Not necessarily.
We try to do riffle dredging, which is basically taking gravel out of riffles. These gravel bars have very high habitat value. In effect, all these high habitat value bars are being high-graded. We tried to have gravel taken out of the big riffles in the adjoining areas during the summer when there are no fish in the middle of the river, turbidity is very high, and the background turbidity addition would not cause any fish habitat impact. Of course, there's a cost associated with it.
The cost of doing it properly is high. The gravel operators don't want to do it. On the Vedder-Chilliwack, where there's true gravel removal for flood protection, you get lots of negative bids. In other words, the gravel operators have to be paid to take gravel because the city needs that gravel, needs the flood profile, and needs the protection. The fisheries' guys aren't going to object to it. So somebody has to actually pay to have these guys take out low-quality gravel or low-quality sediments because they have to get the flood profile.
On the Fraser, there's never been a negative bid. The operators refuse to take gravel where it's going to cost them, and the city, the province, and the federal governments have never ponied up to the bar to say they would pay $100,000 to get the gravel out for flood protection. It has always been, what's economics? There has been a “no net negative” in terms of economics.