A planned Chateau Lake Louise expansion project has a new enemy.
The Washington, D.C.-based Environmental Investigation Agency has launched a national billboard campaign in the U.S. calling for Fairmont Hotels to drop its expansion plans.
The group said further development will harm one of only three concentrations of breeding female grizzly bears left in Banff.
"With bear biologists agreeing this proposal is another nail in the coffin for Banff grizzlies and Fairmont facing court action from environmental groups, the company should drop it now," said Martin Powell, EIP senior campaigner.
"If grizzlies are not safe in a flagship national park, where will they have a future?"
The organization has mounted five posters that read, "Fairmont Hotels, Bulldozing Banff's Grizzlies! No Lake Louise Convention Centre." The billboards feature a bulldozer travelling toward a grizzly and her cub. They are posted in New York, Chicago, Illinois and two in San Francisco. The group plans to post more in Arizona and Massachusetts.
Chateau Lake Louise officials are planning to expand the Chateau by adding a 14,660-square-metre, seven-floor addition to its hotel.
Canadian Environmental groups also oppose the expansion.
In April, members of the Mountain Parks Watershed Association filed a judicial review with hopes that Canada's federal court will force Parks Canada to rescind its recently issued water permit to the hotel.
In May 1998, the Bow Valley Naturalists and Banff Environmental and Action and Research Society filed a lawsuit opposing the $45-million expansion.
The court ruled in favour of Parks Canada in September 1999, and again in January 2001 when the Federal Court of Appeal allowed the expansion to go ahead.
Environmental groups believe the expansion will threaten grizzly bear habitat and increase the park population and lead to more human/wildlife encounters.
They also fear the proposed upgrades to the Lake Louise wastewater treatment plant won't be able to effectively treat the additional sewage.
Chateau officials were unavailable for comment.
However, Anne White, the Chateau's director of public relations, has said in the past the expansion will not increase water use or waste water production because of conservation measures already in place.
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