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Salmon Enhancement And Habitat Advisory Board (SEHAB) Roundtable

Date Feb. 20, 2009

Area North coast

RepresentativeJan Lemon

Community Advisor: Rob Dams

Challenges/Issues and Opportunities/Successes of the Volunteer Aquatic Stewards

One of the biggest issuesin our area this winter has been the weather: high water flows in the fall and then colder than usual temperatures and heavy snow fall.Another major issue is the recession with the prospects of Funding Partners being unable to contribute to the groups and an anticipatedgeneral decreases in donations.

(Fisheries Management)

Enforcement (Conservation and Protection

Habitat - Freshwater (Oceans, Habitat and Enhancement) OldOldfield Creek Hatchery is working on spawning platforms and riparian planting along Oldfield Creek

Habitat - Oceans, Estuaries and Marine (Oceans, Habitat and Enhancement) WWF - Prince Rupert - Active partner with OldfieldCreek Hatchery.  Working on eel grass transplant (using hatchery facility and aquarium) also conducts various outreach projects.

Bear River Society
Starting to regroup for the 2009 season.  Plan to start with Oceans Day beach clean-up and Eulachon surveys in the Bear River.

Salmon Enhancement (Oceans, Habitat and Enhancement)

Lakelse Watershed Society - Working on recovery plan.  Will release another 300 sockeye fry into Williams Creek in spring (reared at Snootly Hatchery) Added spawning gravel into Scully North channel during the summer.

On the project front last year this grouptook on year 3 of the 4 year sockeye fry outplant but this year theyare concerned about funding for this final phaseasthey have deep concerns about PSC Funding support for the 09/10 brood. .

Ian Maxwell was able to attend the recent international State of the Salmon conference . Also, there was a meeting of the Skeena Watershed Congress in Terrace on 16 February which hewill attend. His interest and active participation is greatly appreciated.

Oldfield Hatchery is very active in its revitalization of the facility and its programes. In -
2008 eggtakes they took 15 K Kloiya Chinook, 20 K Oldfeild coho and 20 K Dianna coho with ~98% survival to eyed stage
Hatchery and water supply is now renovated - most upgrades completed
.

In 2009 theyplan to reach full egg targets for chinook and coho.  Also hope to start a Silver Creek chum transplant from the Toon River (pending transplant approval).

.  May run an adult fence on Hays Creek to measure escapements and collect brood

Eby Street Hatchery
2008 brood
35 K  coho from Zymachord River - egg to alevin survival at 98 %.
Working on a serviced bathroom and dry lab area at the hatchery

Oona River Resources Association has continued to work on the Kumeleon River Chum project for Area 5,This is the third season for this project and August 2008 saw the lowest returns of chum to this system since they started enhancement three years ago,only 2000 eggs were secured and 900 fry emerged in earlyJanuary..These will be marked and released at the beginning of March. In Novemeber 2008,4200 coho eggs were taken form the Oona River for theirPublic Awareness and education programme. The 2000 coho smolts which they have successfully reared over winter will be released in early May. , and to date have had no mortalities.

Stewardship & Community Involvement (Stewardship & Community

Oldfiled Creeek Hatchery plans to continue with SmoltFest again this year (its now in the community events calendar).  In 2007 they had 300-400 people from the community attend with very little advertising.  Also started a smolt marking program this year.

Terrace Rotary Club :Skeena River (Rivers Day) clean-up continues to expand.  Nearly covers the entire Skeena below Terrace

Oona River Resources Association: They are continuing in their education and outreach programmes and had a very successful schoolfield trip from the Kitkatla(Gitaxala Nation) school group last fall.The schoolwill have a classroom incubation project and will return the fry to Oona on another filed trip in May or early June. The Septemberannual Northwest Community CollegeField trip was a success. Last Octoberthey hosted a five day event for 20 Canada World Youth Group memberswho were participating from theUkraine and across Canada.

Lakelse Watershed Society have persuaded the Regional District of Kitimat-Stikine to partner with us in funding a trial lake coordinator for Lakelse. The contract went to Margaret Kujat with whom we worked for a number of years on our sockeye fry outplant and other projects. This is modeled on the Christina lake coordinator and is intended to pull together the many independent interests (government and others) in the watershed.

Terrace Beautification Society -
This is a new partner that is working on Howe Creek nature trail upgrades and fish / fish Habitat signage.  Also small habitat improvement projects along the stream (problem culverts and riparian planting).

Science, Canadian Hydrographic Service (Science and Research)

Kitimat Rod & Gunis still working on fish passage assessments in the lower Kitimat Valley.

High water flows this fall made it difficult on the coastal streams to do adequate fish counts and the shortened contracts with theFOC Streamwalkersdidn’t help

Consultations: Acts, Regulations, Policy, Program Development and Implementation, Capacity, and Partnerships (Consultations)

Treaty & Aboriginal Programs (Treaty & Aboriginal Programs)

Safe and Accessible Waters (Canadian Coast Guard, Navigable Waters,Small Craft Harbours)

Hartley Bay CEDP - going well - took all 500K Coho eggs last fall

Kincolith CEDP - major ice jam and flood in Jan 2009.  Waiting for ice to melt before full damage assessment can be done.  Large ice flow entered outdoor rearing ponds with 70,000 juvenile chinook.  Received funding support to rebuild their gravity feed water supply - planned for the summer of 2009.

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June 17, 2008

North Coast

Jan Lemon

Many of the groups had no new information so my report will only cover a few.

Lakelse Watershed Society (LWS)

Enhancement:

Lakelse Watershed Society working with Snootli Hatchery (Bella Coola) collected

290,000 sockeye fry, raised from 96 female and 100 male sockeye taken from Williams Creek, they were released on 29 & 30 April at their original capture point. DFO & LWS did some brief beach netting at various locations in the lake 2 weeks later. We caught 32 sockeye fry of which 6 were hatchery ones (and much larger than the non-hatchery ones). DFO were of the opinion that the fry headed directly for the depths of the lake despite the lack of daphnia present at this time of year. LWS believes that this should provide impetus to improve protection for disappearing lakeshore vegetation.

Science:

Skeena Independent Science Review Report

LWS was pleased to see that the panel had recognized habitat issues affecting Lakelse sockeye, noting that "The Lakelse Lake basin has been heavily impacted by logging in the 1970's, and is now under strong development pressures from recreational properties". However we are not sure if they were aware of plans for renewed cutblocks on the five largest salmon tributaries feeding the lake. LWS finds it astounding that with the new Forest Practices, the local Forestry office is unable to tell us how many cutblocks and where and when they will be active. On the positive side, one cutblock on Williams Creek and adjacent to a proposed spawning channel was selectively logged with very little disturbance to the forest floor or remaining timber. This was achieved in spite of strong resistance from the Forest office who viewed it as "high grading". LWS believes that at least this timber harvesting had much less impact on creek flow and temperature, snow accumulation and sediment movement.

Lakelse Sediment Study

This joint project with Lakelse Watershed Society is aimed at providing baseline data against which future changes can be gauged. Automatic samplers and crest gauges are installed in the 4 main tributaries feeding the lake (Williams, Furlong Hatchery and Scully Creeks). With the hiring of the present BC Conservation Corp employee by Ministry of Environment , LWS is pleased to announce the continuation of data collection to at least the end of November, and hopefully through to next years spring run-off. So far, Furlong Creek stands out as creating large amounts of sediment input to the lake.

Stewardship and Community Involvement:

LWS is delighted to have received funding from the Pacific Salmon Foundation to complete a Sockeye Viewing Project. This collaborative project with BC Parks is on Williams Creek. This should provide the public with extraordinary opportunities to witness amazing sockeye behavior during spawning. Last year interactions could be seen between 5 different versions of the sockeye family, namely 5 year-olds, 4 year-olds, jacks, kokanee and residuals (residuals being similar to the kokanee but olive green instead of red)..

Habitat-freshwater:

Lakeshore Survey

LWS was pleased to learn that the Ministry of Environment intend to carry out a lakeshore video & GPS survey in late July and LWS has expressed our willingness to participate. We have been trying for years to get DFO, MoE and our Regional District to do something about the removal of natural lakeshore vegetation.

Prince Rupert Salmonid Enhancement Society (Oldfield Creek) has been very active in Stewardship, community Involvement and Enhancement

Theyare going ahead in leaps and bounds under the leadership of Stephn Leask and many others. In early June they had requested the public to come and help with their coho smolt release.They were amazed and very pleased at the huge turnout for the event. With renewed interest and an active board of directors they are rebuilding their reputation, doinggood fish culture, revitalizing the facility and getting necessary stream work done .They work with Chinook and pink in the Kloya River and coho in Dianna,Hays, Oldfiled and Morseby . .  Oldfield is looking into starting a satellite chum program to kick-start Silver Creek, a system impacted severely by poor past logging practices.They hope to get brood stock from the Tune River in Work Channel and are working with CA Rob Dams to get the necessary permitting.  Theywill be pouring the concrete fishes this summer along with Oona River volunteers. Public trails are being refurbished with new crossings. Funding from Pacific Salmon Foundation purchased the material for the bridges and thecarpentry students in the college programme in Terrace built them.They should be in place shortly. The Northwest Community College has partnered with Oldfield Creek and the Coastal Ecology students from the college are working on a monitoring programmeat Oldfieldto do water quality, enhancementtagging, stream surveys and more .The have one volunteer, Don Cross who has taken on restoring the gardens and landscaping and the grounds are looking fantastic!Finally, a month ago they had an open house and brought artist and students together to begin painting wooden salmon, birds, trees, sea creature etc. to be used for a fence mural at Sea fest—happening this weekend.While some volunteerswere painting plaques, others weregiven a tour of the facility and shown the coho smolts.The new water systemis working well and they will have the capacity to do 200,000 + eggs

Oona River Resources Association

Enhancement :

Cool winter temperature put the emergence of the Kumeleon chum fry about 6 weeks behind.The 12000+ fry were marked and successfully released on April 10^th.Coho fry, have emerged in the past few weeks and the 2,670 willbe held for the public awareness and education programme

All the necessary equipment has been purchased for the improvement of their the water quality and the installation of a UV filter will start July 3^rd. in preparation for the next Kumeleon Chum enhancement project

Stewardship and Community Involvement:

The local fish lodge has started their season and we look forward to them bringing groups through every week for a tour. Two hired summer students will give tours andassist inall the various aspects of fish rearing and releasing, helping with maintenance, stream assessments and general hatchery operations.

The Northwest Community College three day field trip is already in the planning for the first week in September and it will be larger this fall as some of the students from last year who were not able to come then, will be there.These students are always a big potential as our future volunteers and often graduate and get jobs in various fields related to salmon, habitat and enhancement. :

Bear River Enhancement Society

Habitait-Ocean:

This stewardship group in Stewart plan to do an estuary clean-up this summer.For any of you who have been to Stewart, you will know what a huge job this will be as it is a very large and complex estuary.

Hartley Bay (CEDP)

Enhancement:

Hartley Bay will be out planting 222.k Coho into Angler Cove, Whalen and Red Bluff lakes.The remaining 30,000 Coho will go into the river by Hartley Bay.Their manager, Danny Danes said they have had heavy snow damage this winterto the planksidewalk to the headwater lake which will require extensive repairs 

June 17, 2008

Central Coast

CA Sandie MacLaurin

Temporary rep-Jan Lemon

A formal report for this area will be coming at the fall meeting.I hope to be able to make more contacts and begin to build dialogue with the volunteers for this area.Finding a representative to the SEHAB board is vitalas the Central coast is avast, complex area and has rivers, habitat and fish issues which are unique and important to the whole province.

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Northern Interior/North Coast Roundtable Report February 2008
Submitted by Jan Lemon.
The following is a summary of the various groups and what they are doing in our area.
1) Kitimat Valley Naturalist Club
Contact: Dennis Horwood
250-632-2004
Eelgrass mapping project in the Douglas Channel.  Includes an Eelgrass transplant (restoration) experiment at the Alcan Beach.  They are presently embarking on a bridge project that will restore and protect habitat in a local stream that is heavily impacted by vehicle traffic.   This bridge project now includes help from Alcan.  The design should be completed by the spring of 2008.  
2) Kitimat Shorekeepers Club
Haisla group - monitoring shoreline ecosystems in conjunction with WWF.
3) Kitimat Rod and Gun Club
Contact: Albert Hummel
250-632-3555
Fish access surveys at various stream crossings along old logging roads in the Lower Kitimat Valley.  Plan to restore fish passage by deactivating problem crossings.   Project has attracted interest from the MOF Conservation and Enforcement program.  Plan to have a meeting to discuss partnerships for expanding the project with MOF and the CO service.
4) Northwest Watershed Society
Contact: Brenda Ramsey
250-638-8436
Streamkeepers group working on small-scale coho enhancement at Eby Street Hatchery.  Also promotes public education and stewardship.   Has 17 K Zymachord coho eggs on hand.  Does a guided hatchery tour
5) Lakelse Watershed Society
Contact: Ian Maxwell
250-798-9500
Our primary stewardship group in Terrace and key stakeholder in the Lakelse Sockeye Recovery Plan.  Successful in collecting sockeye eggs and transporting them to Snootle Hatchery where they are raised and returned to the Lakelse system.  The Lakelse Watershed Society is very active with volunteer contribution to a Ministry of Environment Sediment monitoring study on the four main tributaries to Lakelse Lake (Williams, Furlong, Hatchery and Schulbuckhand Creeks. This is a $83,000 project aimed at providing baseline data on sediment entering the lake and has had tentative approval for extending data collection into 2009.
On November 7, 2007, they received notice of 4 proposed logging cut blocks in the Furlong, Hatchery and Schulbuckhand Creek drainages. This is at serious odds with the sediment study as well as being a serious threat to the few remaining sockeye of four mall creeks in the vicinity. The Lakelse Sockeye Recovery Plan front page lists Ministry of Forests as "partners" but there has been no timber harvesting discussion at the recovery plan table. They have since written letters to the Prime Minister, the Premier of BC, the Ministry of Fisheries and Oceans (with copy to Don Lowen, SEHAB), the local Forestry District Manager and Prince Rupert Fisheries and Oceans personnel.  Having volunteered thousands of hours on the plight of Lakelse sockeye each year since 2001, they see little point in continuing with their volunteering without effective and encompassing Federal/Provincial/ First Nations watershed management in place.
6) Prince Rupert Salmonid Enhancement Society Contact:  Steven Leask 250-624-6733
Oldfield and Kloyia Creek Hatcheries - public involvement project enhancing coho, chinook and chum in Oldfield and Kloyia Creeks.  This project provides the venue for the Prince Rupert Salmonids in the Classroom Program.   Facility upgrades and hatchery revitalization is nearly complete.  12K Chinook and 30K Diana/Oldfield coho eggs on hand.  Also working towards habitat improvement projects on Oldfield Creek. Public trails are being refurbished with new crossings.    
7) Oona River Resources Association Contact: Jan Lemon Hatchery #250-628-3241
Small-scale enhancement of Area 5 chum, Oona River coho and Spiller River coho. They also assist with spawner surveys in various streams.  This group is linked with the North West Community College ACE programme and host a three-day college field lab every fall. Continuing chum enhancement on the Kumeleon River funded by the Northern Fund (PSC).   They have 17K chum eggs on hand.  5K coho eggs were taken from Oona River system for their public awareness and education programme: Hatchery tours are available year round and the local fish lodge brings groups through every week during their summer charter business.  Upgrades to the hatchery’s water quality by installation of a settling tank and UV filter is nearly complete.     Promoting stewardship through public education and the venue for our Salmonids in the Classroom Program in Terrace.   We are working with Chris to build an interpretive educational center at the hatchery.
8) Bear River Enhancement Society Contact: Frank Kamermans 250 636-2344
Stewardship group in Stewart.  Working on small scale local Public Involvement Projects.  Last fall they did Great Canadian Shoreline Clean-up with students from the
local school.   There are plans to regroup this organization and they will continue the annual community estuary clean-ups
9) Dutch Valley Community Group
Presently developing a fish habitat restoration project on a small, unnamed tributary of Spring Creek.  This project has been on-hold for the last year and is still on hold!
10) Terrace Rotary Club.
They started a volunteer river clean-up from Terrace to tidewater, on or around Rivers Day each year in September.  Sept 2007 was the first annual event.  It involves volunteers from Rotary and DFO using their boats to roam the river for left over junk the summer fishing crowd leaves behind.  Very worthwhile project.                          11) World Wildlife Fund
Contact: Jennifer Rice, James Casey
250 624-3705
Shorekeepers and public education - outreach and stream/estuary clean-ups                               12) Greater Terrace Beautification Society
Contact: Sam Buckanan
250-638-0498
Howe Creek trail and habitat improvement projects.
13) Terrace Salmonid Enhancement Society (Stock Assessment) Deep Creek
Hatchery
Contact: Chris Culp
250-635-3471
Kalum River chinook enhancement and CWT program with StAD.  Participates in Terrace SIC program.  Developing an interpretive area for public education.  Participant in Lakelse Sockeye Recovery Program.
14) Gitanyow/Kitwanga Sockeye / Coho Enhancement
Mark Cleveland
250-849-5246

Have 45 volunteers including school children.  Kitwanga River sockeye enhancement and habitat restoration. Proposal to construct a smolt fence in 2008 Initiated 1985. Enhancement, assessment and education at Kitwanga Lake.
Our area has two Community Economic Development Projects (CEDP) at Hartley Bay and Kincolith.  These projects build community capacity while enhancing fish, promoting public education and restoring fish habitat.  

Kincolith Hatchery (CEDP)
Contact: Blair Stewart
250-633-2617
Presently have 70 K Chinook eggs on hand.  Working towards elevating access road power line.  Recently completed construction of a new access bridge.   PSC proposal submitted to reconstruct the gravity feed water supply.  No chum brood taken in 2007 due to poor escapement Initiated 1978.  Hatchery and fence operation on Kincolith River -- Species Chinook & chum.  The crossing structure (over the Kincolith River side channel) on the hatchery access road was replaced in 2007.  The MOT donated a large Bailey bridge last summer (thanks to Don Hjorth).  I should note, this project has partners from DFO, Nisga'a Fisheries, LGL and the local village government.
Hartley Bay (CEDP)
Contact: Danny Danes
250-841-2558
Presently have 450 K coho eggs on hand with 30 K smolts.  Working towards internet access at hatchery and shed reconstruction (initiated 1979).  Hatchery, rearing, stocking and smolt release on Hartley bay Creek, Whalen, Red Bluff, Angler Cove and Upper Hartley Bay lakes.

                     Of Note: (DFO North Coast CA's) are working together with volunteer groups to develop a Regional Roundtable.

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SEHAB Member: Janet Lemon

Area: North Coast

Community Advisor: Rob Dams

Date: November 2015

Key Issues:

What top three points can you distill from community input to take to DFO RHQ?

1. Need for monitoring, baseline information and science to bring credibility, continuity and direction for industry, NGO’s, general public while developement esculates on the north coast

2. Habitat issues where the issue is reported, response time is not soon enough and by that time damage is already been done

3. Decline this year of coho across our whole area and no way of telling what actual returns are as streasm assessment seems to be non-exsistent to compare returns to brood year escapement

Stories:

A few examples of successes, failures, challenges.

Failure of the Skeena scockye returns to come in as predicted with no five-year-old sockeye and small 3-4 year olds returning.

Challenge to meet future stock assessment needs with the retirement of key senior persons in the Prince Rupert Office

Success with the groups in the Kitimat watershed joining together, hiring a professional and beginning baseline water quaility monitoring.  This will be critical information for the future when air shed problems start to arise as industry increases in the area

Failure of the government authories steering the Port of Prince Rupert and LNG proponents away from Lulu Island right from the beginning. This has lead to a stand off with the company (which has put millions of dollars and large amounts of human effort in planning and replanning to avoid Flora Bank and impacts) and First nations and their many supporters who see the potential impacts this will have on the Skeena estuary no matter what mitigation is used. A total waste of everyones energy and money right from the get-go and now we have a tense situation than can easyily lead to violence.

 Challenge to work in rivers swollen by torrential rains and unusually dark water in coastal streams from incresed tannins.