Now the Gold is gone...

have you contacted ZoAnn morten with the pacific streamkeepers alliance with your findings she's a big supporter of citizen science.

https://business.facebook.com/pg/streamkeepersfederation/posts/
I took a course she instructed in Vic. 2015. We sampled a creek in Sidney. Ray creek had 5000 macroinvertebrates per m2. The EPT composition was low so the water quality rating was only "fair". She wasn't interested in water sampling. I was interested and the alkalinity was 144ppm. pH 7.8 that day. After we sampled I told her all about how this urban stream has 25 times the ecology the Stamp and many other streams had at that time. She was only interested in small urban streams. She did encourage me to join the efforts of creating a database and how to log in to upload my findings. I would have into that but they never use the information for anything other than finding areas of urban contaminants. As useful those efforts are it was never going to bring awareness to the die off in ecology over the rest of the land. I asked about invertebrate records. She said streemkeepers started in 1995 and that is after the first mass die off I watched happened. Streemkeepers records would only indicate reasonably steady populations because they started during the "new normal" conditions.

I really enjoyed my day of sampling. ZoAnn and the rest of the enthusiasts. She was a great instructor with passion for he work. I am applying the same entomology response to water quality concept streemkeepers uses. The one square foot scrape and count everything technique doesn't fit well into most natural stream layouts. I find that far more information can be collected quickly with a camera. I also feel video is more credible than paper. Videos are my reports.
 
This is what happens when the steelhead fishing sucks! If everyone was busy out there catching fish we would have no time to argue about stream ecology! Lol
What's in your stream? Do you get much of a chance to have a look? Please take a look and video then share.
 
I took a course she instructed in Vic. 2015. We sampled a creek in Sidney. Ray creek had 5000 macroinvertebrates per m2. The EPT composition was low so the water quality rating was only "fair". She wasn't interested in water sampling. I was interested and the alkalinity was 144ppm. pH 7.8 that day. After we sampled I told her all about how this urban stream has 25 times the ecology the Stamp and many other streams had at that time. She was only interested in small urban streams. She did encourage me to join the efforts of creating a database and how to log in to upload my findings. I would have into that but they never use the information for anything other than finding areas of urban contaminants. As useful those efforts are it was never going to bring awareness to the die off in ecology over the rest of the land. I asked about invertebrate records. She said streemkeepers started in 1995 and that is after the first mass die off I watched happened. Streemkeepers records would only indicate reasonably steady populations because they started during the "new normal" conditions.

I really enjoyed my day of sampling. ZoAnn and the rest of the enthusiasts. She was a great instructor with passion for he work. I am applying the same entomology response to water quality concept streemkeepers uses. The one square foot scrape and count everything technique doesn't fit well into most natural stream layouts. I find that far more information can be collected quickly with a camera. I also feel video is more credible than paper. Videos are my reports.

It seams you have left no stone unturned lol
 
Anyone please. Go out to your local streams and roll some rocks over. Have a look to see what the future holds???
 
Anyone please. Go out to your local streams and roll some rocks over. Have a look to see what the future holds???


I have gone out to see what the future - and even present holds.

August 21 2018. Photo by me.
A local stream of mine, Cottonwood Creek, Near lake Cowichan, as a result of increased bedload movement, aggradation in the lower reach, excessive logging in the entire watershed (historic and current), more extreme flood events and drought as a result of climate change =


upload_2019-2-21_9-37-58.png

upload_2019-2-21_9-40-5.png
600 m of dry channel. I had a real hard time finding much for aquatic invertebrates, I kept on flipping rocks over, strange. Good thing the rain isn't so acidic anymore, otherwise we might have a problem here.
and also to note Robertson, Nixon, Meades... they all looked the same!
Good for alligator lizards I suppose.
 
Actually....this a major concern....the floods that we have on many of our coastal flows now are huge and often. Once every 5 year floods, are now happening 3-5 times a year and I am not talking about freshet(snowmelt).

The watersheds are a sponge and should be releasing water gradually....now with most uppersheds being logged the blow outs are huge.

The Vedder is a perfect example of this....top end is completely butchered and clear cut...now we are having huge fluctuations. A lot of of our coho and chum spawning grounds are now dry beds due to huge water fluctuations.

Again this is not a rebuttal against kenny's theory. Just some first hand experience.
All of our voices who are on the flows daily need to be heard and respected.
Put the petty **** aside...
 
I have gone out to see what the future - and even present holds.

August 21 2018. Photo by me.
A local stream of mine, Cottonwood Creek, Near lake Cowichan, as a result of increased bedload movement, aggradation in the lower reach, excessive logging in the entire watershed (historic and current), more extreme flood events and drought as a result of climate change =


View attachment 43677

View attachment 43680
600 m of dry channel. I had a real hard time finding much for aquatic invertebrates, I kept on flipping rocks over, strange. Good thing the rain isn't so acidic anymore, otherwise we might have a problem here.
and also to note Robertson, Nixon, Meades... they all looked the same!
Good for alligator lizards I suppose.
Well seems like nobody who will stand by their name is going to talk about the reason there is lack of ecology in the Gold river. Might as well talk about the logging damage myth.

J-ROC these are some beautiful pictures of some of the least hospitable stream environment any could find. I looked on google earth and believe this is the area you have photographed.
As ugly as that piece of stream is it is only typical of the environmentalist to automatically assume this is from all the logging. Yes, it would be a good sale for ENGO activists to use this area to convince everyone that logging ruins streams!!!


Well just to bring this advertisement to truth lets first look at other similar areas that haven't been logged to cross reference the assessment.
upload_2019-2-21_22-27-14.png
As we all know there are very few un logged valleys left on V.I. but there are some. Lets look up the coast at Kwois creek in Kyuquot sound.
upload_2019-2-21_22-33-38.png
So at a glance and from an altitude of 15 miles it is easy to see the same similar stream environment and more of it as you have on the creek in your logged neighborhood. It is easy to see that Kwois creek is totally virgin forests and untouched.
upload_2019-2-21_22-39-55.png
So now zoom into a Kwois cr. gravel bar gravel bar in this unlogged pristine intact watershed. Lets have a look at 7500ft.
upload_2019-2-21_22-43-2.png
So if you look at other areas of the island where there is no logging it is easy to see that rivers with massive unstable gravel deposits are common naturally. The blown out piece of your local creek you claim is a result of logging is not necessarily caused from logging. Just imagine yourself on this stretch of Kwois cr. in August after a bunch of dry weather. Then give your head a spin to look for what has caused this creek to be such a moon scape. Then tell me who you are going to blame??
upload_2019-2-21_22-51-5.png
Here are pictures of Power river taken from an adventurous kayaker.
upload_2019-2-21_22-53-1.png
So for anyone who thinks just because there is a big gravel bar it must be the logging that caused it let it be known the occurrence of un stable stream beds are common naturally in unlogged valleys. Many streams naturally have sections that flow under ground during s dry seasons. To sell the notion that it is all caused from logging is deceptive and misleading.
 
I have gone out to see what the future - and even present holds.

August 21 2018. Photo by me.
A local stream of mine, Cottonwood Creek, Near lake Cowichan, as a result of increased bedload movement, aggradation in the lower reach, excessive logging in the entire watershed (historic and current), more extreme flood events and drought as a result of climate change =


View attachment 43677

View attachment 43680
600 m of dry channel. I had a real hard time finding much for aquatic invertebrates, I kept on flipping rocks over, strange. Good thing the rain isn't so acidic anymore, otherwise we might have a problem here.
and also to note Robertson, Nixon, Meades... they all looked the same!
Good for alligator lizards I suppose.
I would like to add a little more to your post.

You claim that, " Robertson, Nixon, Meades... they all looked the same!. That is very far from the truth. Don't take this personal but I just done trust people who will not put their name with their word. I was down that way today so wanted to see just how hard you looked for invertebrates, [or if at all], in your local streams. It was Nixon creek that I got out to look into. Here is what I found!!


Looks like there is good ecology in that stream despite what you were leading on. As log raped that watershed is the water quality as indicated with invertebrates is good. In fact if Gold, Muchalat, Thompson Stamp or Campbell has anything near that invertebrate biomass the last few years there would not be a Steelhead crisis now.

Thank for your inspirational post. It got me motivated to document more proof that logging hasn't killed everything off like environmentalists think and it is actually water quality that has been restricting productivity.
 
Back in the early 90's I participated in an Atlantic Salmon survey. This involved doing snorkel surveys in dozens of streams on the east and west coast of vancouver island and some streams on the mainland coast. This was done mostly in the fall. One thing that was painfully evident when doing the swims was river habitat. When you swim significant chunks of a system with your head down you get a feel for the system. Rivers that had stable banks, clean gravel, cobble and low levels of sand and silt had decent popultions of salmon. Rivers that were clearly unstable and had little gravel and cobble and lots of sand and fines had few if any adult salmon in them.
So my take on the water quality is, if they can't spawn and get eggs to the fry stage then water quality/number of bugs really does not matter much.
Yes the juveniles need to find something to eat but there needs to be juveniles in the first place.
The silt filled, unstable rivers were all heavily logged.
On another note, winter run steelhead smolts from the stamp are dumped in and head to the ocean. They don't depend on invertebrates to survive the 2km they need to swim to get to the estuary. Where are the returning adults?
 
You say, "the silt filled unstable rivers were heavily logged", well so were all the rest of the stable bedded streams you swam. Everywhere was logged before. Please look up at the pictures of Kwois creek and tell me what causes that stream to be so unstable??

Do you have any proof that Stamp hatchery released S/H go strait to the ocean? Do you have any telemetry reports or anything like that to prove what you say? From my 40 years of snorkeling the Stamp the two year juveniles prefer to stay three years but are kicked out of the hatchery early as domesticated pets to starve and dodge predators in the Stamp river. This whole idea they just head to the ocean is not backed with any science nor is the notion that there is good food once the get to the estuary.

I agree that there needs to be good habitat for fish to spawn and juveniles to rear. Remember this thread is about Gold river. What about all the great habitat there?? Helicopter run has more spectacular habitat than many whole rivers on the island. Why is it so dead?? Should we try to stop the logging even though the habitat is still excellent? The Heber river with less stable stream bed and fines filling the cobble is out producing Gold for invertebrates, steelhead juveniles and steelhead adults. Why do you think that is??
 
Here is another real world example of how the notion of "logging has ruined all the rivers" is false. Here is a areal pic of Kwois creek again at 5500 ft.
upload_2019-2-22_10-35-11.png
Yes Kwois creek has a totally intact valley yet the river is totally poo poo for fish production. Now lets go directly east over the mountain to a heavily logged valley.
upload_2019-2-22_10-38-46.png
So now here we see the Tahsish river has a beautiful pool, run, rapid structure. Although the valley has been raped it still has beautiful stream habitat.
Now lets go look at the Gold river.
upload_2019-2-22_10-43-47.png
Well looks like the Gold even though it has been logged for decades still has excellent habitat! Go to Google earth yourselves and have a look at the rest of the coast that hasn't been logged and you will be able to see for yourself that the idea of logging being the cause of all the missing steelhead from causing habitat loss is more of a religious belief than real world fact.
 
Back in the 70's they did lots of studies on how bad logging was and they found that coho salmon were particularly sensitive to it. Probably for some of the reason highlighted in the peace

https://www.aquahoy.com/en/i-r-d/31...-salmon-survive-in-stormwater-runoff-research

Last year seemed like a pretty good coho year in a lot of places

so many factors
I can assure that during the 1990's when heavy rains of pH 3.4 had fallen the storm run off would be far more toxic than recent heavy rains that have a pH averaging over 5.6.
 
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