will be celebrating its 20 th birthday next year. “That is quite a milestone,” says Jewett, who has seen AWARE evolve from coffee group to major political powerhouse.

“Kudos to Michele for putting that ad out.”

Bush herself is clearly pleased with what has evolved from her notice in the paper. “It’s amazing to see what it’s become — one person can make a difference,” she says. “When I see guys at the recycling depot getting out of their big trucks and separating their stuff… I get a little pang of pride.”



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