ROB MURRAY: Speaking with Frank Liszczak, Don Heinz, and Dale Stanway from the Bow Valley Helicopter Noise Alliance. What is the Bow Valley Helicopter Noise Alliance?

FRANK LISZCZAK: We are a group of residents from all over the Valley. In 2018, things were so loud in the Valley with the helicopter tourist flights that we organically got together to reduce helicopter noise from tourist flights. We fully support mountain rescues and back country services. It’s the flightseeing tours that really are the issue.

RM: This is a really good time to be having this conversation because the lease on the municipal heliport is coming up for renewal. This Tuesday at 6:00 PM, the Town of Canmore is holding like a Public Town Hall to get feedback about this issue, as well as some amendments that have been put forward to try to alter the lease to maybe address some of these concerns. Overall, do these amendments address some of the concerns?

FL: Four out of every five heliport flights is a sightseeing tour. That’s more than 80% of all traffic. Let’s be clear, this is a town owned sightseeing base disguised as a working heliport. I don’t blame Alpine Helicopters. They’re just doing what their lease allows them to do, and this new lease is really business as usual. A 25% reduction from 60 flights a day is not really 25%. The original 60 flights per day was unlimited capacity and that was rarely achieved. It means that Alpine can keep the same volume of flights annually and that same volume of noise over the summer.

DALE STANWAY: Our reading of the what’s before Council is that the company could carry out 32,000 helicopter takeoff and landings per year. This is an industrial-commercial use, which when I poll hikers and all the other tourists in town, would you like more helicopter noise? Guess what the answer is.

FL: They can get five or six bus tours under this new lease. It’s four choppers revolving continuously. You get two bus loads processed in one shot. They come in from Banff or Calgary, they drop their noise pollution, and then it’s back on the bus and they leave town. There is absolutely no data that we have found, or that the Town has found, or that even Alpine has found, that shows that there’s a multiplier effect where this tourist money flows through town, where they stay in hotels and stuff. These bus tours, they just come in and they’re out.

RM: Regarding environmental concerns, I think there are some items working to address that. Does it go far enough as well?

DS: I think it promises to have a look at it, but they’ve been saying they’d have a look at noise. They haven’t done anything on that. Quite frankly, there’s one heck of a lot of CO2 that comes out of these over the next decade if this contract is approved.

DON HEINZ: Which goes against the Town’s guidelines and goals for GHG.

FL: The proposals make aspirational comments but there’s nothing that requires the tenant to meet any milestones. The fastest way to reduce emissions is an annual cap on tourist numbers and match it to the number of non-tourist flights. We calculated that to be about 750 non-tourist flights annually.

RM: Other than a cap on the amount of flights, are there any other things that you would like to see different from what’s being put forward right now?

FL: The town does say they’re limiting the number of helicopters to four. Well, guess what? That’s exactly how many they currently have, so it’s business as usual again. If they can reduce the number of helicopters from four to two for sightseeing purposes, that would help. They could also do something very simple, which is move all the tourist flights out of Canmore and just keep the rescue and backcountry services component at the heliport. This is not the only sightseeing base that Alpine operates in the Valley.

DH: The thing I’m concerned about is that it’s a proposed ten year renewal. Why can’t we limit this to something like a maximum of five years? It gives us another five years to review this. Maybe we can find another location in five years and move them out.

RM: Playing devil’s advocate here – it sounds like a lot of these proposals will put a restriction on a free market business.

DS: I’m not so sure it’s a free market. I think it’s a subsidized industry. We have a Council that says they want public housing. They own it a big chunk of land right here that would be ideal for public housing. They never asked the question, what’s the highest and best use of this land? Maybe it’s a good place to stop all the traffic from coming into town. Maybe it ultimately will be used as a parking lot so that we don’t end up with our streets to the point where he can’t drive on them with all the tourism. But those big questions about land use weren’t asked and there wasn’t a discussion as there would be for any other land use. There wasn’t a public hearing.

DH: What worked 20 years ago doesn’t work in this community any longer. Twenty years ago it was outside of town. Now, it’s inside of town, and it’s affecting a lot of people that it didn’t affect 20 years ago.

FL: In 2020, the Town made clear they wanted to keep the heliport where it is for better rescue response time. You can keep the rescues here and just move the tourist flights elsewhere. Problem solved. All we want is to get our quality of life back. When I look at all these business as usual statements in the new lease, I have come to the conclusion that the concerns of residents in this noise footprint just don’t count. This is an opportunity for Council to do their due diligence to look at this lease renewal, take into account our concerns, and make some significant changes.

Filed under: Canmore