I guess the first thing is that gravel removal for flood protection doesn't have the same kind of diligence as riparian and other issues. It's such a hot topic--and it doesn't matter whether you're talking about the Fraser, the Vedder-Chilliwack, the Chehalis or whatever--that if people's property and/or lives are being affected, removal has precedence, and we understand that.
The second thing is that it is such a hot political issue that the decision-making behind how to achieve gravel removal and flood protection--the flood profile--has been taken out of the hands of the technical staff. The technical staff has in effect been disbanded for the Fraser River. The senior managers are making the decisions--the where, the when, the how.
So gravel removal for flood protection is in a different category in terms of habitat protection. In this special case on the Fraser, where it has been taken out of the hands of the technical staff, the technical staff has been poorly supported. DFO doesn't have a single biologist working on Fraser River gravel. I was the Ministry of Environment biologist again up until 2003, and all gravel removal committee discussions were disbanded in 2003.
The one person who basically is working at gravel removal on a technical basis is an engineer, Vince Busto. He's a very competent engineer, but he is spread out over the whole southern Fraser region. It's impossible to believe that one sole engineer, competent as he is, with a myriad of other issues, can focus his time properly on the Fraser River and achieve the objectives under the no-net-loss policy.