South Coast Hatcheries

Chaster Byng said:
Just ran across some bad news about the Chapman Creek hatchery and the impact of expected low water flows this summer. For the size of the creek, they do a great job. Too bad they're having to deal with this issue on top of everything else.

https://www.coastreporter.net/news/...sh-this-summer-with-drought-likely-1.23653892
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Typical government, they can’t provide water and when you drill a well to do their job for them, the can’t provide a license for that well. They can shut down a hatchery, but can’t sit down illegal Fraser River gill netting or black market fish sales.
 
ziggy said:
Typical government, they can’t provide water and when you drill a well to do their job for them, the can’t provide a license for that well. They can shut down a hatchery, but can’t sit down illegal Fraser River gill netting or black market fish sales.
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Have you been to Sechelt lately? new developments all over the place, all those new residents drawing water from the inadequate reservoir that feeds Chapman creek. Unfortunately Its a casualty of increased population in the area and dry summers. The hatchery isn't being shut down by DFO, its being shut down by water for residents instead of salmon.
 
california said:
Have you been to Sechelt lately? new developments all over the place, all those new residents drawing water from the inadequate reservoir that feeds Chapman creek. Unfortunately Its a casualty of increased population in the area and dry summers. The hatchery isn't being shut down by DFO, its being shut down by water for residents instead of salmon.
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I grew up in that area and I still have family up there that I visit every summer. There is no denying the place has grown and there is pressure on the already inadequate water supply. It’s funny in that they seem to be experiencing the same problem Victoria was a couple of decades ago, reservoir inadequate, but environmentalists against raising it and predicting dire consequences if they did.

Decades later we have so far no water shortages even though the conservation methods have remained in place, which is awesome. However the shortage did such a good job of weaning residents off of wasting water that the CRD has recently had to raise prices in order to make up the money lost through conservation. Strange as it seems lol.

You missed the part regarding them drilling a well methinks. That apparently is being blocked by the government licensing policy. So it is the government, never said it was DFO by the way. DFO has enough screwups of their own, in fact more than enough so I don’t want to add this to their list.
 
If you really need a well badly I would apply for the license and drill while waiting for the paperwork. Worst that can happen is that you don't get a license at the end and you need to shut down your well again. Very unlikely and at least you would have the water in the short term.
 
california said:
Have you been to Sechelt lately? new developments all over the place, all those new residents drawing water from the inadequate reservoir that feeds Chapman creek. Unfortunately Its a casualty of increased population in the area and dry summers. The hatchery isn't being shut down by DFO, its being shut down by water for residents instead of salmon.
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Nobody on earth is ever going to convince me that population growth is the cause of a lack of water in this province. The problem is simple the lack of will to pre plan for growth and create adequate reservoirs or other water sources. Tax money is spent on too many other ******** wasteful public spending projects for special interest groups that should go to infrastructure. I have to laugh when people say our population is exploding. What we deal with in BC is a joke compared to Asia and other parts of the world who all seem to figure out how to provide water. I live 5 months a year in the Costa del Sol in southern Spain where it rains 10-15 days a year...... maybe. The population here has doubled in the last 20 years as more northern Europeans relocate to the sun belt. Add to this an explosion in harvesting of fruits and vegetables where crops grow up to 4 times a year requiring more and more water every year. I have never once heard anyone say we have a lack of water here. They have figured out how extract water and plan for it well in advance. BC needs to figure it out too.
 
pescador said:
Nobody on earth is ever going to convince me that population growth is the cause of a lack of water in this province. The problem is simple the lack of will to pre plan for growth and create adequate reservoirs or other water sources. Tax money is spent on too many other ******** wasteful public spending projects for special interest groups that should go to infrastructure. I have to laugh when people say our population is exploding. What we deal with in BC is a joke compared to Asia and other parts of the world who all seem to figure out how to provide water. I live 5 months a year in the Costa del Sol in southern Spain where it rains 10-15 days a year...... maybe. The population here has doubled in the last 20 years as more northern Europeans relocate to the sun belt. Add to this an explosion in harvesting of fruits and vegetables where crops grow up to 4 times a year requiring more and more water every year. I have never once heard anyone say we have a lack of water here. They have figured out how extract water and plan for it well in advance. BC needs to figure it out too.
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Absolutely right. The BC coast doesn’t have a water shortage, it has a water storage shortage. Even with the current drying trend we are blessed with more rainfall than most parts of the world for 10 months of the year. Many reservoirs are spilling rainwater for large parts of the winter months. The reluctance to raise reservoirs to accommodate the growing population is a problem, which generally has some environmental organization involved pushing their anti growth agenda. The “got mine, you go somewhere else” gang!Also ,and I know this isn’t going to go over well with everyone, once people have meters and are charged for their water, the use goes down significantly.
 
All of this was looked at 10 years ago or more. Water issues are going to only get worse as we transition from systems that depend on snowpack for storage to one that is based on rainfall and dams for storage.
Wells to supply us with water for our growing needs aren't much help as we don't have the correct geology. South coast aquifers are small or just do not occur in many place where we need them. If you have a shallow well it takes water that would normally supply the creek or river when it needs it the most. Deep wells that don't affect the river don't supply much water so there cost are to high for what you can draw out.
https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/environment/air-land-water/water

If you compare these two links below you can see how geology plays a critical role as to where we can have deep wells. The key formations is the Nanaimo Sediments. The rest are non porous rock that can only hold water in rock fractures. They are also very expensive to drill as they are some of the hardest rock there is.

Map of Observation well for BC
https://governmentofbc.maps.arcgis....ndex.html?id=b53cb0bf3f6848e79d66ffd09b74f00d
Geology of Vancouver Island
https://web.viu.ca/earle/geol111/geology-of-vancouver-island.pdf
 
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GLG, thanks for the info on how our geology affects our hydrology, especially how it concerns wells.

I'm sure the Chapman Creek hatchery folks are trying their best, but in the face of our changing climate, they're fighting a very difficult battle.

In my 67 years here on the coast, I've seen our climate change drastically, especially over the past decade. For example, we never used to have such extensive wildfires or heat waves. And this past winter, I heard a brand new phrase describing the weather we just had: "winter drought." And another one: "climate anxiety."
 
chris73 said:
If you really need a well badly I would apply for the license and drill while waiting for the paperwork. Worst that can happen is that you don't get a license at the end and you need to shut down your well again. Very unlikely and at least you would have the water in the short term.
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And, in the mean time, flows in the creek would be helped by this as well. It would help any spawners that don't hit the hatchery.

This should be linked to helping the whales... people from multiple groups would probably pay attn.

- Paul
 
Chaster Byng said:
And, in the mean time, flows in the creek would be helped by this as well. It would help any spawners that don't hit the hatchery.

This should be linked to helping the whales... people from multiple groups would probably pay attn.

- Paul
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If they can drill a well for the golf course up there, surely a hatchery well would be supported. Would be good PR for the well drillers as well. Have they applied for a license?
 
ziggy said:
If they can drill a well for the golf course up there, surely a hatchery well would be supported. Would be good PR for the well drillers as well. Have they applied for a license?
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Well water is certainly the safest wrt diseases and has better temps for early hatch in the spring (S0 releases) - but... not only requires offgassing tower - but substantially adds to cost$ via electricity for pumping. Some trade-offs, there...
 
agentaqua said:
Well water is certainly the safest wrt diseases and has better temps for early hatch in the spring (S0 releases) - but... not only requires offgassing tower - but substantially adds to cost$ via electricity for pumping. Some trade-offs, there...
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In the end a Well may not be the answer, but they appear to be looking into it as an alternative to mitigate what is becoming an ongoing water shortage, according to the original article. Based on this,I would think they have factored in electrical costs etc., they have a pretty well developed operation and have been doing this for years and seem pretty clutched in on budgeting.

I’ve visited this hatchery numerous times and it provides quite a good educational experience for local school children and indeed all visitors. It would be a shame to see it fold.
 
Could they not drill a well, run the water through the hatchery- then treat the water and put it into the municipal system?
It could be a win-win for everyone.
 
agentaqua said:
Well water is certainly the safest wrt diseases and has better temps for early hatch in the spring (S0 releases) - but... not only requires offgassing tower - but substantially adds to cost$ via electricity for pumping. Some trade-offs, there...
Click to expand...

There are plenty of wells that produce water that wouldn't need further treatment. For oxygen you could just let it run on surface for a short distance and then bring into the hatchery.
 
The hatchery (Chapman) is not closing down. We are moving our fish off-sight for the summer months and selling off our rainbow trout so we have no fish on-site. All well users in BC are required (provincial) to register their wells. We are in the process of applying for a well licence that was original set up for emergency purposes but has now became the "norm" during low flow/high temp situations. The well application requires a detailed report on a possible draw down situation from the creek.
 
Simong said:
The hatchery (Chapman) is not closing down. We are moving our fish off-sight for the summer months and selling off our rainbow trout so we have no fish on-site. All well users in BC are required (provincial) to register their wells. We are in the process of applying for a well licence that was original set up for emergency purposes but has now became the "norm" during low flow/high temp situations. The well application requires a detailed report on a possible draw down situation from the creek.
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Thank you for jumping on and providing an update. For those fish moved offsite, will they return to Chapman or do they imprint on the Capilano?
 
The water issue here in Sechelt has been ongoing for years. Our water comes from 2 lakes at the top of the watershed and with the drying trend the water level has dropped. The population boom up here has increased demand, and our inadequate system is not keeping up. There's been several ideas over the last few years like deepening the waterway from the lake to the creek to draw deeper from the lake, connecting the lakes via pumps as well as money spent on researching well sites for a secondary source of water. Unfortunately its just years and years of $$$$ spent, with ZERO action taken. We'll be stage 3 water restrictions again, with a chance of stage 4 (again).

That's not even mentioning the poor fish in the creek. The poor creek. Its a really bad scene.
 
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