Just look at the crap the Northern Gas Line installation companies and contractors are getting away with. No real fines or consequences so shoot shovel and shut up is the name of the game.
We need to keep working in tandem with Oregon and Washington on fish restoration
- Thread starter Bryan Allen
- Start date
I think they're called "stupid" cycles....
seascene
Crew Member
I recollect a documentary called Accidental Wilderness. During the post war 50's old streets and buildings were demolished and "clean" concrete rubble was trucked to the end of Leslie St and dumped and dumped .... pushing further and further out into Lake Ontario. Out of sight and out of mind ...there was no thought of environment in those days. Fast forward decades and there is a thriving wilderness there with deer, turtles, rabbits, grouse ... green frogs and coyotes ... masses of ducks right next to the most populated zones on the continent. My point is that could we not use such "rubble" to engineer stream habitat? This documentary is amazing ... here is the link: Accidental Wilderness https://www.cbc.ca/natureofthings/episodes/accidental-wilderness-the-leslie-street-spit
That is close to what is being done. They seem to be using large tree stumps; the trick seems to be anchoring them in place so they don't wash-out.
Ya - there's an extensive history of methodologies & projects within BC (as well as other jurisdictions) on how to do this. Back in the days of the watershed restoration program, there were 3 levels of intensity in assessing & planning: Level I - overview & tentative ranking for feasible projects; Level II - the actual instream prescription applied to a identified site; and Level III - actually doing the work which may or may not include follow-up and assessment of function after the restoration work.
Those works included all types of restoration - placement of LWD (large woody debris), riparian planting & stabilization, road deactivation & slope stabilization, creation of off-channel habitat, etc.
As I posted earlier - there was a flurry of Level Is pumped-out by consulting firms - a fair bit of level II, and a few Level IIIs. Not many managed to make it to Level III & get checked up on. And there is natural stabilization and changes after time - so there is a shelf life for these assessments & prescriptions. Kinda a never-ending source of work and $ for some consulting firms.
At one time all of these procedures were hosted on 1 website that has since been scrapped. It is hard to find these studies and guidelines now - but one can find them on these FTP sites w/o a search mechanism:
searun
Well-Known Member
Back in the 1990's I did some work with Pat Slaney and Bruce Ward on the Squamish, which eventually became the working model for WRP in the NDP days before Gordon Campbell axed it. As was noted, some good preliminary work stream complexing, off channel habitat, ground water upwelling spawning platforms, even some fertilization. All great stuff, which many dedicated volunteers, DFO and Prov of BC staff contributed blood, sweat and tears to implementing.
One lesson learned, by me at least, was habitat work without addressing other issues such as recruitment that ensure bio-diversity and sorting out the ocean survival bottle neck....well, are just icing on the cake. Nice, but largely ineffective at achieving recovery. Nature is random, complex and as humans we all too often look for singular and simplistic "silver bullets."
Our resources and time are not limitless either, so while we would all love to do everything I also have been learning its sometimes better to try to address the largest barriers to recovery as a first priority then move down the list in rank order unless there's some easy low hanging fruit. Habitat work is expensive and in most situations isn't the biggest barrier to recovery. Before someone roasts me with an example like the Big Bar slide...that's the exception to the norm.
One lesson learned, by me at least, was habitat work without addressing other issues such as recruitment that ensure bio-diversity and sorting out the ocean survival bottle neck....well, are just icing on the cake. Nice, but largely ineffective at achieving recovery. Nature is random, complex and as humans we all too often look for singular and simplistic "silver bullets."
Our resources and time are not limitless either, so while we would all love to do everything I also have been learning its sometimes better to try to address the largest barriers to recovery as a first priority then move down the list in rank order unless there's some easy low hanging fruit. Habitat work is expensive and in most situations isn't the biggest barrier to recovery. Before someone roasts me with an example like the Big Bar slide...that's the exception to the norm.
Yet another great post, searun! (You are truly a "savant"!)...
In support of your post:
ui.adsabs.harvard.edu
In support of your post:
An Experimental Approach for Restoration of Salmon River Ecosystems
River ecosystem theory predicts that dynamic, nonlinear physical and biological processes linking water, heat and materials (biota, sediment, plant-growth nutrients) flux and retention to fluvial landscape change in a habitat mosaic context drive salmon life histories and productivity in...
ui.adsabs.harvard.edu
According to the fish scientists, habitat is the primary bottleneck for Puget Sound Chinook, while i have read that for some areas of the Fraser, it's lack of fish & there is plenty of habitat. Habitat is difficult because it includes water quality; all the structures in the world will not mitigate nutrient runoff from septics/farms & chemicals from nearby roads. I see it as too late for Puget Sound; the waters of Hood Canal don't have enough oxygen to support fish life below 50 ft of so (septic/agriculture runoff) makes trolling for the hatchery Chinook a lot easier tho although that can only be done on the southern portion where all the wild runs are extinct.
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