Rocks blasted with dynamite, a constant push of wind, extreme exposure to the elements: two-and-a-half years after Kinder Morgan and Parks Canada started re-growth operations on the 81 km stretch of oil pipeline laid through the park, the section at Windy Point continues to be one of the hardest points to bring back to a natural state. Now at the halfway point of the five year growth schedule, the efforts for restoration along the pipeline are progressing in fits and starts.

In 2007, Kinder Morgan, the Houston, Texas-based energy company which is one of the largest pipeline transporters in North America, took on an extremely unique project: laying down a new 36-inch wide oil pipeline in a National Park that would travel next to an existing, 60 year old pipeline. In all, more than 100 pieces of heavy equipment (dozers, side booms and excavators, etc.), 100 pickup trucks and more than 380 oilers, swampers and general labourers were involved in the laying of a section TMX Anchor Loop pipeline through the park. Trenches were ripped, dug, and exploded for the pipeline which stretches all the way from northern Alberta the lower mainland of British Columbia and Washington State in the USA. 

After the pipe was laid, a team of environmental engineers working with Kinder Morgan, Jasper National Park and a series of other environmental contractors, developed what they call one of the most comprehensive post-construction environmental restoration projects ever launched in Canada. The whole pipeline was targeted for restoration in the park. Greenhouses growing native grasses were set up. Sections of grass and plants were cut out of areas before they could be destroyed and were moved back later. Plans, outlines and goals were created about how the damaged areas would be brought back to life.

“There are some struggles here,” said Margaret Mears, environmental specialist for Kinder Morgan and the program manager for re-growth in Jasper National Park. “Some species are doing better than others, but the work is not finished yet. We still have more than two years to finish the goals that were set out with Parks.

“I think Kinder Morgan has been a good company,” said Dwight Bourdin, environmental specialist for Jasper National Park. His job is to essentially work with Kinder Morgan to set re-growth standards along the pipeline and to make sure that the oil company is living up to them. “These standards, for their time, were extremely high. They may have been the highest standards ever set on a project like this. This is a National Park. It means more.”

Two-and-a-half years after the project started, tentative, limited reviews of that restoration work are possible. Bourdin said he believes that most of the work along the pipeline is going well. But at Windy Point, the results are mixed.

In 2008, about 8,500 plants were planted at Windy Point. Along the entire pipeline in Jasper, some 220,000 plants went into the ground, the majority of which were shrubs. Sixty-eight per cent of the plants at the point are shrubs (such as willow, strawberry, creeping and common juniper, and cinquefoil), 24 per cent are coniferous trees (such as douglas firs, balsams, and lodge pole pines), four per cent are forbs and the final four per cent are deciduous trees. Grasses were seeded through out the entire site.

Bourdin and Mears explained the plants at the point were chosen for the site because they exist in sites next to the land that were destroyed. Parks and the oil company are using nature as a blueprint, because, in essence, they are trying to build an ecosystem from the ground up. By trying to recreate natural conditions, some might call their jobs the same kind of work God does. 

“Well, we don’t like to call it that,” said Bourdin. “I like to say that we’re giving mother nature a bit of a kick start, that’s all.”

Still, overall, he said the restoration work along the pipeline is incredibly complex.

Douglas firs at the site appear to be struggling the most. At the topmost sections of the point, many, though not all, of the trees are dried out significantly and appear to be dead. They mark some of the rockiest points at the point like little tombstones. 

According to Mears, Kinder Morgan will probably not be planting any more trees at Windy Point and any new plants introduced into the area will likely be of the shrub and bush variety. Many of the trees did not do well enough to warrant replanting.

However, the trees represent significantly less than half of the plants put into the ground at the site. Other plants, particularly a number of the shrubs, are flourishing. Creeping and common junipers, strawberries, cinqufoils and a host of other plants at the site appear to be established, so much so that many of the plants are being eaten by passing sheep. At the base of the point, where there is more soil, even trees like lodge pole pines and balsams appear to be growing well.

“The creeping ivy is looking pretty good here,” said Bourdin to Mears after he bent down to examine one of the plants at the site on a cold blustery day at the point in early May. He walks through the site jauntily, with something approaching a smile on his face. When he comes down from the point after spending more than an hour there, he says that re-growth at the site appears to be off to a good start.

Significant portions of the tip of Windy Point on the west side of Highway 16 have been blasted with dynamite. Many of the explosions were done in 1952 when the first pipeline passed through the park. Other large sections have been chewed up by excavators operating in the 2000’s. This means a lot of the reforestation work is happening on top of rock that resembles something like an alien moonscape.

According to Bourdin, even the parts of Windy Point that weren’t blown up don’t grow greenery easily. 

“This is the most challenging site along the entire pipeline,” said Borden while standing on the point a day in May so cold that he needed gloves. It’s called Windy Point for a reason.”

He said that the area’s high winds (which can blow away soils and make for colder temperatures), the lack of moisture in the ground due to the sites exposed, south-facing position and the generally rocky environs make for a tough climate for plants and trees.

Still, plant life can exist for decades there. Along the parts that were not blasted with dynamite at the point, there exist larger versions of the plants now beginning to grow again. Creeping junipers cover large areas, spruce and douglas firs jut out of the cracks between large rocks (Bourdin estimates some to be well over one hundred years old), lodge pole pines gather in large groups at the bottom of the hills. Life can find a way here. Bourdin and Mears both believe life is now finding a way on top of a buried pipeline carrying to some of the spoils of the Albertan oil sands.

Bourdin and Mears both stress the restoration project spearheaded by the oil company is still not yet complete. From the middle of 2008, they have five years to complete their restoration work. Then parks will take over the site entirely. This summer, a variety of Parks and Kinder Morgan crews will be examining the re-growth efforts. Some will be carrying water cans to water the plants individually. Plots will be thrown, plants will be counted. Plants that are doing well will have more planted, most likely, and those that are not flourishing will not be planted as much. Kinder Morgan and Parks are aiming at a 90 per cent success rate for the combined total of all the species planted at the site at the end of five years. Right now, they appear to be well over half way to that goal.

Bourdin said parks had been working hand in hand with the company since the beginning of the project. Come the end of the five year restoration project, if parks is not happy with the work that Kinder Morgan has done (or the contractors have done), than they hold certain powers to call the company back to task. Bourdin said that, in the end, Parks has to be happy with the work.

Overall, are they happy right now? Yes, said Borden and in two and half years, he hopes that feeling will remain the same.