Tag Archives: floodgates on the Fraser

Cost of Climate Change

Saving the Cowichan Estuary from drowning in a climate-fed ‘coastal squeeze’

Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

High atop a dike hemming the Koksilah River as its fresh waters meet salt, red-winged blackbirds call out as they patrol their territory.

Noisy heralds of spring, the blackbirds return to the Cowichan Estuary each year to nest and protest human intrusion with sharp signature trills from the brush along the riverbank.

Today the interloper is Tom Reid, conservation land management program manager with the Nature Trust of British Columbia (NTBC), who stands atop the 15-foot-high rock embankment he is working to destroy.

The dike, built to fortify farmland stolen from the estuary, is stifling the tidal marsh vital to the survival of a host of endangered salmon and bird species that rely on it for breeding, feeding and migration, he said.

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Rivers & Oceans

Opportunity to install ‘fish friendly’ flood infrastructure in the Lower Fraser Valley

The recent mega-floods have brought an opportunity to rectify one of the problems that has long plagued salmon runs in the Lower Fraser Valley. Hundreds of miles of outdated flood protection infrastructure has been chopping fish up when they return home to spawn. Now much of it will have to be repaired or replaced. The Watershed Watch Salmon Society sees this as the opportunity to install ‘fish friendly’ flood infrastructure in its place.

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Rivers & Oceans

BC’s vital salmon route is seriously clogged

National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Floundering Pacific salmon stocks are finding little refuge in the lower Fraser River — the lifeblood for the iconic species, and historically, the most significant spawning and rearing grounds on the West Coast of North America.

Researchers have found 85 per cent of the historical floodplain habitat for salmon in the lower Fraser has been lost.

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Rivers & Oceans

Who Is Protecting Wild Salmon Behind The Fraser River’s Dikes & Side Channels?

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By Roy L Hales

There is more than 1,400 km of salmon habitat behind floodgates in the lower Fraser Valley. The lead author of a Simon Fraser University study wrote, ” … Floodgates are installed to protect homes and farms from flooding, however, when they are closed, they also bar native fish from accessing valuable habitat.” A related study by the University of Victoria Environmental Law Centre found that there is little ongoing government oversight of fish habitat behind dikes, or fish passage through flood structures. Who is protecting wild salmon behind the Fraser River’s dikes & side channels?

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