Evidence of meeting #4 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 43rd Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was work.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Regional Director General, Pacific Region, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
Some of the early Chinook runs would have been impacted so we would expect they would be coming through in May.
Regional Director General, Pacific Region, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
It's heading back to their natal streams.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Okay. Got it.
With respect to the water flow, if you look at the situation now after some of the work that has already been done, what do you see is the difference between what the fish can handle as far as water flow is concerned and what they are presented with at this moment?
Regional Director General, Pacific Region, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
This picture shows you the expected water flows. Those lines represent the fish and at what level they are able to pass. What we need to do is to get the water flow below those levels in order to accomplish fish passage. If we can't get the water flows below that level, then we need to put in the contingency plans, the natural fish passage and other means to support and help the fish move across the slide safely.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
When the spring runoff takes place—it should be under way now—how does that affect the water flow through that location?
Regional Director General, Pacific Region, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
It will have a significant impact on the water flow. You're going to get a very flashy situation. There are a couple of different ways to show you what it would look like, but unless we could put some kind of mitigation contingency measures in place, we don't believe the fish will be able to pass at the high water levels.
Regional Director General, Pacific Region, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
We will have to see how successful the rock removal is, but we believe, based on modelling, that the fish will still have trouble passing.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
How difficult was it to access the site right down to the side of the river?
Regional Director General, Pacific Region, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
It was extremely difficult. It took massive equipment. It took incredible effort to build a road down the side of a very steep cliff in a very remote area. Actually, the work they have done is an incredible feat of engineering.
Regional Director General, Pacific Region, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
How long is it?
Andrew Thomson Regional Director, Fisheries Management, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
It's probably one kilometre approximately, maybe a bit less.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
It's one kilometre. It would appear that the rock face there is very sheer. It's almost straight down into the water.
Regional Director General, Pacific Region, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
Yes. This picture was taken last week. You can see the road that goes right down to the bottom now. You can see how incredibly steep it is.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Can you describe the size of the rock face that gave away? Somebody was saying that it was equivalent to a multi-storey building.
Regional Director General, Pacific Region, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
That's right. If you think about the towers on the Lions Gate Bridge, essentially the rock that fell into the river was the size of the Lions Gate Bridge.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Did all of that rock basically break up and stay in that location, or did some of it wash down?
Regional Director General, Pacific Region, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
That's why we did some modelling, which I can show you.
This is from a company that used LIDAR to do gasometric analysis of the river. This is actually a model of what it will look like after Kiewit does all the work and removes all the rock.
You can see the colours that relate to water velocity. The rock went so far out that it hasn't been reached yet by Kiewit's blasting, so it's still going to create a barrier, as indicated. That's based on our best knowledge right now of where the rock is and our ability to remove it.
Liberal
Regional Director General, Pacific Region, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
Absolutely. The work is under way now and will continue until freshet actually arrives, at which point the equipment will have to be removed as the water levels go up. We have work to do over the summer to help fish pass, and there are a number of ways we're thinking about doing that. We're also considering the work that will have to happen in the winter to continue the rock removal.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ken McDonald
Mr. Hardie, your time is up.
Madame Gill, you have six minutes or less.
Bloc
Marilène Gill Bloc Manicouagan, QC
I'm going to give my time to Gord Johns, since this is an issue that concerns British Columbia.
Gord Johns NDP Courtenay—Alberni, BC
You cited that the significant challenge this year has been dealing with the low returns coming before Big Bar. I want to talk a bit about the root causes. The Big Bar issue comes on top of circumstances where middle and upper Fraser salmon populations have been declining to the point where their stocks are a major concern, and you've highlighted that.
Does DFO have the resources or capacity to address the Big Bar slide within your normal budget allocation?