Rock slide in Fraser River, B.C., may hinder salmon passage

[wildmanyeah]

The Fat lady is singing for some of these stocks, At least in terms of future fishing opportunities. This was the dominate run/year for chilko and some cycles it provided recreational and commercial opportunities. Looks like we are down two one year in 4 where we may get a sockeye opening.

The seventh spawning ground report of the season was provided by DFO Stock
Assessment on September 12. The Scotch Creek fence was installed on August 6
with 1,476 Sockeye enumerated to date with fish at the peak of spawning. The
Stellako River hydroacoustics site was operational on August 1 and 1,078
Sockeye have been observed to August 31 with the majority likely to be Nadina
stocks. Since August 31, 9,178 Sockeye have been enumerated through the
Stellako hydroacoustics site which are thought to be Stellako stocks. To date
400 Sockeye have been observed in the Nadina spawning channel. The Gates Creek
spawning channel is now operational with 2,277 Sockeye counted into the channel
at this time. The Chilko and Quesnel hydroacoustics sites were operational on
August 9 and 12 respectively and 34,746 and 9,417 Sockeye have been observed to
date. The Cultus Lake fence was installed on July 30 with 6 Sockeye observed to
date. Water temperature in Sweltzer Creek is 21.5° Celsius. The Birkenhead
River hydroacoustics site was operational on August 27 with 248 Sockeye
estimated to have passed the site to date. Visual surveys have begun in a
number of other tributaries with Sockeye observations in several systems at
this time. The next spawning ground update will be provided on Thursday,
September 19.

 

[GLG]

Pacific Salmon Commision Weekly Report for September 13, 2019

The Fraser River Panel (Panel) met today to review assessment data on Fraser River sockeye and pink salmon. The
current in-season Panel-adopted total Fraser River sockeye run size of 500,000 is lower than the lowest run size
on record of 858,000 observed in 2016.
The landslide at Big Bar continues to be a major source of concern for the Panel as migrating sockeye salmon will
need to pass this area to reach their spawning grounds. It is estimated that about 356,000 sockeye will have
reached the Big Bar site as of September 12 based on abundances observed at Mission. Thanks to rock
manipulation efforts and decreased water levels, the total natural passage of Chinook, sockeye and pink salmon
increased to 170,498 as of September 10. Including the salmon transported by helicopter earlier this season, a
total of 200,221 salmon have been accounted for at the hydroacoustic station at Churn Creek above the Big Bar
slide. Based on radio-tagging information it is estimated that at least 64% of actively migrating sockeye and 57% of
actively migrating pink salmon are currently able to successfully pass the rock slide. Despite the increased migration
success, pink salmon spawning activity has been observed in the main stem of the Fraser River below the Big Bar
site. Transport by helicopter and truck will resume if conditions favoring natural passage deteriorate.

https://www.psc.org/download/598/2019/11898/september-13-2019.pdf

 

[GLG]

Sept 13, 2019 Big Bar Landslide Update

• Ongoing rock manipulation ensures that natural passage for salmon continues to improve. Successful natural passage will be closely monitored over the coming days, as Pink salmon may arrive at the slide site in large numbers. Should this smaller species be unable to continue to achieve natural passage, plans are in place to resume transport by air and ground.

• Ground crews are adjusting to the challenges that the seasonal changes are presenting. With cooler temperatures and shorter days, crews continue to adapt to ensure that mitigation work is maintained, as required.

• Yesterday, due to unsafe weather conditions, there were minimal rock scaling operations. Unpredictable weather patterns and gusty winds upwards of 50 kilometres per hour through the canyon were closely monitored both on and off site to ensure crew safety.

• There will be an archeologist, site monitor and road engineer on site today to assess the feasibility of additional road access points to the slide site.

• Today, the Big Bar Information Team will be at the Lillooet Farmer’s Market to engage with the community and answer any questions that they may have.

Fish Swimming Past the Landslide (estimated)
Latest daily total: 4,000
Total to date: 170,400

https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/p...update_big_bar_landslide_incident_sept_13.pdf

 

[Bobby]

Need a little help here understanding logic?
Fish bound for the Shuswap area would they not have to travel through the affected slide area ?
Would these fish not be part of the runs that were deemed at risk Fraser river fish ?
Fish that could have been caught if it wasn’t for the closures in all the coastal waters ?
If we have closures, for both sport and commercial on the coastal waters why would they allow fish to be kept in the little Shuswap .?
I seen a pic of a guy on social media this morning holding up 2 springs look like they were beat to **** that he had caught yesterday in the little Shuswap . And on top of that saying his deep freeze was full .
Just my opinion but this seems ludicrous possibly I don’t know anything .
I personally would not participate in that fishery my thoughts are the fish have made it that far let them do their thing so we still have a fishery tomorrow and years to come.

 

[Whitebuck]

The slide is above the Thompson confluence.

 

[Whitebuck]

Uhhh.....

About as likely as DFO not managing the Fraser stocks into extinction.

Positive thinking though!

 

[GLG]

Sept 14, 2019 Big Bar Landslide Update

• Unified Command has collaborated with two talented local B.C. artists to highlight the significance of the Big Bar Landslide and the impact that it continues to have both locally and globally. Trevor Mack, filmmaker, and Gina Anderson, photographer, have captured the spirit and efforts of those who continue to dedicate their time to restore salmon passage. Multimedia will be posted to the Incident Webpage as it is released.

• Yesterday, an archeologist, road engineer and arch monitors were on site accompanied by Unified Command’s First Nation Liaison to continue work site assessments.

• There are currently just under 100 personnel assigned to the Incident. During peak operations, there were 192 personnel working both on and off the field. Due to high winds yesterday, there were no rock scaling operations on the east canyon wall. However, sluicing operations were carried out to clear debris. On the west canyon wall, scalers continued to manipulate rock to ensure that natural passage for salmon continues to improve.

Fish Swimming Past the Landslide (estimated)
Latest daily total: 5,900
Total to date: 178,000

https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/p...update_big_bar_landslide_incident_sept_14.pdf

 

[wildmanyeah]

 

[wildmanyeah]

This is a great review and highlights some of the challenges. With how fast the water was dropping the rock manipulation done one day would be high and dry the next day. Before next year looks like they have a tonne of work to do. to come up with a permanent solution.

 

[GLG]

Sept 15, 2019 Big Bar Landslide Update

https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/p...update_big_bar_landslide_incident_sept_15.pdf

Fish Swimming Past the Landslide (estimated)
Latest daily total: 5,000
Total to date: 181,500

 

[GLG]

Public Information Map of the Big Bar Landslide Operations

https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/p...de-2019/19_71w20ay-public-information-map.pdf

 

[GLG]

Sept 16, 2019 Big Bar Landslide Update

https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/p...update_big_bar_landslide_incident_sept_16.pdf

Fish Swimming Past the Landslide (estimated)
Latest daily total: 5,600
Total to date: 187,000

 

[Cuba Libre]

Thanks for the updates Gil.

 

[GLG]

Sept 6, 2019 from Big Bar Landslide

 

[Whitebuck]

Any word on updated early Chinook counts?
GLG, what website are you copy and pasting from?

 

[wildmanyeah]

https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/...ar-landslide-incident?keyword=big&keyword=bar
https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/p...de-2019/20190705-big_bar_landslide_update.pdf

 

[GLG]

Sept 18, 2019 Big Bar Landslide Update

https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/p...update_big_bar_landslide_incident_sept_18.pdf

Fish Swimming Past the Landslide (estimated)
Latest 2 daily total: 14,772
Total to date: 219,026

 

[searun]

These events are natural hazards. We will see more. Interestingly nature has a way of dealing with them usually....water levels dropped and the fish swam along. Hmmm. Seems to me that we sometimes can benefit from sitting back a bit before we act, and develop an understanding of how mother nature might bat last in the game. I'm not against taking action, just think it makes more sense to work with nature.

 

[cohochinook]

These events are natural hazards. We will see more. Interestingly nature has a way of dealing with them usually....water levels dropped and the fish swam along. Hmmm. Seems to me that we sometimes can benefit from sitting back a bit before we act, and develop an understanding of how mother nature might bat last in the game. I'm not against taking action, just think it makes more sense to work with nature.

The problem is these upper Fraser stocks have got so low, that having passaged blocked for a couple of weeks is extremely harmful.

It was good to see the province and the federal government work together to deal with this disaster. We all know they've dropped the ball a lot on salmon management. Hopefully this collaboration may lead to better outcomes in the future!

 

[GLG]

Sept 20, 2019 Big Bar Landslide Update

https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/p...update_big_bar_landslide_incident_sept_20.pdf