Fisheries Committee on June 1st, 2006

[Frank Kwak]

No. They are few and far between. As a matter of fact, I sit on the sport fish advisory main board, and one of the things I've had to deal with is criticism from my colleagues who say I am taking fisheries officers away from their region and they need them. They understand it's not me who is doing that, but it's just the idea that we're taking somebody from Campbell River where that guy is needed, because there is not enough staff in Campbell River, yet that fisheries officer is going away for three-week intervals to Chiliwack and leaving Campbell River short.

What we need to understand is that these fisheries officers need to be trained in the region. If I phone in a complaint and I say the complaint is at Emory Creek and the fishery officer lives in Ottawa, he wouldn't even really know what the Fraser River is, never mind where Emory Creek runs into the Fraser River.

[John Cummins, Conservative, Delta—Richmond East, BC]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

Thank you, Mr. Cummins.

Mr. Matthews, five minutes.

[Bill Matthews, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

First of all, welcome. I apologize for being a bit late, and if I ask you a question on something you've already disclosed to the committee, I apologize.

When was the gravel removal completed on this project? When did it actually cease to happen?

[Dr. Marvin Rosenau]

March 15. It was somewhere around the beginning of the third week of March. The causeway was finished, I think, around March 3 or March 4. My students and myself were on the causeway and taking pictures on March 5 and I think the extractions started to take place full bore on March 6. Then it took place for a couple of weeks. Then it was apparently stopped short because of all the complaints and the media interest it was generating.

[Bill Matthews, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

Why I asked the question is that from the information I have here the notice of the decision regarding the project was placed on the CEAR website dated March 16. From your information, the removal had already ceased then or was about to cease prior to the notice being posted. That's why I wondered when it actually concluded. That's the information I have. I'm wondering why the project would be winding down or completed before the notice was posted on that website. That's why I asked the question.

[Dr. Marvin Rosenau]

I know that my students and I were out on March 9, and then the Sunday after March 9 I was on-site as well. Then we went back out on March 17, and on March 17 there was no extraction taking place. I believe the causeway was completely removed by March 17, which is why our pictures show the re-watering of the stream on March 17.

[Bill Matthews, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

The reason I'm asking the question is I'm wondering why the notice would be posted about the same time the removal was completed. That's why I'm asking the question. It seems to be somewhat suspicious, but maybe that's just my nature, I don't know.

This project authorized the removal of 50,000 cubic metres. Is that the case?

[Dr. Marvin Rosenau]

In that neighbourhood, yes.

[Bill Matthews, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

It was for a total of 500,000 total on the river.

[Dr. Marvin Rosenau]

The authorization and the targets are different things. Individual sites.... I think the Popkum site was around 130,000. This site was about 50,000, and they try to hit around 500,000.

[Bill Matthews, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

Sure.

Maybe you've answered this before. How many projects were authorized out on the river for this year?

[Dr. Marvin Rosenau]

I don't know exactly, but I think it was about half a dozen.

[Frank Kwak]

There were three that were actually being run, right?

[Dr. Marvin Rosenau]

No, there was Popkum. There was the Big Bar. I believe there were two down at Gill Road. I think there were a couple of smaller ones, one up at Seabird and one at Hamilton Bar. So there were roughly half a dozen sites.

[Bill Matthews, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

So the Big Bar one was about one-tenth of the total allowed to be removed, I guess.

[Dr. Marvin Rosenau]

That's correct.

[Bill Matthews, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

Okay, that's all I wanted to know.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

Thank you, Mr. Matthews.

Mr. Stoffer for five minutes.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Thank you.

Sir, you estimated about two million fish may have been killed because of this. Is that correct?

[Dr. Marvin Rosenau]

That's correct. That was our ballpark guesstimate. We basically took the surface area of the redds at that particular site, used biostandards out of the published literature, and basically did our multiplications and divisions as a function of that.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Was it at all possible to determine if any of that fish may have been endangered? You said there were five listed species at risk. Would any of those fish possibly have been endangered?

[Dr. Marvin Rosenau]

No, that's unlikely. The species that are endangered don't spawn at that time of year and don't spawn in that kind of habitat, so these would not have been listed species.

[Frank Kwak]

But there was also chum salmon here, not just pink.

[Dr. Marvin Rosenau]

There was another species that was impacted in a smaller way. When you drop the water surface elevation on these big bars, you also affect the local hydrology. Chum salmon don't spawn in main channels, as pink salmon do; they spawn in dead-water side channels. At the far perimeter of the bar, there is a dead channel, a groundwater channel, which, when we first went to observe it, was completely dry. We thought it was the natural de-watering.

When the water levels came back up, all of a sudden this spawned area that had been de-watered was re-watered again, and we realized we should have assessed it as well, because obviously the de-watering of the channel affected the groundwater that would go through the bar and irrigate this other species of salmon.