Petition Build a Fish Ladder over the Alouette Dam
- Thread starter wildmanyeah
- Start date
Salmon Seeker
Crew Member
Signed
Cuba Libre
Well-Known Member
signed....
Ya...good idea if BC hydro payed the bill. The alouette is having record returns of chum and decent coho numbers.
I think money could be spent elsewhere though. So the early Chinook run that is already extinct will be replaced with what inferior stock? No more Harrison whites are needed and they didn't take too well to the system anyway.
The socks are basically already extinct.
Put more money into habitat restoration and stabilizing the water from the dam over the winter that blows all the spawning beds to ****.
The ladder is an awesome image for the public....but the reality is the money would be better spent elsewhere on this flow.
I think money could be spent elsewhere though. So the early Chinook run that is already extinct will be replaced with what inferior stock? No more Harrison whites are needed and they didn't take too well to the system anyway.
The socks are basically already extinct.
Put more money into habitat restoration and stabilizing the water from the dam over the winter that blows all the spawning beds to ****.
The ladder is an awesome image for the public....but the reality is the money would be better spent elsewhere on this flow.
TheBigGuy
Well-Known Member
Opening more natural spawning stretches on any river is a good thing. Give the Salmon stretches of natural River with good spawning gravel and let them do things the way nature intended. We have lots of inferior hatchery fish. Wild fish are the most diverse and resilient strains that need to be propagated, but they need good spawning habitat. Opening the upper River would be awesome.
Bigguy, with all due respect how much experience do you have on our local flow?
Ladder is great, but the money would be better spent elsewhere. Our fry get washed away with the dam letting out torrentst of water through winter and spring.
Our new subdivisions make our ditch polluted and brown with their runoff
We have landowners on the river cutting the streamside trees and shrubs that the fish hide and live in. Calls to the city do nothing
Lets.worry about the fish below the dam before we start dreaming about above the dam.
Ladder is great, but the money would be better spent elsewhere. Our fry get washed away with the dam letting out torrentst of water through winter and spring.
Our new subdivisions make our ditch polluted and brown with their runoff
We have landowners on the river cutting the streamside trees and shrubs that the fish hide and live in. Calls to the city do nothing
Lets.worry about the fish below the dam before we start dreaming about above the dam.
wildmanyeah
Crew Member
Sockeye need the lake that is currently blocked to raise the smolts. Soon as the dam was build it annihilated the sockeye run and pretty much the Chinook run. The Chinook did not take well to the run because they basically all spawned in gold creek up stream of Alouette lake lake. Also the colder water from coldcreek would cause the salmon eggs to hatch earlier. As for it having record run the chum are doing well but pretty much only hatch coho left and that pretty consistent with every Fraser river tributary. Even what they call wild coho are just hatchery coho that they don't clip the adipose fin. Building a fish fence would bring a lot of awareness to the river and intern greater funding for down stream. Also all the tributary above the damn are in protected park land free of development. BC Hydro needs to right this wrong. With all due respect whitebuck the Alouette River Management Society started the petition so I leave it up to them to sort out whats best.
http://www.mapleridgenews.com/lifes...il&utm_term=0_405944b1b5-d7c36f6524-237219713
http://www.mapleridgenews.com/lifes...il&utm_term=0_405944b1b5-d7c36f6524-237219713
wildmanyeah
Crew Member
I lived in Maple Ridge 30 years I know system very well. Farms have done all the pollution to the lower including wiping out the steelhead and trout. the upper river has importance to other species of salmon. Its also importing to other migrating stocks that get stressed and decide to spawn early like weaver creek sockeye. Land owners in the area would rather see the river filled. BC hydro has many wrongs to right in this system but nothings going change if theirs no awareness.
TheBigGuy
Well-Known Member
- by Phil Melnychuk - Maple Ridge News
- Maple Ridge posted Oct 7, 2016 at 8:00 AM
Read met with B.C. Hydro officials last week during the Union of B.C. Municipalities convention in Victoria.
Building a fishway over the Alouette dam would allow sockeye salmon, other salmon species, as well as trout into the Alouette Lake reservoir. That would open up substantial new habitat and allow the sockeye to complete their natural cycle and spawn in the lake, possibly helping rebuild the Alouette sockeye run.
“I think it’s an important dialogue and a dialogue with a little bit of urgency,” Read said Wednesday.
“This is really an important topic for ARMS. We want B.C. Hydro to really work with us and get some funding in there and get us to where we need to be.”
The Alouette River Management Society proposed building a fishway in 2010, but needs B.C. Hydro funding to pay for the project, which would cost at least $3 million.
Read said she’s worked with First Nations and dam issues previously and said the first meeting was just to touch base with B.C. Hydro and set up a meeting later.
“We want to be moving the issues along,” Read said.
When B.C. Hydro built the Alouette dam in 1928, sockeye were cut off from the lake, leaving the sockeye that had been trapped inside, becoming landlocked.
A multi-year ARMS project, started in 2005 to release sockeye over the dam every year in the hopes of them returning and rebuilding the run, has seen the numbers of returning sockeye declining. This year, only seven sockeye returned to river. They were then trucked around the dam and released into the lake.
But sockeye numbers are down everywhere, said Nicole Driediger, with the society.
ARMS president Ken Stewart welcomes the mayor’s support.
“We certainly appreciate the effort the mayor is making on our behalf.”
The fish passage is a major project for the society and community supports the goal of re-connecting the lake.
“That’s our ultimate goal is to get fish back to their historical habitat,” Stewart said.
ARMS said in a 2011 letter to B.C. Hydro that it will run into opposition when it seeks to renew one of its water licences, which expires in 2018, “without a provision that includes some form of upper watershed access for this historic run of salmon and trout.
Goathorns
Active Member
From what I have seen on television lately, fish hate being handled by people, hate fish ladders. So what are the stats and proof of how this might help? Are they going to build something more modern and fish friendly/ effective or just a dark concrete bunker that the fish refuse to go into? Perhaps the budget gets exhausted and (Sorry Charlie, there is no more money), for other more worthy projects? I'd like to see the plan and proof.
Its an awesome idea and a perfect news story for the bleeding hearts of Vancouver people who know nothing about this system.
We are losing a very large part of our smolts and fry due to the drastic rise/fall of the dam outflow.
Critical habitat area from alco park to the tidewater is being cleared by landowners without fear of any bylaws being enforced.
Yes the ladder would be cool. But if there is any money to be spent on this system it would be better spent on habitat restoration and keeping the flows stable.
We have some of the best spawning grounds around, but that means nothing with flows that are near flood stage for weeks at a time in the winter.
We are losing a very large part of our smolts and fry due to the drastic rise/fall of the dam outflow.
Critical habitat area from alco park to the tidewater is being cleared by landowners without fear of any bylaws being enforced.
Yes the ladder would be cool. But if there is any money to be spent on this system it would be better spent on habitat restoration and keeping the flows stable.
We have some of the best spawning grounds around, but that means nothing with flows that are near flood stage for weeks at a time in the winter.
TheBigGuy
Well-Known Member
That is all the more reason to make the natural flows above the lake available as spawning habitat. The upper reaches are undisturbed by development and contained within preserved parkland. The lake itself is very sterile. Having salmon return upriver from the dam would lead to more nutrients from decaying salmon nourishing and fertilizing the upper River and Alouette Lake making the entire system more productive. You have a very narrow viewpoint that is only fixated on the downriver section of the river. The entire watershed would benefit by allowing fish to pass upriver from the dam.
I don't even understand how it's possible to argue against this. If the project is approved by BC hydro it will not be stalled and left half finished. A fishway is far better than leaving the upper River with no way for Salmon to naturally access it.
I'm getting the feeling you have property close to the lower Alouette River and you are only concerned with keeping your backyard fishery flourishing. That is understandable, but you need to look at the big picture. The entire Alouette River and lakes watershed would be far more productive for Salmon if the upper reaches can be replenished with healthy self sustaining runs.
I really think you are doing a disservice to the Alouette River Management Society by trying to build resistance to their fishway plan. They are obviously concerned with doing what is best for the entire river system (not just the lower river). You need to consider what is best for the whole river, not just your backyard section of it. Sorry if I'm making presumptions, but that is the way your whole arguement comes off.
I don't even understand how it's possible to argue against this. If the project is approved by BC hydro it will not be stalled and left half finished. A fishway is far better than leaving the upper River with no way for Salmon to naturally access it.
I'm getting the feeling you have property close to the lower Alouette River and you are only concerned with keeping your backyard fishery flourishing. That is understandable, but you need to look at the big picture. The entire Alouette River and lakes watershed would be far more productive for Salmon if the upper reaches can be replenished with healthy self sustaining runs.
I really think you are doing a disservice to the Alouette River Management Society by trying to build resistance to their fishway plan. They are obviously concerned with doing what is best for the entire river system (not just the lower river). You need to consider what is best for the whole river, not just your backyard section of it. Sorry if I'm making presumptions, but that is the way your whole arguement comes off.
happy hooker
Crew Member
Signed
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