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Millions of salmon eggs lost at gravel removal site

By Robert Freeman
The Progress
rfreeman@theprogress.com
Mar 10 2006

A "massive" die-off of baby salmon at a gravel removal site on the Fraser River was reported by Chilliwack sport fishermen to federal fisheries officials Wednesday.

"It's got to be in the millions of alevins (salmon hatchlings) that are never going to get to the ocean," says Frank Kwak, a local member of the Fraser Sport Fishing Advisory Board.He says "thousands" of salmon egg sites called redds have been left high and dry due to a gravel removal operation near Ferry Island, just downstream from the Agassiz-Rosedale bridge.

A bridge was supposed to have been built by the contractor to allow trucks access to the gravel bar while maintaining river flows, but federal fisheries allowed the mining to proceed with only a causeway, which acted like a dam exposing the redds. Fraser River water levels have also dropped lower than anticipated.

David Suzuki Foundation biologist John Werring, who examined the site yesterday, says he has never seen such a huge loss of fish habitat. "We estimate thousands and thousand of salmon spawning redds" were exposed, he says, leading to the potential loss of about 30 million salmon eggs. About half the alevins, which emerge from eggs buried under the gravel, would die during the time they live in the ocean, he said, so "hundreds of thousands" of adult salmon could be lost as a result of the gravel removal operation. "People should be outraged this kind of thing is happening," he says, pointing out that loss of habitat is the single biggest factor in the decline of west coast salmon, a "cornerstone" of B.C.'s economy.

He said the Foundation will lobby the federal minister to take action and "make sure it doesn't happen again."

DFO spokesman Dale Paterson says fisheries officers are assessing the damage. He confirms the contractor was allowed by DFO to go ahead without building a bridge in order to meet a March 15 deadline. However, river water levels are "less than anticipated," falling to about 700 cubic metres per second compared to 900 cubic metres per second last year.

Federal fisheries has been under pressure by provincial and local politicians to allow more gravel mining in the Fraser River to reduce flood hazards in the area.

Kwak says sport fishermen are resigned to gravel mining, but want better protection for fish habitat. "We can't stop it, but at least there are a number of other alternative (methods) for taking the gravel out," he says, such as using barges and conveyor belts.