Fisheries committee  When FREMP came to fruition, their mandate basically was to not touch anything that's naturally occurring, to keep the grass green. If you want to drive a new pile into the ground, you have to go through the proper steps and jump through the proper hoops. But a lot of our issues with siltation and dredging are occurring because, as man, we have altered the flow of the river.

Fisheries committee  Yes. When your boat's tied to the dock, if your boat's going dry, you run your propellor, and it kicks out the mud that's building up underneath your boat. Fisheries—the enforcement guys—seem to think that's a bad thing.

Fisheries committee  Well, you can't, and unless you want your boat to go high and dry and tip over and burn up or sink, you have to do something. That's what I was alluding to. This is an unnatural process down on the south Fraser. Also, Mr. Baziuk was talking about Steveston. Probably before his time, at the top of Steveston Island they built a rock jetty across it.

Fisheries committee  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....

Fisheries committee  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.

Fisheries committee  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.

Fisheries committee  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.

Fisheries committee  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.