Tag Archives: Hyacinthe Creek

Studying The Water Budget For Quadra Island; a model for the future

ICAN’s water security team and the We Wai Kai First Nation have embarked upon an exploration of Quadra Island’s water systems.

While this is a Quadra study, everything they are doing is applicable to Cortes and every other British Columbian island where there is a sizeable population. They are offering a model of how we can prepare for the future.  

“The project started a number of years ago, really centered on the concerns of local people on Quadra about the nature of their water supply. People were really worried about what was going to happen with both climate change, whether it’s going to be getting hotter (particularly in the summers) and with development. Every new person that moves on to the island usually sinks a well. If they sink a well, they’re pulling quite a bit of water out of the aquifer. We wanted to know, would the aquifer actually meet our needs? Also, what needs does the environment have? And what will happen when things like climate change influences the availability of water,” explained Colin Chapman, who, together with his partner Claire Hemingway, is a key leader in this project. 

Continue reading Studying The Water Budget For Quadra Island; a model for the future

A coastal First Nation’s Guardians are ‘testing the water’ to prepare for climate change

Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

A coastal First Nation’s Guardian team is gearing up to test the waters to try to limit the impacts of drought in their traditional territories on northeast Vancouver Island.   

The We Wai Kai First Nation’s environmental stewards are partnering with other local groups to map and monitor wetlands, watersheds and streams on Quadra Island as summers get hotter and drier, said Guardian program manager Shane Pollard. 

Continue reading A coastal First Nation’s Guardians are ‘testing the water’ to prepare for climate change

52,000 Chum eggs come to Cortes Island

The Klahoose water taxi brought 52,000 Chum eggs to Squirrel Cove yesterday. ‘Goat 1’ tied up at the Klahoose dock around 11 AM. 

“The eggs come from Tla’amin Fish Hatchery in Powell River. I think the amount is probably based on what they get on returns, because they have their own creeks and rivers where they get their Chum eggs,” explained Klahoose Fisheries Officer Byron Harry.

Continue reading 52,000 Chum eggs come to Cortes Island

No more logging Hyacinthe Creek! says Quadra Grannies

Another logging confrontation may be coming on Quadra Island. 

On November 15, 2021 a little group of Quadra Island ‘grannies,’ calling themselves the Friends of Hyacinthe Creek, shut down the Mosaic Forest Management logging operations in Tan Creek.

Continue reading No more logging Hyacinthe Creek! says Quadra Grannies

Critique of Mosaic’s 2022 Forest Stewardship Plan for Quadra Island (P3)

Originally published on the Discovery Islander

“Noise is the amount of disagreement between people who make professional judgements.” This is the definition supplied by Daniel Kahneman, a behavioural scientist and Nobel Prize winner, and his two fellow scientists, Olivier Sibony and Cass Sunstein, who were trying to understand and explain why “a lot of professional judgement actually has no connection to reality.”

Their studies were initially inspired by a survey of 208 federal judges in the United States. On convictions for the same offence that received an average of 7 years incarceration, sentences varied by as much as 50%. Another study found that the value estimates of insurance underwriters varied by 55%, a large enough range that made their assessments almost useless. Psychiatry is particularly “noisy”. So is forestry.

Continue reading Critique of Mosaic’s 2022 Forest Stewardship Plan for Quadra Island (P3)