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Immediate Release: Oct 03, 2000
 

A referendum by the Mt. Currie Band of the Lil'wat First Nation overwhelmingly rejected Nancy Green-Raine and her developer husband Al Raine's plans for a $500 million all-season resort in sensitive grizzly bear habitat southwest of Lillooet in the Melvin Creek watershed.  Eighty three percent of band members voted no to the proposal which could bring up to 12,000 visitors a day into an area that Environment Ministry experts say is not suitable for a major resort.

"When the BC government approved Al Raine's resort project on Aug. 14, they knew the St'at'imc First Nation, SPEC, the David Suzuki Foundation, the Sierra Club, WCWC and the Environment Ministry's own wildlife biologists were opposed," said SPEC researcher Will Koop. "Al Rain said he'd pull out if he couldn't get First Nations approval. Now it is clear from the
results of this latest referendum that the First Nations don't want a mega-resort in Melvin Creek."

SPEC will be asking BC Environment Minister Joan Sawicki and Employment Minister Gordon Wilson to reevaluate approval of Raine's plan in light of this latest rejection by the Lil'wat people.

Last March, Koop released government documents showing that in 1995 the provincial cabinet overruled recommendations by government biologists that Melvin Creek is a critical habitat for threatened populations of mountain goat and grizzly bear. Al and Nancy Green-Raine abandoned the project after those objections. The project was later revived by then Employment
Minister Glen Clark who supported Al and Nancy-Green Raine.

"Ministers Sawicki and Wilson now have an opportunity of doing the right thing and putting a hold on this project," said Koop. "Their own staff, environmental experts and now the First Nations are all saying Melvin Creek is no place for a mega resort."