Fisheries Committee on June 6th, 2006

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

I call the meeting to order. We have enough people here to hear witnesses. If we don't start on time then it drags on too long.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), we are studying gravel extraction and enforcement in the Fraser River. We have three witnesses here from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans: Mr. Paul Sprout, regional director general of the Pacific region; Mr. Jim Wild, area director, lower Fraser, Pacific region; and Ginny Flood, the acting director general of habitat management.

Welcome to our witnesses.

I'll ask you to proceed. You have ten minutes.

[Paul Sprout, Regional Director General, Pacific Region, Department of Fisheries and Oceans]

Thank you very much. We appreciate the opportunity to be here to speak to this issue.

We have prepared a short deck. I'd like to provide that presentation and intend to do so in the time I've been allowed. I'm going to start on slide 2.

I just want to quickly review the purpose. We're here to update the standing committee on the issues relating to the 2006 lower Fraser River gravel operation, and this is particularly in the Big Bar site, which is located near Chilliwack, British Columbia.

Slide 3 is an orientation map for those who may not be intimately familiar with the lower Fraser River. On the far left-hand side of the map there's a dot for Vancouver. As you move upstream through the Fraser River you'll notice another dot that shows the Big Bar site. The Big Bar site is roughly 100 kilometres upstream of the mouth of the Fraser River. It's about ten minutes or so south, by road, of Hope, B.C., just to give you a perspective on where it is situated in the lower Fraser River.

On slide 4, I talk briefly about some of the background around gravel removal in the Fraser River. I just want to make the members aware that gravel removals have been occurring on the Fraser River for over 30 years between Hope and Mission. Gravel removal is something the department authorizes, but the municipalities, particularly in the upper part of the lower Fraser--so that's the Chilliwack, Agassiz-Kent area--and the Province of B.C. are very concerned about these operations. They're concerned because they believe that gravel accumulation leads to flooding, navigational problems, and so forth, and there's a very strong interest by the municipalities and the province to have gravel removed on some sort of regular basis to address those two issues.

In 1998 the department and the B.C. Ministry of Environment issued a moratorium on gravel removal, while we put into place a study to determine how much gravel should be removed over what kinds of conditions. Members should be aware that removal of gravel in the Fraser River is the contentious issue. There are individuals who feel strongly that gravel should not be removed for environmental reasons, and there are equally strong views that gravel should be removed for the reasons that I've already indicated.

So one of the things that took place in the late 1990s was a study to provide advice to the various governments and other interests on how gravel should be removed in the Fraser River, both the amount and the sites. This led to a collaboration among the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and other interests, including the B.C. government, that resulted in a five-year agreement in 2004 that laid out the amount of gravel to be removed on an annual basis and listed or identified the sites that would be considered, and that is the gravel agreement we are operating under today This agreement outlines the process, the timelines, the monitoring, and so forth. I'll speak to this in a bit more detail later on.

On slide 5, I would like to bring you up to date on what the current events are. First of all, for 2006, the department, under the Fisheries Act, issued authorizations following what are described as CEAA screenings. So we assess the particular gravel sites that are identified in the five-year plan I referred to, and preliminary screenings are put into place to evaluate the potential effects of gravel removal. Any mitigation requirements are provided to the proponents at that particular time.

The plan was to remove about 400,000 cubic metres of gravel in the lower Fraser River over about five gravel sites. Big Bar is one of them. The conditions of the approval are provided in the authorizations. Monitoring requirements are laid out in the authorizations. The actual removal of gravel in 2006 was about 245,000 cubic metres.

Slide 6, then, deals specifically with Big Bar, which I understand to be the point of issue that was a discussion in this group a week or so ago. Big Bar, as I've noted, is located south of Hope in the Chilliwack vicinity. To access the gravel removal site at Big Bar, a temporary causeway was constructed across the side channel on March 3. So the access route was completed on March 3 of this year to be able to get access to the gravel site on this particular gravel reach.

When we authorized that site, we had initially considered putting in a bridge to facilitate the passage of water through the side channel. We discovered that because of the high flow conditions at that particular time, and because of the other issues, there were safety issues in constructing a bridge. So rather than constructing a bridge, very large rocks were used as a basis for the foundation of the causeway; when I say large, I mean from the size of a wheelbarrow to a Volkswagen. The idea was that water would be allowed to flow through the interstices of those large rocks to continue the flow in the side channel, which is downstream of the causeway. The causeway was completed, as I said, on March 3 of 2006.

Monitoring of the gravel site indicated that there was flow through the causeway, but at a reduced level. Water was moving through, but not at the level that was flowing into the causeway itself. At the same time that the causeway was constructed and completed on March 3, the river flow was naturally declining. Decline of the Fraser River flow is a natural phenomenon at this time of the year.

So the causeway was going in on March 3, there were design features to try to facilitate the movement of water through the causeway, and at the same time the river flow was declining.

A subsequent decision was made to install culverts to facilitate additional flow through the causeway on March 9. The rationale for that was that we were not getting the flow through the causeway that we thought was appropriate, given the size of the rocks we already mentioned.

Again, the causeway was completed on March 3, and on March 9 culverts were installed based on information that had been collected between March 3 and March 9.

On March 10 it was determined that those culverts did not facilitate adequate flow through the causeway and a decision was made to cease gravel operations. That then led to the commencement, on March 11, of decommissioning the causeway. We started to remove the causeway on March 11.

So on March 3 the causeway was completed, and in the space of a week, based on information provided to us from monitors and from the community that there was dewatering below the causeway, and that the design features of the causeway that we had initially envisioned in the initial authorization were not adequate to allow for the water to flow through, on March 11 we were decommissioning it

On March 24 we initiated a federal-provincial review of the gravel removal operations in the lower Fraser, but particularly Big Bar, with the view that we wanted to learn from the experience of 2006. The questions for us are what happened in 2006, and what kinds of features could we learn from this experience that we could build into future gravel operations to address the issues that related to the potential effect of the causeway and its downstream effects?

The review itself, as I noted, will be a review by the department and by the Ministry of Environment. The review will be carried out by my Vancouver office, assisted by provincial officials.

The objectives of the review are to evaluate the impacts of the temporary access work of the gravel removal sites and make recommendations for improvements, to evaluate the decision-making process that led to the construction of the causeway without a bridge and the access to Big Bar, and to examine the roles of the causeway at Big Bar and the low winter flows in the stranding of fishery resources downstream of the causeway.

As I mentioned to the members, while the causeway was being put in, the river level dropped. So there is an issue of the dewatering that occurred downstream and to what effect that was caused by natural flow reductions, versus the causeway, which exacerbated the situation. We want to determine what we think the weight of either one was in the outcome that occurred in 2006.

The methodology we're going to use--indicated on slide 9--is to look at the hydrological regime. We are going to do interviews with various individuals and organizations that have expressed an interest in this matter, two of which appeared in front of this group recently.

We are also going to analyze field work that was undertaken in 2006, and we'll do other associated work to answer the questions and the objectives I've spoken to. We expect a written report to be prepared, and we also anticipate that we will be meeting with BCIT, one of the witnesses that appeared here, and looking at the report they prepared as we look at responding to the recommendations and objectives in our review.

Finally, going to the last slide, I want to note that we're in the analyzing phase right now of the review I just spoke to. We are interviewing individuals. That is under way at this point in time. We anticipate meeting with, for example, BCIT. We have received their executive summary, but we have not received their report, and we look forward to receiving that. We do anticipate providing a draft of our report back to those witnesses to hear their final feedback before we consider a final report prepared by the department and any actions that may ensue.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

Thank you, Mr. Sprout.

Mr. Byrne, or Mr. Matthews.

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

I'd just like to ask a couple of questions first. I won't be very long, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you to the witnesses for coming.

On slide 6 you say that regular monitoring of the site indicated that there was flow through the causeway but at a reduced level, and that the causeway had exacerbated the dewatering. Are you indicating that your monitoring picked up this problem, or was it brought to your attention by some other sources?

[Paul Sprout]

Both. I certainly was informed by other sources that there was a problem, and the area director, I believe, was informed by other sources. We had our own sources as well, because we had staff on site.

So I think it was a combination of inputs. Personally, I was first apprised of this by other sources.

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

So what were the implications of that reduced flow? What problems did that cause?

[Paul Sprout]

From what we can gather, the reduced flow through the causeway led to dewatering of some of the gravel reaches below the causeway, and that dewatering exposed pink salmon redds. These are locations where pink salmon lay eggs, and those eggs may have suffered mortalities associated with that dewatering.

What we want to do in this review is try to separate what the causeway contributed from the natural reduction in flows that were occurring at that time.

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

I have just one other thing. We looked at a slide--I think it was last week--where there was a bridge constructed at some other site. It didn't look like the distance at Big Bar was much greater than at this one. But you're indicating that there was too much water flow here for the safety of a bridge?

[Paul Sprout]

Yes. The initial design of the causeway was to put a bridge in place, but at the time the causeway was being put in, the river flow was actually quite high, and it was judged that it would be unsafe to put that bridge in, that the foundation wouldn't support a span. Because of a terrible accident, a tragedy, in fact, that had occurred previously in which we lost a life as a result of a gravel operation, it was determined that it was unsafe to construct a bridge.

The decision was made to go with the large rocks of the size that I talked about, and then subsequently the culverts were installed to further facilitate flow. Finally, a decision was made to postpone the operation altogether.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

Mr. Byrne. There are another seven minutes left.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

Thanks very much for appearing before us.

I just want to pick up on the point regarding the bridge itself. You're currently conducting a review of past practices, in particular this practice. What is the past practice? You alluded just a minute ago to the fact that bridges are the norm. When did that practice get suspended?

[Paul Sprout]

I am going to ask that area director Jim Wild respond to that.

[Jim Wild, Area Director, Lower Fraser, Pacific Region, Department of Fisheries and Oceans]

Bridges are not the norm. In most cases the crossing for the causeway is usually shallower than this specific one. This one was six to eight feet deep in the middle--quite deep--and the velocity, as Paul mentioned, when they went across was too fast for the contractor. The contractor made the decision because it would be his safety responsibility. Normally it would be more along the lines of what Paul suggested, that you could use large rocks and let the water flow through it.

We have used bridges and/or conveyors in other places sometimes. That's usually a cost decision made by the contractors themselves. The bridge itself was for navigable waters purposes. Actually, there was still a lot of water going through the causeway when it was first installed.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

It was mentioned that at this time of year, water levels on the Fraser decrease, not increase. I question the timing then. What would have been the suitability or sense of delaying the dredging—the gravel extraction—to a point in time when water levels and conditions were much safer to install a bridge, because you'd have a lot less erosion on any breach of the causeway?

[Paul Sprout]

The issue is that there's a timing window for when the gravel operations can be removed. Typically we want the operations to be discontinued around the middle of March, the reason being that's when young pink fry are emerging from the gravel and migrating downstream. So there's a very narrow window in which the gravel can actually be removed. The flow of the water in the Fraser River has to be sufficiently low that you can construct a causeway across the channel to access the gravel. At the same time, you want them to finish their operation before the middle of March, when these young pink fry are present in the river.

In this particular case, those conditions didn't really arrive until the first week of March. So on March 3, the causeway was completed. Under normal conditions, we would have wanted that operation to continue until the middle of March; in this case it was curtailed earlier, because of the conditions I spoke to, in terms of lack of flow.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

One element of witness testimony we heard last week was that our witnesses—who had very strong points of view about this—visited the site with DFO habitat officials, and they were asked to reveal redds at the site where the witnesses, the private citizens, had examined the destruction of redds. It was alluded that if any live fish were discovered among those redds, charges could have been laid against the witnesses for disturbing salmon habitat and destroying fish.

Could you tell me if that was a possibility and if that was under consideration?

[Paul Sprout]

If I understand correctly, there was a concern that the community interests who had observed this issue and had brought it to the attention of the department might actually be charged because they had disturbed the gravel?

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

Correct. You've probably read the transcript.

[Paul Sprout]

Our view is that the community that brought this issue to our attention was concerned about the environment—as we are—and that their actions were helpful in facilitating our making a decision, which we think was the right decision. I'm not aware that we would direct any actions of the kind suggested here toward a group that was actually trying to assist, or ensure in this particular case, the safe removal of the gravel.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

Thank you, Mr. Byrne. You've finished your questions?

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Do we still have a minute?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

Actually, there are three minutes left.

Go right ahead, Mr. Cuzner.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

When you proceed with a project like this, is the engineering or consultative process pretty much in-house, or do you secure the resources of outside professionals or consultants as well?

[Paul Sprout]

In this particular case, the overall gravel plan was the five-year plan I referred to earlier, which was established in 2004. There was extensive consultation on the development of that plan, involving the province and the Fraser River Basin Council, which is a consortium of a broad array of interests, obviously including ourselves, and so forth. That plan is the plan we're following in executing the removal of gravel on an annual basis. So from our perspective, we believe that the consultations have already occurred on the broad plan, and on an annual basis, we would do the CEAA evaluations for each individual site. Those get posted and people have a chance to respond or react to them, and we would deal with the individual proponents.

That's how I would describe the consultation. I'm going to ask if Mr. Wild would like to add anything to my comments.