Invermere (BC), Canada – The C$1 billion plans for the long contested Jumbo Glacier ski resort in the Kootenay region west of Invermere in British Columbia have been given the go-ahead by the provincial government.

Steve Thomson, the B.C. government’s minister of forests, lands and natural resource operations, signed off on the development agreement in Victoria on Tuesday, angering both natives and environmental groups that have for many years opposed the project’s impact on grizzly bear, caribou and moose habitat, and increased pollution that they assert the ski resort development will bring. At least one such group says that they will appeal the government’s approval, which comes after nine years of review under the Environmental Assessment Act.

Others welcome the project’s anticipated impact upon the local eastern B.C. economy, which will include up to 750 full-time jobs and 150 construction jobs.

“We welcome the just completion of the process,” said Arnold Armstrong, Chairman of the Board of Directors of developer Glacier Resorts Ltd. “This should not be seen as a defeat by those who opposed the project, but as an opportunity to turn the page toward a new era of cooperation, and to recognize that the many reviewers involved in the process have done a more thorough assessment than those who felt that they had to oppose the project outside of British Columbia’s legitimate public process.”

Plans for the resort to be built on Farnham Glacier call for up to 23 ski lifts and up to 1,400 residential units when the project to build North America’s only glacier-based year-round ski resort is completed. It will initially include only a gondola and a t-bar that could be operational as early as fall 2013.