Fisheries Committee on May 26th, 2008

[Gary Williamson, Director, Area E Gillnetters Association]

I'm Gary Williamson, director of Area E Gillnetters Association. We spend a lifetime on the Fraser.

[Mike Bennett, Member, Area E Gillnetters Association]

I'm Michael Bennett. I'm a commercial fisherman, also with Area E Gillnetters, as well as several other organizations, and a resident of the lower Fraser south area--fourth generation, both sides of my family, on the lower Fraser.

[Ross Holkestad, Representative, Fishing Vessel Owners Association, Steveston Harbour Authority]

I'm Ross Holkestad, commercial fisherman, director of the Steveston Harbour Board Association.

[Bob Baziuk, General Manager, Steveston Harbour Authority]

I'm Bob Baziuk. I'm the general manager of Steveston Harbour, a proud member of the HAABC, and a member of the B.C. PRHAAC as well. My heart was with my colleagues when they were giving their presentations.

[Hugh Fraser, Deputy Director, Engineering, Corporation of Delta]

I'm Hugh Fraser. I'm with the Corporation of Delta. I'm the deputy director of engineering. I'm assisting the staff with the presentations and discussions today.

[Nancy Cuddeford, Manager, Community Recreation Services, Corporation of Delta]

My name is Nancy Cuddeford. I would be considered the program manager for the Ladner Harbour Authority. The Corporation of Delta is the Ladner Harbour Authority.

[Harvey Gifford, Chair, Ladner Harbour Fishers' Committee]

I'm Harvey Gifford. I chair the Ladner Harbour Fishers' Committee, which is the advisory body to Delta, which is our harbour authority.

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

Thank you, everybody.

I believe Mr. Fraser is going to start our remarks this afternoon.

[Hugh Fraser]

Thank you very much.

In essence, what I did today was I prepared a kind of powerpoint presentation. I'd like to just step you through it and give you a bit of an overview with respect to Ladner Harbour and some of the issues the harbour faces.

On the second slide, first of all, I'll give just a little bit of background with respect to that harbour and the harbour jurisdiction. I want to discuss some of the local issues and concerns with respect to the harbour and then finally some recommended improvements that you can take away and consider.

The third slide, moving on to the next page, outlines for us a bit of the history. The harbour was constructed in 1983, and then following that there was a five-year agreement signed by the corporation. It wasn't until 1998 that we signed a 20-year agreement, so the corporation has a long-term arrangement with respect to the management of the harbour.

The next slide outlines the location of the harbour. You can see we're in the delta, right near the mouth of the Fraser River, right across from the historic and main community of Ladner.

Moving on to the following page, you will see, outlined in red, the specific area that is the jurisdiction of the Ladner Harbour Authority falling under the small craft harbours program. The harbour itself is quite a bit larger. When you were out today you saw there are a couple of marinas. There are docking facilities and commercial facilities all along that Ladner Slough area, but the specific area of the jurisdiction is limited to that small area outlined in red.

Moving on to the next slide, one of the interesting things relates to the management structure of the harbour. With respect to that, there is a close relationship between the Ladner Harbour committee, which are the volunteers, and the Corporation of Delta, the professional staff that provide the support. What we have done there, in an overview way, is outlined for you the way that structure works. I understand there is some interest in that and the issue of volunteer burnout. That's not one we have specifically faced in our community because there is professional support that can be drawn on by the volunteers who are running the committee.

Moving on to the next slide, I just want to highlight and go over with you some of the local issues. First of all, there are things that are working. There are positives. We think the community development model is an excellent model, and it should be retained, maintained, and enhanced. The support from the small craft harbours program for capital improvements we think is a good model and it's working fairly well. Also, currently with the financial model in the corporation, the volunteers aren't responsible for collecting that. We have a wharfinger, and the moorage fees and the accounting is done by a private firm, with an overview by our director of finance.

Those are some really positive things that are very good, but there are areas for improvement.

Moving on to the next slide, these have already been touched on with respect to some of those things. First of all, it is extremely difficult to manage derelict boats and abandoned boats, unlike the east coast. Furthermore, we think there is a need to empower the harbour authorities to remove the vessels.

Moving on to the next page, safe harbour access is really critical, and we need, through some organization, support for sustainable funding for secondary channel dredging.

If you move down to the next sheet, in essence what we've outlined there are some of the reaches where we have significant challenges with respect to the issue of secondary dredging. The main river channel is dredged on a regular basis, and you'll see the main river channel at the top of the slide. In order to get access to the harbour, which, you'll recall, is just opposite the community, we need to ensure there is adequate depth for the vehicles to move up that channel and into the harbour area. There are also a lot of recreational and other vessels that use these reaches, and they have to be extremely careful in terms of their access to those channels.

The next slide points out some of those issues. There are float homes along there. The slide on the bottom right shows a tug that was bringing in a barge and they've run aground. They are trying to dig themselves out.

Moving to the next slide, there are several issues I've highlighted.

Infrastructure funding has been discussed, and obviously it's important from a boat ramp perspective as well as all the other infrastructure in the community.

Communications are very important, particularly with respect to DFO staff internally, so that we are ensuring that the fishery will be sustainable in the long term and that there are adequate funds to pay for moorage and to keep the harbours going. Also, we just want to outline that the website that is currently available for staff and the annual conference are very important tools for staff to communicate, to meet, to discuss problems, and to share ideas.

The issue of climate change and adaptation was discussed. Our harbour doesn't necessarily face the wind effects, but storm surge effects and sediment loads are very important issues for us. Overall, the desire is to ensure a sustainable, safe, viable harbour.

Moving to the last page, these are what we've summarized as what we would call some of the recommended improvements.

First of all, we would suggest there is a need for legislative changes to facilitate the removal of the abandoned and derelict vehicles. We would also suggest that there be appointment of enforcement officers for each harbour authority to assist with that, particularly in the context of the current legislation.

Regarding secondary channel dredging, we need long-term sustainable funding for that item, to ensure continuous and safe harbour access.

There's a need to maintain—and you've heard this already—and enhance funding for harbour infrastructure.

We would think there could be opportunities to improve internal communications. DFO is a very large department, with many different branches, and sometimes it appears, at least to us on the ground, that the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing.

And assistance with local climate change adaptation measures is also needed.

In summary, I'd like to thank you for your support and for your interest in maintaining these local harbour authorities.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

Thank you, Mr. Fraser.

I believe Mr. Gifford is next.

[Harvey Gifford]

I'm Harvey Gifford. I met all of you this morning, but I actually didn't realize I was going to meet you again, so it's probably going to be pretty repetitious, as dredging is one of my main points here.

We have 93 vessels in our harbour, and 23 are recreational. We have a decline in the commercial boats basically due to the way the salmon fishery has gone. But we have no problem filling the harbour and are doing the municipality a service, I guess, by creating space for these recreational boats. But I will say that commercial fishing vessels have a priority, because they are what the harbour was built for.

I think our harbour is running very well under the harbour authority, as we've managed to put some money in the bank and vessels are paying their own way. We have a residence in the harbour now, which the municipality helped us get, and it's occupied 24-7 by our wharfinger. Of course, he has joint duties; he looks after the harbour for four hours a day, and then he has jobs he does for the municipality. It's good that we have him there; he keeps an eye on everything, and he's the one who collects the money for us.

We have the storage building. I think there are 16 lockers in there—or 17, as I think Simon said—which are all rented out to commercial fishermen. I don't know if you saw our pump-out station, thanks to the government, which funded it. We have that installed now to help keep the harbour a little cleaner.

I think we have a good relationship with the staff at DFO, but being one of the smaller harbours, we sometimes feel we're being put aside for larger projects and larger harbours, which may or may not be true. We would appreciate some funding for an electrical upgrade; our docks are in need of an electrical upgrade. We're badly in need of some dredging, as we have boats now that sit on the bottom at low tide. Everybody's talked about that.

Access to the harbour is another big problem. We have space at our docks for larger vessels. I think the reason we're not getting the docks filled up is that we don't have proper access to the docks. You can get in on high tide, but you can't run a business when you have to wait for high tide for your vessel to be able to leave the harbour. It's getting to the point now, as you saw, in the harbour today that some of the larger vessels need a six-foot tide to get out into the river—or into the main channel, anyhow.

There was lots of water down there today, but with the freshet running, it brings it up a couple of feet. It was a mid-tide, at 8.9 feet at 9 o'clock this morning when you were out there, so there was lots of water there. But it's too bad you couldn't see it at zero tide, with no freshet. It's getting to be a really serious problem.

I've brought a bunch of photos, with quite a few copies. There's a CD to look at when you have the time. When you're all together, maybe you could look at the CD. It is quite interesting. It's from a helicopter that took aerial photos of what's going on and how bad the situation is. There's also a map in there. It shows the reason we're having the problems we're having now. They redirected the river to keep the main arm open for freighter traffic. The main channel used to come down through Ladner, but then they blocked that off and directed it down what they call the South Arm now, and they put in all of these training walls, so that the whole flow of the river runs down. And we get the slow-moving water in which the silt settles and doesn't get swept out.

I don't know if you'd call it a map or chart, but there's a chart on which I've pencilled in red where all these training walls were put in to get that flow of the water going down the river.

I think I might have mentioned this morning that I'm not really too sure that it's the best thing for salmon fingerlings coming down the river, either, because—I'm not positive about this--with all that force going down the main river, they get pushed out into the salt water sooner than they should. It takes them a little while to adapt from the fresh water to the salt.

For some reason or other, there seems to be less water in the river now than there was years ago. I'm talking about maybe 30 years ago. I see it with pilings, the cut-off pilings that were cut off at low water 30 or 40 years ago. They're still there, but now, in low water, they're sticking three feet out of the water. I don't know that anybody can answer that question, but I definitely feel that there's less water in the river than there used to be. I've been playing down at that river since I was a kid.

I don't want to repeat myself too many times on the dredging. I understand that dredging all comes under what is now known as the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority. We used to have three authorities: the North Fraser, the Fraser, and the Vancouver. Now they're amalgamated. I think their interests are all in shipping and trade.

I went to a presentation they had for harbour users, and nothing was shown about pleasure craft, float homes, or commercial fishing. Nothing. Everything was all about freighter traffic. I understand they're the ones who are responsible for this dredging. Well, every time a freighter comes into a river, they get paid for that. They get so much a gross ton for the freighter coming into the river. They pay their own pilotage fees, so the pilots aren't costing us any money. When they do dredge that river, they're selling the sand.

Now, I don't know how much money they're taking in from all this, but the whole dredging thing shouldn't be a direct cost to the government. They have to have some profits in there somewhere, I would assume. They're helping to pay their way selling the sand. They're talking about coming up with a dredging strategy. Maybe it will happen. I hope it will happen. I would say that we're going to be swept underneath the carpet, because it all fits into trade and freighters and what not.

I don't know if you people can help us on that dredging issue, but I'm sure you can put pressure on the powers that be. On behalf of all river users or water users, I just hope you can do something to help us get these side channels dredged to keep the water running.

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

Thank you, Mr. Gifford. It's something we've heard, and not only here today. Dredging is a concern in many areas. I would say without hesitation that it will certainly be part of our report. It will deal with some of the dredging issues, not only here in British Columbia, but indeed in other parts of the country also.

Mr. Bennett, I believe you want to make a presentation to us.

[Mike Bennett]

Thank you very much.

I'm a commercial fisherman and long-time resident—well, as long as my life has been, anyway.

My family goes back four generations at the mouth of the Fraser River. From speaking to my grandfathers when I was young, I learned a lot of the history. My great-grandfather was a tugboat skipper on the Fraser. He named Calamity Point, up by Harrison Hot Springs. There's a lot of history.

They told me about the old route of the Fraser River. Harvey Gifford went to the archives and looked up some old maps. The very important part that Harvey touched on was the alteration of the flow of the south Fraser River. Someone in the past made the decision to make the northern part of the main river the main flow.

I live on Westham Island—you guys didn't get quite far enough down the river to have a look at it this morning—where I own an old fish cannery site. It's the first cannery site when you come up the river. Right in front of that site was the old main arm of the river, where the tugboats and the freighters used to go up. We had deep-water access for the freighters to unload their cargo, right up into Ladner Slough. The dynamite boat used to go up into Ladner Slough—I call it a slough now, but it used to be the main river—and that was in my lifetime, thirty years ago. I can plainly remember it.

Now they've taken these islands, and what used to be an island is no longer an island. They dammed off the top end of it when they built the Massey Tunnel. It stopped all that water flow from coming down into Ladner.

They've taken Kirkland Island and built a 500-foot-long rock wall up there that stopped that flow of water from coming down into Ladner. They've built the Woodward Dam. That stopped the main flow of the river from coming down into the Ladner area.

It's hard to believe that in this day and age, someone can actually dam the Fraser River and alter the natural environment of the wetlands, but it has happened. You can see it on any map you look at. It says the name “Woodward Dam”, and Deas Island was an island. It's insane how much the water flow has been altered down there.

As they've diverted 80% of the water flow away--roughly, because initially it was 80%--we were left with 20%. Over the years, as that 20% has slowed down, the siltation has increased because there's just not enough water to have the corrosive or erosive effect of the river flowing. In my life, the water in front of my dock.... I used to be able to tie up at a dead low water and have 15 feet of water. There's now eight feet of mud. This is not a small issue; it's huge.

The way it's going right now, Ladner Slough will probably fill in completely in twenty years. Once the flow stops, the sediment settles down. It comes out the main river, it backs up with a flood, and the sediment just settles down at the bottom.

As for the effect on the fingerlings, it's like Harvey said. We used to have salmon fry swimming by the dock all the time in the spring. You'd see it coming out. I don't know what the effect of it is, but probably one of the most vast areas of marshland and wetland of the Fraser Delta is in the south Fraser area.

Safety issues are just incredible. The boats tip over at the dock. We all have Dickinson oil stoves in our boats. They can tip over and cause fires, but who's going to come and put out a fire? There's no one there. The houseboats are lifting over. People have candles going. That's a fire hazard.

Right out in front of my dock, below the Woodward Dam where the old main channel used to be, it's high and dry. On the low tide, there's eight feet of mud all the way across the whole expanse of what used to be the main river. There are three training walls out there that used to keep the river flowing in the direction they wanted it to flow. They're so far in the marsh grass now that you can hardly even see them.

In terms of the channel, there's not a weekend in the summer when there's not a boat high and dry up on it and stuck for a tide. There are guys coming by the river in front of my house. They just hit that bar and they're stuck there for the day.

I don't know what can be done, but something needs to be done. Someone made a comment a while ago, and to me it seemed to hit the nail on the head. Dredging is like shovelling your driveway in a blizzard. Unless we get the flow of water going back down there to some degree, it's not going to do the job it needs to do.

We seem to have the great desire to bring all that deep-sea traffic up into the Fraser River and keep that one arm of the river deep. I can see that there's financial benefit to it, but is it really what the people want, to have that happen, when it's possibly a detriment and such an alteration to the wetlands out there? I'd like to see someone look into it to see what the long-term effects are going to be or how the environment is altered, because it is, and that's how it has been altered out there.

Another thing I would say, as representing fisheries, is that the guys are forever getting heck for prop-washing. I guess you probably all know what prop-washing is. When our boats go dry at the dock, we run the boats so that they don't tip over at the dock. Prop-washing—something that's not supposed to be there—shouldn't be a problem. We're silting in because the water doesn't come there any more, so we shouldn't be getting heck for doing this. I don't know whether there should be a funding program to hire someone to do the prop-washing. We're not talking about one mile of water; we're talking about miles and miles of docks and waterways that are filling in.

Thanks for taking the time to come out here to have a look around. As Harvey said, I really wish you guys could have seen it on a low tide. I had a great big dock that's 100 feet long and 40 feet wide, which on a one-foot tide looked as though it was going to break in half, about a month ago. If you'd come down there and seen that, and the one on June 4 that we have coming—it's a minus-one-foot tide.... It very well might. It is a real, serious issue.

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

Thank you, Mr. Bennett. We'll consider your invitation to return.

I believe Mr. Baziuk is going to make a few comments.

[Bob Baziuk]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I've listened to my colleagues, Mr. Bennett and Mr. Gifford, and we're going to sound like broken records here. I wish you had come at a low tide as well, because Steveston is no exception to this, when you see how low the channel is from the tour today.

My presentation basically was the tour. I can't emphasize enough the need for a dredging strategy, because it really is an abysmal situation out here. I'm constantly approached by our harbour users, the big boat users such as Mr. Holkestad. He represents many of them, who ask: “What are they doing about it? What are you doing about it?” And I can only do so much.

If anything, if you leave Steveston with any sort of message, it is that we need a dredging strategy and we need funding to make it functional. We can have the prettiest harbours in B.C.—Liz and I joke around about that a lot, but we do have wonderful harbours in B.C. and we're all very proud of them—but if you can't get to them, what's the point? For the functionality and for the commerce that comes up through the Steveston channel to the unloading station, in particular where Mr. Holkestad sails up to, it's essential that they can get up there and not be restricted to tides, because the risk is as well, as other big boat owners have told me, that if they're forced to leave the harbour, all those funds that go into the local community are just lost.

We're really hopeful that something can be done about this, that some funds can materialize.

I know we're not unique in this in B.C. I know from my friends across the country and from being involved with the NAC and so on that it's not a problem unique to British Columbia; I'm aware of that. But for the matter at hand right now, in Pacific region, I can't stress it enough.

With all the other problems in Steveston, for the most part we're doing okay. It's just the functionality of getting to the harbour. So for the sake of time, my presentation was the tour, and I'd like to save the other time for any questions that may be building.

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

Thank you, Mr. Baziuk. Certainly the tour was a fine presentation, and all the members learned much from it.

I say to all the witnesses, don't be concerned about sounding like broken records, because sometimes you have to repeat things many times before the right people hear them and understand them and see the need to have them addressed. Sometimes that's a necessity.

Before I call on my colleagues to ask questions, I'd remind people that the time allotted includes your questions and answers. I allow the witnesses a little bit of extra time to answer some questions, but I will not be allowing you any extra time to ask them. So remember that your time is your limit.

Mr. MacAulay.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. You're very generous.

Bob, I enjoyed the visit this morning.

You're talking to members of Parliament and government, and it certainly doesn't hurt to repeat your points to that crowd; perhaps after a while they might get the message. And if you think you have a problem with repetition, we've been at this for a while, and I don't mind repetition at all, because the fact of the matter is that you have problems. But we have heard some new things along with a lot of the older problems. Your problems with abandoned vessels and those types of things are unique to your area, and certainly not something I've seen anywhere else across the country I have been. So, indeed, you do have unique problems.

I want to welcome everybody. There are a lot of problems to discuss in a small period of time.

Mr. Bennett, regarding the south Fraser, I truly believe that when you start messing around with the flow of water anywhere, you cause trouble. You've told me, and Mr. Gifford has also told me, that it's caused a major problem that can only be handled by a large amount of money for dredging or for dealing with the flow of water in the south Fraser.

Could you give us, in a capsule form, what you think should happen? What could happen in order to increase your flow of water?

Also, somebody mentioned that in front of their harbour was eight feet of mud and that boats were getting stuck in the channel. It's pretty sad if they're stuck in the channel. So I'd just like you to elaborate on that, as it's important to get it on the record.

[Mike Bennett]

I was told something interesting by one of the fellows who is quite involved, not so much with the dredging, but actually with buying the sand that comes from the dredging programs on the Fraser, who explained something I have never really grasped. He said that when they built the George Massey Tunnel, the natural dam of the Fraser River, they can only dredge so much.... Upriver from the George Massey Tunnel, it doesn't matter what they do, because it's going to be restricted by that area of the river. They've dammed off Deas Island, so they've stopped the water there. But what he said is that below what is now the main arm of the river, they've over-dredged it. He explained to me that what it's done is it's drawn the water that used to flow through the Ladner Slough and the smaller reaches into the over-dredged portion of the river.

We keep seeing—in my life, at least—the ships getting bigger and bigger. You see them on the world news, these great big container ships and car freighters. They seem to want to bring them all up the river. I think they should maybe be going somewhere else. You know, we shouldn't be digging that one arm of the river out so deeply, because that's what's drawing all the flow away from the other areas.

Yes, when you asked about the eight feet—

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Just to enlighten us, they're continuing to dredge there all the time to continue the flow, is that right? They dredge there regularly?

[Mike Bennett]

I know one of the guys who works on the dredging, and my understanding is that they're only taking off the humps now. They have not been making the channel any deeper the last couple of years; they're just taking off the humps that build up, because as the flow meanders it does build up humps in the river.

They've taken all of the different tributaries of the river, of which there were probably about six originally, and they've made them into one big one. When you stop all that fresh flow from going down those smaller channels, they just silt in—and it is incredible. My father's place, which is just upriver from mine, used to be a big unloading platform where they unloaded the rocks to build the dikes around Westham Island, right across the river from Steveston. You couldn't get in there now on a five-foot tide; it's just mud right out front. And they'd bring the big tugs and barges in there.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

So if there is not a funding change, your wharves are going to become useless to you. You won't be able to get in to them, because we saw that this morning.

[Mike Bennett]

They are. At my father's place the boats are keeled right over, lying right on their sides at low tide now.

I really believe that we need to open some of the water coming back down there. You know, it's all been dammed up. It's hard to believe, as I was saying, that it's been dammed up, but it has. Harvey's maps will show you that. It's very clear where they've done that; it's right on the map.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

We're putting a report together for government, and this is why we're here, to hear what you have to say. In the end, it's you people, and unfortunately you're not listened to enough; I know that on the east coast they're not, anyway, no matter what government it is. It seems to be, sometimes, that we don't hear your view enough, and it's a pleasure to be here to hear it.

Mr. Gifford, you were of course big on the dredging issue. If you'd like to, expand on that, and on the safety issue as to what will take place if something should happen—it's just good to get it on the record—and these things are not done properly, such as a fire or something like that.

[Harvey Gifford]

Michael touched on two: when boats start going dry and list over—there are some in the photos we have here showing boats lying on their side—

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

For the lack of water.