Low ph and salmon productivity

So this is a complicated topic, and not a sexy one for a lot of people - including the scientists themselves. Maybe a way to capture support and interest is to create a simple way to build a table showing PH levels in a number of rivers against the expected norm. And for those rivers where PH is low and approaching critical zone, those would be good candidates for treatment - so recommend a simple solution that could be implemented at fairly low cost so that people have a sense that the problem could be actioned. People want to pay attention to issues that they sense have some potential solutions they could take part in.
 
To make this subject simple you would have to take the science out of it all!
There are tables already built for many streams and lakes. They are held by municipal water suppliers and the environmental protection department of MOE. Guidelines for acceptable water quality are also already established too by MOE. If a MOE biologist or anadromous fish specialist was interested in science all the information is easily obtainable. They seem more interested in stock assessment by angling than the science of limnology. I have already heard, "water quality and invertebrates are another departments responsibility". Fishing is much similar so that is mostly what they do! To make this similar for the people who are in charge of managing freshwater would be to give them indefinite paid leave of absence. They are already mostly there!
For now let's look at Gold river available data from the EP department at MOE. There are only four samples of gold river alkalinity. Alkalinity is the acid neutralizing capability of water or the ability to resist pH change. Only two days where alkalinity was sampled for the four test results. March 3/1985 alkalinity was sampled three times 11.4ppm, 12ppm and 12.4ppm. April 30/1986 was the other single sample for ALK. and it was 11.4ppm then. ALK. 20ppm is the very bottom of what is considered safe for ecology and 80-120ppm is considered optimum. Both days the pH was acceptable. Ph was recorded 112 times over the years ranging from 6.8-8. So considering the many years well documented acid rain it should be simple enough for anyone to see that Gold river has very low buffering and has suffered acidification events that would have killed off ecology. Pretty simple if you ask me. If our specialists at MOE had any integrity they would put down the fishing rods and install electronic water quality monitoring equipment and record invertebrate assemblages because it has all been ignored for over 25 years.
You ask for a simple solution?? Simple has been exorcised for years being hatcheries and fertilizer enrichment but that hasn't proven to be all that successful. It would be easier to come up with solutions if water quality and how freshwater buffers the acidic rain input was studied for the last few decades but it hasn't. It's like if you were required to write an algebra test after you skipped out of math all year! The time to study this has been passing by and the scientific effort was forfeited long ago.
If it was in my power this is what I would do. I would create biological observatory stations where stream or lake water could pass through a facility. Water quality and natural biological structure, [starting with bacteria], could be continuously monitored so any changes to water quality or ecology would be well documented. This would help to understand the thresholds for each food web level or when and how they were surpassed. These stations could also be useful for researching mitigation solutions. It would be useful to include public on the facts of what has been happening and encourage invertebrate monitoring. I would also look at all the efforts that have been done in other areas to manipulate chemistry and continue on. That would be a good start.
As I look at water test results from different areas each stream or lake has it's own unique water quality parameters based on geology. In some areas the acidic rain has stripped calcium and magnesium to leave the waters deficient. Adding lime to these waters would be beneficial. In other areas alkalinity at base flows are high enough but it would be more of a poisoning of dissolved heavy metals from high acid rain events that has caused disruption to food web structure. For these areas mitigation might be possible with applied dissolved organic compounds which are known to bind with dissolved metals and make them less toxic. I have not seen any studies where this is attempted or if DOC can be manufactured for application to natural waters. Heavy metals can apparently be filtered out of water for municipal water supplies but I am not sure if the same filtering could be used practically for natural waters. Using DOC to detoxify heavy metals may also be a way to help mitigate the effects of heavy metals on the inland ocean waters that has precipitated from years of acid rain. This is well worth researching if you ask me.
Other than mitigation how about reintroduction. As hatchery fish have been stocked for years how about reestablishing base level food webs instead of starting at fish. Many of our streams do have suitable water quality other than events which shock the ecology. Rebooting the base level ecology would eliminate all the negative impacts hatchery fish have on wild fish genetics.
How's that for simple?
 
Pat, I know you are a brilliant man. With all the efforts you have been doing to defend sportfishing and bring angling groups together your brain must be ready to explode some nights! I assure that if you ever get the time to learn a bit more about chemistry and ecology then do a bit of field testing in a variety of areas you too would believe how great the influence water quality has on ecology.
I just checked the rain pH again. Last nights rain was a pH of 6.6. That is over 100 times less acidic as the average in the mid 1990's. If this keeps up there will likely be lots of salmon sometime in the not too distant future. Hope we will be allowed allowed to fish for them.
 
Again, fishmyster, what you are describing has been done and is still going on for a number of streams on the island. I have not seen just four alkalinity results but literally hundreds if not thousands on some streams over decades. It's not like you invented water quality monitoring! To say that 20ppm alkalinity is bad for ecology is like saying Vancouver Island is bad for ecology! Our island streams have naturally for the most part very soft water and this is not a human's fault but due to geology and morphology on this piece of earth here. Our coastal ecosystems have build on these conditions and are adapted to this. So throwing chemicals in the streams because the water does not meet your ideal standard or doesn't jive with water quality parameters in the Alps is quite ridiculous. Heavy metals can leach from human activities like logging, mining etc into the water. Stop the source, don't treat the water. BTW, you cannot treat a stream for heavy metals.
 
chris73 said:
Again, fishmyster, what you are describing has been done and is still going on for a number of streams on the island. I have not seen just four alkalinity results but literally hundreds if not thousands on some streams over decades. It's not like you invented water quality monitoring! To say that 20ppm alkalinity is bad for ecology is like saying Vancouver Island is bad for ecology! Our island streams have naturally for the most part very soft water and this is not a human's fault but due to geology and morphology on this piece of earth here. Our coastal ecosystems have build on these conditions and are adapted to this. So throwing chemicals in the streams because the water does not meet your ideal standard or doesn't jive with water quality parameters in the Alps is quite ridiculous. Heavy metals can leach from human activities like logging, mining etc into the water. Stop the source, don't treat the water. BTW, you cannot treat a stream for heavy metals.
Click to expand...
I have seen hundreds of alkalinity samples for VI streams but not Gold river. How many have you seen for Gold river?

If our ecosystems have been adapted to the naturally soft waters of VI then where did the invertebrates go since the 1980's? Is Jo Saysell from Cowichan rive just blowing smoke? Is the global insect decline just a figment of my imagination and did not happen here too? What do you have to say about that??

20ppm is very bad for ecology during acidic rain events. Like give your head a shake! Where on VI do we have a stream of less than 20ppm average that has been healthy with ecology for the last two decades?? I will give you $1000 dollars for each one you can come up with! So no risk for you. Here is a chance for you to make some money! lol!!

How does Englishman spawning channel loosed 80% of its ecology from 2012-2015?? Aren't them invertebrates adapted to this soft water climate?? Please explain your scientific outlook of this anomaly?

I absolutely did not invent water quality monitoring but have many years of stream side observations? Water quality analysis and rainy day water testing is where I got my theories from. You may be part of some old boys club who have many years of experience in water quality monitoring. Somehow you and others seem to have been oblivious to the natural cues and changes indicating to what has gone on. Why are you offended by outside ideas? Don't let your ego hinder you from accepting a good idea or new information.

I did not recommend throwing chemicals into a stream until science is done to clarify exactly what is causing restrictions in beneficial ecological structure. It may not be practical to treat most waters.

If you are so smart. I have witnessed die off of invertebrates, changes in algae species and drastic changes in decomposition of organic mater. This has all happened in VI streams. This has changed within the stream environments I grew up in. What in your professional experience would cause these changes???
Let's talk aquatic science!
 
Love your passion but don't lose sight of the fact that there are people out there who know a thing or two about local aquatic ecology!
You want one river example? I give you one; I have a few more but I don't want to bankrupt you. Leech River, alkalinity 6-8 ppm on average, pristine and in good shape. Please donate on my behalf to: Nootka Sound Watershed Society.
Again, I cannot confirm your theory of widespread and drastic shifts in water quality and associated affects on aquatic life. I can imagine this to be true locally due to man-caused effects.
 
I have not lost sense of the fact there are people more experienced in water testing than me. I will b happy to donate to where you mention because they seem like a worthwhile group of salmon enthusiasts. Who do I contact to give my cc# to?
To be fair in our deal can you provided proof to me that Leech river has been providing good salmonid productivity for the last twenty years?
 
chris73 said:
Love your passion but don't lose sight of the fact that there are people out there who know a thing or two about local aquatic ecology!
You want one river example? I give you one; I have a few more but I don't want to bankrupt you. Leech River, alkalinity 6-8 ppm on average, pristine and in good shape. Please donate on my behalf to: Nootka Sound Watershed Society.
Again, I cannot confirm your theory of widespread and drastic shifts in water quality and associated affects on aquatic life. I can imagine this to be true locally due to man-caused effects.
Click to expand...
When you tell me that, "there are people out there who know a thing or two about local aquatic ecology", were you implying you are one of them? If so you are not proving it yet.

When I googled "Leech river" I was expecting to read reports titled, "little Gem", "Ecological Garden of Eden" or "Biological Anomaly! If there is any proof Leech river is a good supported of ecology then it must be top secret! All there seems to be is information from Sooke river and they indicate like everywhere else that fish stocks are in decline.

You claim Leech river is , "pristine and in good shape". Please define pristine? Is it the fact that Leech river was turned upside down over a century ago during a gold rush or is it that 95% of the watershed has been logged? What do you mean by pristine?

You didn't really expect me to give up the money without some sort of proof or just because you say so? For you to have proof of healthy ecology there would have to be some sort of LONG TERM ecological reporting done like invertebrate sampling or out migrating fry counts. When you find these please share them. All I can find is reports indicating ecological productivity is low or been declining.

I agree there are many people out there who know a thing or two about aquatic ecology but whoever they are they seemed to have lost touch with reality of the field situation. Maybe if these people with all the book smarts ever listened to a person with extensive field experience they together could understand more of why salmon and steelhead populations have collapsed. Are you able to acknowledge the idea that a person who has spent a lifetime observing the ecological decline could teach you a think or two about ecology or do you already know it all??
 
Yes wildmanyeah, good finds.

Something I would like to have more knowledge of is the changing decomposition characteristics of salmon carcasses? Attached is a photo of two salmon from the Somass river 2017. Something I have noticed over the years is when the dead salmon decompose slowly and bloat or go fuzzy the stream invertebrate populations also take a big hit. The picture is of salmon that died in early September and were still festering in mid October. Interestingly in 2015 salmon did not get fuzzy, bloat and decomposed quickly. 2015 was also a year that didymo algae died off early in the summer to return in 2017. In 2017 dead sockeye in Sproat river decomposed within ten days and for some reason the crayfish would walk right past any fish that were dead and starting the decomposition process. I do know this has been happening in many other major B.C. salmon streams like Shuswap, Thompson, Harrison, Stamp, Gold, most east coast V.I. streams ect.... A doctor friend of mine that fishes the Skeena every year also said there was still fuzzy dead pink salmon in the Skeena mid February 2017. If anyone has any answers please share.Somass salmon decomp 2017.jpg This is how salmon decompose in a stream that has been yeilding extremely low natural productivity.
 
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