Tsolum Rivr Restoration Society

Restoring the Tsolum River to Health and Productivity:

Protection of Fish Habitat on the Tsolum River

                                               2008

Executive Summary

Healthy salmon runs are proving difficult to establish and sustain and a major reason is habitat loss. The Tsolum River Restoration Society would like to address the area of loss we have most to do with – the habitat in and around the Tsolum River. The problems of habitat loss are complex, but this complexity should not be an excuse to ignore our rivers and, with respect, they are in trouble.

Our assessment is that habitat is not being protected adequately by DFO and others and restoration is not happening fast enough.  

 Tsolum River Restoration Society (TRRS)

We are the public interest group most involved with this river which flow into Georgia Strait on the east side of Vancouver Island at Courtenay. Our organization has been involved with efforts to rehabilitate the Tsolum River and its degraded ecology for 10 years.

We have been and are involved with habitat issues on several fronts:

1. Remediation of severe damage to fish stocks and habitat due to acid rock drainage from a copper mine on Mt. Washington abandoned in the sixties.

2. Habitat restoration including wetland restoration, bank erosion remediation, riparian planting and habitat creation. We coordinated the restoration of a buried creek under a local high school that has not had fish in it for 30+ years.

3. Involvement with Regional and Provincial initiatives to improve public awareness, better protect aquatic habitats and bring a conservation ethic to land use planning.

4. Operation of a hatchery for pink salmon to increase the nutrient and invertebrate value of our river.

5. Water storage and control to combat low summer flows and raised water temperatures resulting from destructive logging practices as well as suburban and agricultural development. We recently commissioned a hydrological study which recommended increasing water storage in our watershed by 390 hectare/m seasonally to combat the flow and temperature problems. The partnership to facilitate this plan, which includes the landowner, DFO, the BC Conservation Foundation and other stewardship groups, is in place.

6. Annual stock assessments. Counting of outgoing juvenile salmon and incoming adult spawners. We also do an annual steelhead swim and other counting procedures as necessary.

 7.Lliason and communication.  Lobbying and dialogue with  all levels of government , with industry; including  logging and other commercial concerns,  private landowners,  public interest groups and the public itself.

Changes in Habitat Protection

Two relatively new ways of protecting habitat have been implemented over the past several years. The effect has been to download responsibilities to lower levels of government which leaves the federal government (DFO) with less control of policy and enforcement.

1)      The Environmental Process Modernization Plan (EPMP)

Based on a risk-management framework, this federal initiative shifts away from regulatory, prescriptive habitat management and is plagued by problems. The most glaring of these is that activity around fish bearing waters is considered low risk. No approval, baseline or pre-activity site visit and no follow-up is required for proposals.  It is assumed that an applicant will go to the DFO website, find the appropriate Operational Statement, understand what constitutes damage to fish habitat and follow the guidelines.  As there has been no pre-activity baseline required, it is difficult to know what activity is done. Hence even when there appears to have been an infraction, there is often no basis for recourse. Yet the Habitat Stewardship Program (federal), which was to help other (lower) levels of government deal with these added responsibilities, has been cut.

In the end very few of these habitat violations are taken to the courts and as a result, there are few convictions. DFO’s resource base has become so eroded over the last 20 years  there is  little ability to provide services or personnel to build a case. The total number of charges, tickets and written warnings by the Conservation Officer Service (provincial) is down and has been declining since 1995 according to a West Coast Environmental Law study.

2)      Riparian Area Regulation

Due to dwindling resources within DFO actual proactive habitat protection has been downloaded to the Province and further downloaded to Municipalities and Regional Districts under Riparian Area Regulations (RAR) and in the case of some local governments as Streamside Protection Regulations. Ineffective enforcement is the consequence of downloading responsibility for enforcement to jurisdictions that have insufficient expertise, resources, and/or executable authority.

In theory it would seem a positive, cost effective method.  The RAR however is a system that requires the applicant to find, hire and pay a Qualified Environmental Professional (QEP) to provide the ‘prescription’ for the works being proposed. It is in the best interest of the applicant to find the QEP best suited to controlling costs. This is an unacceptable conflict of interest. In an important sense, we are allowing special interests to define habitat loss instead of public regulatory bodies. Also, there is no comprehensive, publicly funded inspection process to ensure compliance.

Habitat Protection on the Tsolum River

1)      Riparian Zones

Two thirds of the 250 sq. km. Tsolum watershed is Private Managed Forest and does not have the riparian protection afforded by the Riparian Reserve Zones on public lands. A worse problem is that neither set of regulations is adequate to ensure the stable protection and nurturing of fish habitat. Other jurisdictions like Oregon and Washington state  have wider riparian leave strips and more sophisticated ways of assessing what is necessary to protect fish habitat and stream integrity that include possible changes in stream shading and in water temperature. Examples:

1. During the 2005/2006 logging season TimberWest clear cut an area  in the Tsolum watershed  adjacent to several small tributaries, leaving little canopy, damaging the remaining vegetation,  and  changing the hydrology. When the company biologist was asked why so much timber had been removed, he responded that the land was being taken out of forestry, was going to be sold, and if they didn’t take the trees, some developer would. A rather cynical point of view. From DFO’s point of view, they only proceed with prosecution of ‘major’ offenses on private lands as it is too expensive to hire the experts needed to prosecute, and that they no longer have the in-house expertise to do this.

2. In the spring of 2007 there was a blow-down adjacent to the Headquarters creek hatchery (a tributary of the Tsolum River) after the area had been commercially logged.  The domestic water supply for the hatchery was severed and a number of trees fell into the river.

As remediation, a DFO official requested that the forest company/ landowner remove the trees from the river, secure some of the larger woody debris to the bank for habitat improvement, and prune the remaining trees deemed to be a  blow-down risk. The forest company agreed to take these actions.

By October 2007, the work had not been done and water levels were too high to work in the river that year.  We again contacted DFO who informed us that, “the advice that I gave would likely reduce the company’s due diligence if it were not followed but in itself is not enforceable.”

In November, more trees blew down. Logs and large woody debris moved downstream contributing to a debris jam that no doubt eventually will bang its way down the river, causing some scouring and possibly bank damage. At the site of the uprootings, there is some erosion.

We have a number of concerns with the above scenarios. We think these kinds of ‘minor’ infractions are commonly perpetrated by logging companies, and the infrequent fine is just one of the costs of doing business. We believe the cumulative fish habitat degradation is significant.  Clearly corporate due diligence and self-regulation are not effectively protecting the large amounts of habitat on, particularly, Private Managed Forest Lands. We believe that the DFO practice of only prosecuting major offenses is analogous to not going after a drunk driver until they kill someone in a crosswalk. Surely there is cheaper, more easily enforceable way to ensure compliance with (DFO’s) fisheries values?

2)      Acid rock drainage

Acid rock drainage from the defunct Mt. Washington Copper Mine has been polluting the Tsolum River system since the mid 1960s. Serious cleanup has only started recently.  Our question, with some bitterness, is why did it take so long?  Was it not DFO’s role to stop this type of long term, ongoing damage to fish habitat or the role of EC to stop the pollution? A partial cover installed in 1988 by the provincial government was abandoned when it appeared to have failed.  Since that time community groups have been trying to motivate the government bodies responsible. In 2001 Environment Canada issued an “Inspector’s Direction” to the current landowners and metal rights holder to improve copper levels in the runoff. The resulting partnership installed the Spectacle Lake Wetland to reduce the toxicity of the creek. Fisheries have started to recover but more work is needed for long term protection. However there seems to be no federal program in DFO or EC or even in Natural Resources Canada to assist with this work. With the mine site remediated, it would be easier to interest other parties in backing habitat initiatives to deal with the other ills in the watershed.

3)      Community Advisors

This DFO program is helpful. Our local advisor recently coordinated a trip to see rehabilitative projects of some of the other 25+ groups he responds to on the North Island, and to talk to their partners. It was a chance to see impressive examples of in-stream, streamside, and riparian habitat rehabilitation. The irony is that the BC Ministry of Transportation is putting more effort in terms of expertise and money into these projects than DFO. If DFO is the main guardian of the Fisheries Act, why are not they funded and staffed to do the job? We have coordinated a number of streamside rehabilitation projects with them successfully, but could do a lot more if more resources were available. We know what needs to be done, as do they, and our volunteer base ensures a good bang for the buck.

4)      Genetic Diversity

Genetic diversity of salmon is being lost, especially on our side of the Pacific and this process is accelerating. The loss limits adaptability to existing ecological niches let alone the future stresses such as human impact and climate change. Natural resistance is being lost in wild fish runs. Causes include the shrinking gene pool and the paradoxical success of hatchery fish which often out-compete and harm wild runs but themselves may have poor survivability and return rates.

An example of genetic changes is the well documented decrease in size of individual salmon in the past 50 years thought to be due to the relentless targeting of large fish by the commercial (and sports) fisheries.

DFO data usually assesses biomass instead of genetic diversity and hence largely measures hatchery fish. In this river system, pinks return more and more to the upper system where we release our hatchery reared fish. Is the (diminishing) number of pink spawners in the lower river a remnant wild population we should be protecting? Without good DNA data we simply don’t know.

5)      DFO Research is not Independent. Data Collection is Inadequate.

DFO research was compromised two decades ago with the dismantling of the Fisheries Research Board. On the West Coast, stock assessment to determine harvest management has diminished. Lastly, the Guardian Program has been decimated.

Stock assessment has been identified as a serious conservation concern in BC’s Central and North Coast (PFRCC 02/2004). In the north, the lack of indicator streams, reduction in assessment resources and lack of consistent assessment effort has led to a lack of reliable data for Regional and Area fisheries managers.

6)      Conflicting Mandates

There is significant peer reviewed literature since the birth of open net cage aquaculture in Norway to indicate a threat to wild stocks. DFO’s mandate to promote aquaculture and to protect wild fish and their habitat are in conflict. We note a BC parliamentary committee recommends a moratorium on fish farm expansion and elimination of open net pens. Should not the onus be on the promoter to prove to the satisfaction of the protector that fish farms are not a threat to wild runs? When DFO is responsible for both roles, the credibility of its science and the trust in its role as regulator of the industry are both called into question. DFO should have the clear role of wild fish protector and play no role in the promotion of the industry. If the federal government wants to continue with its role in promoting the industry it should be under the Dept. of Agriculture not DFO.

7)      Frontier (old growth) Forests

Frontier forests in salmon spawning grounds are moderately to highly threatened in most of North America. The long term Carnation Creek study in BC explores the complexity of logging forested salmon streams. This complexity is not recognized in logging regulations. Old growth provides the model for functioning salmon streams and is the repository of indigenous biodiversity which should be left intact, particularly in riparian areas. As we speak, the remnant old growth forest on private land in this (Tsolum River) watershed is being extirpated.

8)      No-Net Loss

The so called no-net-loss habitat policy (let alone net gain) of DFO by their own account is a failure. A policy is not a gain. An example of what is happening is Finlay Creek, part of the Tsolum system, which used to have a good salmon run but has been subjected to cutting and development assaults over the past two decades: 

“I wish I had documented the incremental damage to Finlay Creek, a good example of degradation, loss of habitat, loss of retention, loss of fish – death by a           thousand cuts, each cut approved by the regulating authorities, each cut             accumulating in a system that until two years ago had never dried and now dries   during a typical rainfall year (2006). Dead fish and continuing impacts…  No     one seems to be looking at the big picture on a stream like this except us and we  don’t have the authority or resources to do anything about it.” Jack Minard, Technical Coordinator - TRRS

Habitat destruction continues. The new DFO habitat management regime (EPMF) places too much reliance on information supplied by project proponents. Predictions of future human population density, logging, mines and mineral development, oil and gas exploration and transport, and climate change, suggests these pressures on habitat will increase. Where is the plan to mitigate these stresses? Is DFO equipped to do it?

9)      Historic Land Practices

Past land use practices that resulted in habitat degradation have largely not been redressed. Our experience with the Mt. Washington mine site and a host of other in-stream and streamside reclamation projects confirms that after the fact remediation is doable. Yet DFO programs that do address this need have been shamefully cut or starved of funding - Watershed Restoration, Fisheries Renewal and HRSEP resources are all examples. The so called Resource Restoration budget has been cut to the point of being irrelevant.

10)  Responsibility for Anadramous Fish Habitat

Who is in charge of anadramous fish and their habitat? The answer is a gordian knot of federal, provincial, regional and municipal departments and ministries, often overlapping and difficult to navigate. Some examples are:

1.      Steelhead are now classified as a salmon but are not under DFO jurisdiction (as are all other anadramous fish).

2.      There is no effective mechanism to reclaim or retire old water rights even though there may be sound reasons, such as preservation of habitat, to do so.

3.      There is no clear way to deal with whole watersheds as in other jurisdictions such as New Zealand and the American northwest (states). Fish biologists and hydrologists agree it should be considered an essential management unit.

Recommendations

1)      Fisheries scientists should be free from political oversight and should report to a body that is independent of DFO.

2)      The mandate to promote sustainable aquaculture is in conflict with DFO’s mandate to protect wild fish and should be removed.

3)      DFO should be advancing policy and understanding to respect biological diversity and resilience as well as habitat to create opportunities for wild salmon to save themselves.

4)      Regulations and policies to protect habitat loss must be proactive (through planning) as well as retroactive, and easily enforceable for fisheries officers and others. All contraventions should be addressed.

5)      A lead agency to protect our wild salmon heritage should be designated, with real authority to coordinate the multiple jurisdictions involved. This might be more analogous to ocean planning; an area where DFO ostensibly has more power (under the Oceans Act) to pull all parties together to protect resources, although a completely new framework may be necessary.

6)      DFO should develop, implement and publicize a strategy to protect salmon from anticipated future stresses such as climate change.

7)      Resource extraction industries such as forestry and mining should be held to 21st century standards of environmental sustainability, and DFO, in a proactive role, should be more involved in land use planning where fishery values are present. Remnant old growth should be preserved for its fish nurturing values.

Conclusion

We mirror the frustrations of similar groups on this coast who see salmon stocks and their habitat declining in spite of present efforts. DFO and EC do not seem capable of reversing that decline under the present structure of governance and with existing levels of personnel and financing. Isn’t it time for these departments to be transformed into the effective organizations a modern conservation ethic demands and with the resources and people to carry it out?

We are left with the larger impression that the real problem is a profound lack of commitment on the part of the Federal Government to properly fund and support the spirit of the Fisheries Act. As such, there must also be a stunning lack of accountability. A largely unexplored natural asset is being abused and squandered and no one is being held accountable. We have to ask why? But apart from the question of motive, why is it going unaddressed?

References

Atlas of Pacific Salmon

Xanthippe Augerot

University of California Press, 2005

2005

Risk of extinction of salmon stocks around the North Pacific

Xanthippe Augerot

Unpublished paper, Wild Salmon Centre and Oregon Dept. of Fish and Wildlife, 2004

 Design of forest riparian buffer strips for the protection of water quality: analysis of scientific literature

Report # 8, see comparisons with Oregon, Washington and California

Idaho forest, wildlife and range policy analysis group, 1992

Applying 15 years of Carnation Creek results

T W Chamberlin, editor,

BC Ministry of Forests, Forest Science Project, 1988

No Response, a survey of environmental law enforcement and compliance in BC

West Coast Environmental Law, 2007

High and Dry, an investigation of salmon habitat destruction in BC

John Waring, David Suzuki Foundation, 2007

Finlay creek:

Personal communications with Jack Minard, Technical Coordinator, TRRS, 2008

Page Top