Assessment of the Cumulative Effects of Land Use (GHOST)

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Shibby!
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Assessment of the Cumulative Effects of Land Use (GHOST)

Post by Shibby! »

Published by:

Cornel Yarmoloy, M.E.Des.

Environmental Scientist

The ALCES Group


I don't have a means of uploading the PDF, but he informed me their final report has been published and presented to the public and RMDRA. I have yet to read it, but I assume whomever received this will post it for everybody to read? If it's lost let me know and I can forward to those with the ability to attach larger documents. (7.2megs)
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Re: Assessment of the Cumulative Effects of Land Use (GHOST)

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I'll try to keep my response as appropriate as possible, but this report is filled with so much matter that stinks it's rediculous. ... and I'll leave it at that. (ok, in my opinion it's not very professional based on plenty of facts that can be shot down easily, but sadly the general public fed this BS will not understand and rather jump on the bandwagon)

Curious how much one of these reports would cost? Not that I suggest we do anything like it, but I hope people are smart enough to see the facts.... I'm only on page 18..

"To more precisely quantify linear feature density, we randomly distributed twenty five, 1 km2 polygons over the study area (Figure 9, top) and had a GIS analyst manually digitize all visible linear features within each polygon (Figure 9, bottom left and right).48 This dataset allowed for the construction of a linear feature correction coefficient which was applied across the full study area.
The analysis showed that linear features were under-estimated by ~72%. For the study area, the original Government of Alberta data set indicated an average linear density of 1.42 km/km2, whereas the corrected dataset suggested a linear density of 5.12 km/km2.
"

Knowing the area quite well, does anybody believe there is an average of 5.12 km of trail in a square KM?? Even the highest density areas (a few select KM off TransAlta road) and one or two staging areas maybe come close to this, but in general?

I enjoyed the "Figure 2. Ghost-Waiparous Access Management Plan, Random Sample Telephone Survey Results." We all know the general public is against OHV use, but how many of those people know Wiaprous? How many know anything besides what they see after along weekend on the news?
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Re: Assessment of the Cumulative Effects of Land Use (GHOST)

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"Reductions in the ability of natural systems to provide clean water to downstream communities, such as Calgary, results in an increasing need for water treatment infrastructure and associated monies. Such costs are passed onto consumers through increasing taxes and metered water costs. As demonstrated in other geographies, the significant burden on downstream tax payers for potable drinking water can be reduced through the effective management of headwater areas rather than building and maintaining increasingly larger and more costly water treatment facilities.3"

"The Ghost River basin of Alberta’s East Slopes supplies approximately ten percent of the water flowing into the Bow River upstream of Calgary, Alberta1, making it a vital link in the supply of abundant clean water to Calgarians and other downstream users.”

Has he been informed most of the water is directed through Minnewanka Lake now? A natural settling pond with VERY few trails crossing that portion of river (I can only think of one that is I believe winter access only after the river)

"Figure 14. Confluence of Ghost River and Waiparous Creek at Waiparous Village on 21 June 2007. Depicting increased sediment loading in Waiparous Creek identified as related to upstream OHRV use. 71"

:lol:

"Equestrian outfitters within the study area identify OHRV use as negatively affecting their business due to a high incidence of “non-repeat” customers who indicated that OHRVs detracted from their hoped for wilderness experience.188"
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Re: Assessment of the Cumulative Effects of Land Use (GHOST)

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And this is our fault...:

"During field surveys, it was noted that many off road vehicles especially motorbikes did not display licence plates which makes enforcement difficult.219 All operating off road vehicles within the Ghost Forest Land Use Zone are required to be legally registered and display licence plates. For ease of enforcement this should be extended to OHRVs being transported, operated or parked within the study area. Existing information kiosks, websites and printed brochures should detail this information and enforcement effectively implemented. Where metal license plates are impractical to attach to vehicles a registration decal may me an appropriate solution.220"

But the use of a decal is a nice option they are providing. I tend to go through plenty of plates, and my last dual sport trip both myself and another guy lost our plates from vibration and metal fatique.

And continueing to agree with him:

"It was also observed during field visits that many motorbikes and some quads were excessively loud. Excessive noise has been identified as a source of conflict with non-motorized users,221,222 and may negatively affect wildlife. Noise regulations should be enforced to minimize user conflicts and disturbance of wildlife."

"It appears that without effective management of OHRVs, management of livestock in the area may be compromised. However, salting away from watercourses, fencing of riparian areas, off stream watering programs, exclusion of livestock from critical wildlife zones through fencing and effective rotational grazing of appropriate areas to minimize impacts are required."

:thinking:
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Re: Assessment of the Cumulative Effects of Land Use (GHOST)

Post by cedric »

Shibby! wrote:The analysis showed that linear features were under-estimated by ~72%. For the study area, the original Government of Alberta data set indicated an average linear density of 1.42 km/km2, whereas the corrected dataset suggested a linear density of 5.12 km/km2.[/b]

Knowing the area quite well, does anybody believe there is an average of 5.12 km of trail in a square KM?? Even the highest density areas (a few select KM off TransAlta road) and one or two staging areas maybe come close to this, but in general?
Not that I would support anything in this study at this point, but "linear features" are not necessarily things you would recognize as "trails". This could include any and all cutlines, powerlines, roads, sruvey blazes, etc. that could be seen on an aerial image/photo. These could be ancient and almost completely overgrown from a travel perspective, but will still be visible from overhead. For that matter, the GIS analyst could have included all watercourses as they are technically linear features, but hopefully they are just looking at man-made disturbances, as that seems to be how they are interpreting the results. They need to keep in mind that many of these linear disturbances are not suitable for travel, or are not open for use.

On another note, "random" samples can mean a lot of different things to different people, sometimes the "random" samples are highly subjective, even without the person's knowledge that they are doing so. We'll have to assume that good science is behind their methods, but of course I have my doubts about some of it too.

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Re: Assessment of the Cumulative Effects of Land Use (GHOST)

Post by markvfr »

I think this was already discussed in this thread in March, if we're talking about the same "study" (yes, in quotes, as it not a study of any kind).

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=6818

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Re: Assessment of the Cumulative Effects of Land Use (GHOST)

Post by Spinalguy »

markvfr wrote:I think this was already discussed in this thread in March, if we're talking about the same "study" (yes, in quotes, as it not a study of any kind).

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=6818
You are correct Mark, i guess this is the final draft...err...product.
What a joke. :thumbsdown:
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Re: Assessment of the Cumulative Effects of Land Use (GHOST)

Post by Shibby! »

Spinalguy wrote:
markvfr wrote:I think this was already discussed in this thread in March, if we're talking about the same "study" (yes, in quotes, as it not a study of any kind).

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=6818
You are correct Mark, i guess this is the final draft...err...product.
What a joke. :thumbsdown:
This is true. They said the final, public draft is coming out later, and this is what they sent this morning.

For "test" samples that were random, you can view the ones they selected and I'm 100% they can't find 5km of trail every square KM on most of those marks. Yes some are on Bar C area which are fairly concentrated, but only in a few areas. They say their samples are 72% error and understated. 72%!!! Where do they get this and how? Not even the government could find 5km or have that far off data.

I guess I must not be considering everything, because even looking at ancient cutlines, clearings, etc still can't understand that much. Once out of the staging area, most of Wiaprous is very sparse.
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Re: Assessment of the Cumulative Effects of Land Use (GHOST)

Post by Hendrix13 »

Here's the "random" samples overlayed on the trail map.
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ALCES_Sample_Over_Trails[1].jpg
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Re: Assessment of the Cumulative Effects of Land Use (GHOST)

Post by cedric »

It sure looks a lot more "evenly distributed" than "randomly distributed" to me.

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Re: Assessment of the Cumulative Effects of Land Use (GHOST)

Post by DirtyBikes »

We are living through the same sludge in Ontario. The ONLY response is a legal battle because in a court of law this sludge would not fly, only works in the court of public opinion. In a court of law we could find a workable solution for all involved without the emotional influences. Too bad legal battles cost too much.

We are down to two real legal riding areas in Southern Ontario and I bet they will be reduced or gone in the next 5-10yrs. It is very easy to build a case against ORM as we are in the minority plus we have not helped our cause by crapping on other ORV (ie ATVs).

We need a strong, national coalition of ORV users that represents the riders and has some serious legal ($$$) backing or it is like shooting fish in a barrel for those that oppose us. I don't know if MCC is the answer since there seems to be a dislike for the organization amongst regional off road organizations (again an example of not helping our cause). But we need a solution soon.

WEC/CMRC seem to be working hard at growing the competition side of our sport and if we can find away to get alignment with a national competion body then that would be a major step in the right direction....one step of many

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Re: Assessment of the Cumulative Effects of Land Use (GHOST)

Post by Hendrix13 »

Good insight DirtyBikes. :thumbsup:

BTW...here's the only links I could find to the reports

http://www.ghostwatershed.ca/GWAS/Resea ... th-web.pdf
http://www.ghostwatershed.ca/GWAS/Resea ... rt-web.pdf
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Re: Assessment of the Cumulative Effects of Land Use (GHOST)

Post by axel99 »

Admittedly, I have not read the entire document in detail but again alot of the stated OHRV impacts are based on public perceptions\emotions and not emperical data. I don't see much differnt form the previous released draft. :thumbsdown: In reference to Figure 14, wasn't June of 2007 when we had really heavy rains with flooding in alot of areas.
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Re: Assessment of the Cumulative Effects of Land Use (GHOST)

Post by Hendrix13 »

Here are two fundamental errors with this report

1) All the trails inventoried for the study were from Aerial Photo's done in 2007. The Ghost Fluz was just created in 2006. Before then there was no designated trail system. OHV's where allowed to go where ever they wanted. It was the result of this that prompted the creation of the Ghost Fluz.

We're getting blamed for something that the government has already addressed almost 5 years ago with GAMP. If all these thousands of KM trails really do exist today (which they don't). Could someone please show me. So far I've only been able to inventory maybe 150km of rideable single track at most.


2) This is a study of the Ghost Watershed but only the Ghost Fluz (OHV Area) was studied. The results from this were projected onto the entire watershed which includes the Ghost River Wilderness Area and Don Getty protected area's. They also projected these results onto the Ghost river as they love to quote as supplying 10% of the water to the Bow River. Which is true. But the Ghost River is mostly diverted away from the Ghost Fluz into Lake Minnewanka. (See my pretty map done in paint). So OHV affects to the Ghost river in even the most extreme cases is negligible to the Bow River.
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Ghost Water shed - River Flow Diversion.JPG
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Re: Assessment of the Cumulative Effects of Land Use (GHOST)

Post by Hendrix13 »

14 350 xcf
13 CRF100F
12 CRF150F
04 CRF80
01 TTR125
87 CR250

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