The Biodiversity Monitoring and Assessment Program (BMAP) was designed to be
a state-of-the-art monitoring and assessment program developed in collaboration
with Kitimat LNG and Pacific Trails Pipeline Partnership and three partner
organizations: the University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC) in Prince
George BC, Archipelago Marine Research Ltd. (Archipelago) in Victoria BC, and
the Center for Conservation Education and Sustainability of the Smithsonian
Conservation Biology Institute (Smithsonian) in Washington DC. The BMAP was
initiated at UNBC by Apache Canada Ltd. on behalf of Kitimat Liquid Natural Gas
(KLNG) terminal and the Pacific Trail Pipeline (PTP) projects in late 2012. In
2013, Chevron Canada Ltd. joined Apache Canada in the ownership of Kitimat LNG
terminal and the PTP pipeline projects, collectively called the Kitimat LNG
Operating General Partnership (hereafter the Project), and joined the newly
formed BMAP steering committee. Chevron ultimately took on sole representation
at the BMAP steering committee on behalf of Kitimat LNG Operating General
Partnership.
The original BMAP was planned as a long-term continuing research program to
inform ongoing best-practices in project development, construction, and
management, but because of delays leading to FID by the Kitimat LNG Operating
General Partnership for the pipeline and natural gas terminal in northern
British Columbia (BC), the BMAP was discontinued in early 2015. Archipelago
finalized their projects at the end of 2014 and the Smithsonian Institution
finalized their projects in January 2015. Kitimat LNG Operating General
Partnership, represented by Chevron, extended the Contribution Agreement with
UNBC until December 31, 2015 in order to finish the research projects that were
ongoing. This report, therefore, covers UNBC’s scientific contributions to the
goals and objectives set out in the original BMAP proposal, including any
progress up to December 31, 2015.
From the outset, the BMAP vision was to develop a collaborative research
program that would complement, but not overlap with, any legal or accommodation
requirements of the Project. As such, the BMAP was intended to address potential
applied research questions from the Project (both during construction and
operation), as well as to provide a complimentary process to collect and report
scientific information to be used for the development and application of best
practices associated with pipeline construction and management. Across all of
the original BMAP partners, the BMAP was developed to provide a contribution to
protecting and managing the environment by monitoring and evaluating the status
and trends of habitats, ecosystems, and species within the pipeline footprint
and to provide management recommendations for maintaining ecosystem function —
again above and beyond any legal requirements of the Project. The BMAP also
aimed to contribute to the knowledge and understanding of the biodiversity in
the pipeline project area as it transects through the marine, coastal, mountain,
and interior ecological units.
The BMAP was initiated to provide additional insight through long-term
monitoring and assessment in order to investigate, through a biodiversity lens,
how current construction and operational techniques were working and what new
techniques might be applied. The BMAP was developed to addresses critical
questions that link Project activities to an understanding of the surrounding
environment through research. The research was conducted according to Protocols
— cohesive projects that were independently proposed by partner organizations
and scientifically peer reviewed. UNBC proposed, and contributed to, six
research protocols.
For each of the six UNBC-led BMAP protocols, we addressed the protocol goals
and objectives (as outlined in our 2013 proposal) as far as was possible before
pipeline construction and installation — in some cases significant portions of
some protocol involved post-construction research and monitoring, but those have
not been implemented. In this final report, we describe the research
contributions within the six protocols developed and implemented by UNBC: the
Aquatic Communities Protocol, the Tailed Frog as a Model for Understanding
Connectivity within Aquatic, Riparian, and Terrestrial Ecosystems Protocol, the
Soil Integrity and Revegetation Protocol, the Anadromous Movement and Estuarine
Habitat Use of Cutthroat Trout Protocol, the Animal Movement Restoration
Protocol, and the High Elevation Terrestrial Invertebrate and Lichen Restoration
Protocol. Although dealt with in detail in subsequent chapters, here we provide
an overview of the six protocols.