Map of Silver Star Mountain Resort's Proposed Golf Course - 1997

To view a map of the golf course proposed in Silver Star Mountain Resort's original 1997 application to build a golf course in the southeast corner of Silver Star Provincial Park, click the icon below.

 You may want to right click and rotate the view until it is oriented correctly. If you look closely at the map, you will see a watertrap near the 18th tee, labelled "Irrigation Lake". This pond does not currently exist, nor do the other ponds shown on the map. In the original proposal, these watertraps were to serve as sewage effluent reservoirs, and were to be lined to prevent groundwater contamination. It remains to be seen if the resort will build effluent storage ponds in the golf course area before they commence sewage effluent irrigation on the clearcut fairways.

 

General Location Map Submitted in Silver Star Resort's 1997 Application

To view the General Location Map submitted by Silver Star Mountain Resort in its 1997 Golf Course Application, click the icon below.

You may want to right click the map and rotate it until it is oriented correctly. For the most part, this map is quite accurate, except that the actual path of the "New Road" to the golf course differs from that shown here.

 

Map of Silver Star Mountain Resort's 2006 Golf Course Application

Though the opening date proposed in Silver Star Resort's 1997 application was stated as June 2000, the golf course was never started. The only preliminary work done was to lay out the fairway centerlines. In 2006, Silver Star Mountain Resort reapplied to the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and the Arts (MTCA) to construct the golf course. Simultaneously, the resort's sewage utility applied for tenure to run a sewage effluent line down to the golf course area and to log 9 of the fairways. MTCA granted a harvest permit to Silverhawk Utilities to log 9 fairways to be used for sewage effluent irrigation, and to run irrigation lines along those fairways. To view the golf course map submitted in Silver Star's 2006 Application to build the golf course, click the icon below.

If you look closely at this map, you'll notice that lines of latitude are missing. This fact made it difficult for coalition members to find the golf course at first, since the General Location Map submitted by the resort showed the course to be further north than it actually is.

 

General Location Map Submitted in Silver Star Resort's 2006 Application

The map below was submitted by Silver Star Mountain Resort in their 2006 golf course application. The red arrow showing the approximate course location is placed incorrectly. The arrow points to the vicinity of Paradise Camp, when in fact the golf course area is south of Vance Creek, almost 5 kilometres to the south-southeast of where the arrow points, and 400 metres lower, on the plateau in the southeast corner of what used to be Silver Star Provincial Park. To view the map submitted by Silver Star Mountain Resort showing the incorrect location of the golf course, click the icon below.

 

Map of Sewage Effluent Line to Golf Course

Since Silver Star's sewage utility company, Silverhawk Utilities needed more land for sewage effluent irrigation, the resort arranged with Silverhawk and the Ministry of Tourism to use the golf course lands for this purpose. Silver Star Mountain Resort applied to the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and the Arts (then called "Lands and Water B.C.") for a statutory right of way along the access road and the golf course fairway centerlines for the purpose of running sewage effluent irrigation lines. The fairways would be logged not under a golf course tenure, but rather a utilities tenure. To view a map of the proposed sewage line to the golf course, click the icon below.

 

Map of Phase 3 Effluent Irrigation Area

It is doubtful whether Silver Star Mountain Resort will build a golf course on the mountain in the foreseeable future. It simply is not commercially viable. In fact, despite logging of the fairways, Silver Star Resort's CEO Ian Grant, insisted in a recent TV news report that the resort was not building a golf course, and that it was just a coincidence that the clearcuts were in the shape of fairways.

The golf course lands are being logged under a utilities tenure, which will allow the resort's sewage utility company to dispose of the resort's sewage effluent, thus enabling the massive real estate devlopment planned for the mountain. Without these golf course lands for sewage effluent disposal, the resort would have to dispose of the effluent via snowmaking, which is very energy intensive, expensive, and involves risks to water quality and public health.

Silverhawk Utilities refers to the golf course lands as Phase 3 of their effluent irrigation program. To view a map of the Phase 3 Effluent Irrigation Area, click the icon below.

You may want to right click the map to orient it correctly. Notice that the expansion of the effluent irrigation program is planned to occur in stages, as the resort grows. Officials at the Ministry of Tourisn, Culture, and the Arts actually believe that these effluent irrigation lines will be used to irrigate the golf course, if and when it is completed. Of course, anyone who knew even the slightest bit about golf course development should know that laying irrigation lines would be the last step before seeding the fairways. The logged clearcuts at Silver Star still contain stumps and logging debris, and have not been graded or had topsoil added. 

 

Sprinkler Layout - Golf Course Effluent Irrigation

Almost every promise made by Silver Star Mountain Resort with respect to its proposed golf course has been broken. In 1997, the resort gave the impression it would register with Audubon International's Signature Program, and would abide by very strict environmental guidelines during the design, construction, and operation of the golf course. The reality is, the resort never registered with Audubon International. Audubon never even made a site visit.

As another example of more broken promises, Silverhawk stated in its 2006 application for irrigating the golf course fairways, that it would use pop-up sprinklers in a layout shown in the map below. In the resort's 1997 Golf Course Application, it stated that a high-tech computerized irrigation system would be employed to prevent overwatering and subsequent groundwater contamination.

In reality, unless these sprinklers pop up 5 or 6 feet, the effluent will be blocked by all the logging debris, weeds, and branches. It is quite likely that the sewage utility will simply run pipes above ground with manual sprinklers to provide the least expensive way to get rid of the sewage effluent, in much the same as the system used in the Phase 1 and 2 effluent irrigation areas.

To view a map of the proposed sprinkler layout on the clearcut fairways, click the icon below.

You may want to right click the map to orient it correctly. Notice that the fairways are shown with wavy edges, which was part of the original proposed design. These "scalloped" fairways were designed to reduce windthrow. In reality, when the 4 fairways were clearcut, absolutely no scalloping of the fairways was carried out (see photo gallery of golf course logging). And, no feathering was carried out either.

 

 Aerial View of Fairway Layout

In the mid 1990's all of the fairways were surveyed and fairway centerlines were partially cleared. Some horse logging was also done in the area to remove beetle killed trees. Many of the temporary access roads and skid trails have since overgrown. The 4 fairways logged in the Fall of 2007 match the UTM coordinates of Fairways #10, 11, 17, and 18. Eventually, Silver Star Resort and Silverhawk Utilities plan to log all the fairways and irrigate them with sewage effluent. There are no plans to actually use these fairways for golfing! Click the icon below to see an aerial view of the eventual fairway layout.