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BC launching major study of Kitimat River, Kitimat Arm water quality

The Environmental Protection Division of BC’s Ministry of Environment is launching a major study of the water quality in the Kitimat valley, first on the Kitimat River and some of its tributaries and later on the Kitimat Arm of Douglas Channel.

There has been no regular sampling by the province in Kitimat since 1995 (while other organizations such as the District of Kitimat have been sampling).

Jessica Penno, from the regional operations branch in Smithers, held a meeting for stakeholders at Riverlodge on Monday night. Among those attending the meeting were representatives of the District of Kitimat, the Haisla Nation Council, LNG Canada, Kitimat LNG, Rio Tinto BC Operations, Douglas Channel Watch, Kitimat Valley Naturalists and the Steelhead Society.

As the project ramps up during the spring and summer, the ministry will be looking for volunteers to take water samples to assist the study. The volunteers will be trained to take the samples and monitored to insure “sample integrity.” Penno also asked the District, the Haisla and the industries in the valley to collect extra samples for the provincial study and to consider sharing historical data for the study.

With the growing possibility of new industrial development in the Kitimat valley, monitoring water quality is a “high priority” for the province, Penno told the meeting. However, so far, there is no money targeted specifically for the project, she said.

Fishing and camping on the Kitimat River — Camping and fishing on the Kitimat River. (Robin Rowland/Northwest Coast Energy News)

The purpose of the study is to make sure water in the Kitimat valley meet the provinces water quality objectives, which have the aim of watching for degradation of water quality, upgrade existing water quality or protect for designated uses such as drinking water, wildlife use, recreational use and industrial water supplies as well as protecting the most sensitive areas. It also provides a baseline for current and future environmental assessment. (In most cases, testing water quality for drinking water is the responsibility of the municipalities, Penno said. The province may warn a municipality if it detects potential problems, for example if a landslide increases metal content in a stream).

Under the BC Environment system, “water quality guidelines” are generic, while “water quality objectives” are site specific.

One of the aims is to compile all the studies done of the Kitimat River estuary by the various environmental impact studies done by industrial proponents.

The ministry would then create a monitoring program that could be effectively shared with all stakeholders.

At one point one member of the audience said he was “somewhat mystified” at the role of Fisheries and Oceans in any monitoring, noting that “when you phone them, nobody answers.”

“You mean, you too?” one of the BC officials quipped as the room laughed.

Water quality objectives

The last time water quality objectives were identified for the Kitimat River and arm were in the late 1980s, Penno told the meeting. The objectives were developed by the British Columbia government because of potential conflict between fisheries and industry at that time. The objectives were developed for the last ten kilometres of the Kitimat River and the immediate area around the estuary and the Kitimat Arm. “The Kitimat is one of the most heavily sport fished rivers in Canada,” she said.

However, the work at that time was only provisional and there was not enough water quality monitoring to create objectives that could be approved by the assistant deputy minister.

There has been no monitoring of the Kitimat River by BC Environment since 1995. “We’ve had a lot of changes in the Kitimat region, with the closure of Methanex and Eurocan, the modernization of Rio Tinto and potential LNG facilities.”

The main designated uses for the Kitimat River at that time were aquatic life, wildlife with secondary use for fishing and recreation.

She said she wants the stakeholders to identify areas that should be monitored at first on the river and the tributaries. Later in the summer, Environment BC will ask for suggestions for the estuaries of the Upper Kitimat Arm.

Participants expressed concern that the water supply to Kitamaat Village and the Kitimat LNG site at Bish Cove as well as Hirsch Creek and other tributaries should be included in the study. Penno replied that the purpose of the meeting was to identify “intimate local knowledge” to help the study proceed.

After a decade so of cuts, the government has “only so much capacity,” Penno said, which is why the study needs the help of both Kitimat residents and industry to both design the study and to do some of the sampling.

The original sampling station in the 1980s was at the Haisla Boulevard Bridge in Kitimat. A new sampling station has been added at the “orange” Kitimat River bridge on Highway 37. There is also regular sampling and monitoring at Hirsch Creek. The aim is to add new sampling points at both upstream and downstream from discharge points on the river.

The people at the meeting emphasized the program should take into consideration the Kitimat River and all its tributaries—if budget permits.

Spring freshette

Last year, the team collected five samples in thirty days in during four weeks in May and the first week in June, “catching the rising river quite perfectly” at previously established locations, at the Haisla Bridge and upstream and downstream from the old Eurocan site as well as the new “orange bridge” on the Kitimat River.

The plan calls for five samples in thirty days during the spring freshette and the fall rain and monthly sampling in between.

The stakeholders in the meeting told the enviroment staff that the Kitimat Valley has two spring freshettes, the first in March during the valley melt and later in May during the high mountain melt.

The plan calls for continued discussions with the industry stakeholders, Kitimat residents and the Haisla Nation.

The staff also wants the industrial stakeholders to provide data to the province, some of it going back to the founding of Kitimat if a way can be found to make sure all the data is compatible. One of the industry representatives pointed out, however, that sometimes data is the hands of contractors and the hiring company may not have full control over that data.

There will be another public meeting in the summer, once plans for sampling in the Kitimat Arm are ready.

Kitimat lifts “precautionary boil water advisory”

The District of Kitimat Friday afternoon lifted the boil water advisory declared during a heavy rain storm late last Saturday. The District says system flushing may result in some discoloured water, but it is safe to drink and the water should run clear quickly.

On its website the District said:

The precautionary boil water advisory issued on Sunday, October 11 has been lifted.

This advisory was issued by the District of Kitimat, with advice from Northern Health, after the extremely high flood levels in the Kitimat River caused an increase in turbidity in the municipal water supply. It has now been lifted after two consecutive sets of samples confirmed there was no total coliform or E.coli contamination in the potable water.

Chlorination was increased and maintained over the boil water advisory period and municipal crews flushed the water system to speed up removal of the turbid (cloudy) water. The flushing itself could result in some discoloration of the water but it is safe to drink without boiling. If your water is discoloured, let your cold water run until it clears.

The District of Kitimat apologizes for any concern or inconvenience this precautionary measure may have caused.

Canadian scientists propose nine step program to save waterways and fish

Tomorrow’s clean water depends on nine guiding principles, says UBC Forestry Prof. John Richardson. (Martin Dee/UBC)

A group of biologists from across Canada have proposed a nine step program to sustain healthy waterways and fisheries not only in this country but around the world.

The key to clean waterways and sustainable fisheries is for the management plan to follow nine guiding principles of ecological water management, according to John Richardson, a professor in the Dept. of Forest and Conservation Sciences at the University of British Columbia, one of 15 freshwater biologists who created the framework to help protect fish and ecosystems into the future.

Fish habitats need waterways that are rich in food with places to hide from predators and lay eggs, according to the framework published on January 31 in the journal Environmental Reviews.
“Fish are strongly impacted when nutrients, sediments or pollutants are added to their habitat. We cannot protect fish without maintaining a healthy freshwater ecosystem,” Richardson,who led the policy section on protecting fish habitats, said in a UBC news release. Other policy sections addressed areas such as climate change and biodiversity.

Read the complete paper on the Environmental Reviews site.

Humans have put key waterways at risk because of land development and the loss of the vegetation along rivers and streams, Richardson said, adding connecting waterways are also critical for healthy ecosystems. “If fish can’t get to breeding or rearing areas because of dams, culverts, water intakes or other changes to their habitats, then the population will not survive,” he said.

With more pressure on Canada’s waterways, Richardson and his colleagues wanted to create a framework of evidence-based principles that managers, policy makers and others could easily use in their work. “It’s a made in Canada solution, but the principles could be applied anywhere in the world,” he said.

The paper says:

Freshwater ecosystems are among the most imperiled on Earth with extinction rates of freshwater fauna higher than for many other ecosystems and vastly exceeding historic background rates/ Freshwater is vital to humans, and clean water is rapidly becoming a limiting resource for many societies. The greatest threat to freshwater ecosystems is the loss or alteration of freshwater habitats through human development yet our societies and economy depend directly on the services provided by healthy freshwater ecosystems.

It also notes:

Most ecosystem services of fishes are supported by a diverse fauna, not by merely the few species directly favoured by humans. Humans live side-by-side with fishes and other aquatic organisms in watersheds, and we derive our quality of life from the health of these ecosystems.

The paper, which was supported in part by federal government financing, only touches on the controversy over the gutting of the environmental protection for Canadian waterways by the Harper government. It goes on to stay that the protests are not enough and more is needed:

Recent changes to Canadian fisheries policies have motivated responses by the public and the scientific community yet a broad contemporary scientific assessment of what is required to manage freshwater fisheries resources is lacking. A template of the core ecological concepts underlying sound fisheries policies, based on the best available science will support policy and management decisions and the design of monitoring programs to evaluate the success of these actions.

With more pressure on Canada’s freshwater ecosystems, Richardson and his colleagues wanted to create a framework of evidence-based principles that managers, policy makers and others could easily use in their work. “It’s a made in Canada solution, but the principles could be applied anywhere in the world,” he says.

Healthy freshwater ecosystems are shrinking and reports suggest that the animals that depend on them are becoming endangered or extinct at higher rates than marine or terrestrial species, says Richardson. Humans also depend on these ecosystems for basic resources like clean drinking water and food as well as economic activity from the natural resource sector, tourism and more.

The components of a successful management plan include:

Protect and restore habitats for fisheries
Protect biodiversity as it enhances resilience and productivity
Identify threats to ecosystem productivity
Identify all contributions made by aquatic ecosystems
Implement ecosystem based-management of natural resources while acknowledging the impact of humans
Adopt a precautionary approach to management as we face uncertainty
Embrace adaptive management – environments continue to change so research needs to be ongoing for scientific evidence-based decision making
Define metrics that will indicate whether management plans are successful or failing
Engage and consult with stakeholders
Ensure that decision-makers have the capacity, legislation and authority to implement policies and management plans.

These recommendations are based on nine principles of ecology:

Acknowledge the physical and chemical limits of an ecosystem
Population dynamics are at work and there needs to be a minimum number of fish for the population to survive
Habitat quantity and quality are needed for fish productivity
Connecting habitats is essential for movement of fish and their resources
The success of freshwater species is influenced by the watershed
Biodiversity enhances ecosystem resilience and productivity
Global climate change affects local populations of fish
Human impacts to the habitat affect future generations of fish
Evolution is important to species survival

EPA finds submerged oil, orders Enbridge to file new Michigan clean up plan by Oct. 20

Environment

A map issued by the US Environmental Protection Agency showing pockets of submerged oil found in the Kalamazoo River during summer 2011 cleanup operations (EPA) Click on map for larger version.

The United States Environmental Protection Agency has ordered Enbridge to “to take additional steps to clean up the July 2010 oil spill that damaged over 35 miles of the Kalamazoo River system.”

The
directive requires Enbridge to submit plans by Oct. 20, 2011 “for
cleanup and monitoring work expected to last through 2012”. EPA news release. Failure to comply could result in civil penalties.

The local newspaper the Battle Creek Courier quotes an EPA official as saying agency has learned a lot in the 14 months since the Enbridge pipeline burst, contaminating five acres of land, part of Talmadge Creek and 35 miles of the Kalamazoo River. The order was based on what the EPA has learned in the past few months.

“As we get near the end of the active submerged oil recovery, we’ll have to have systems in place long-term to do long-term maintenance,” Ralph Dollhopf, the EPA’s on-scene coordinator told the paper. “So we’ve taken all of these elements and packaged them into a set of expectations — specific tasks that Enbridge has to perform through 2012.”

Most of the remaining oil is submerged at the bottom of the Kalamazoo River or on about 200 riverbank sites that haven’t had work done yet, Dollhopf told the paper.

The EPA also is asking Enbridge to install “passive collection devices” in areas where oil commonly accumulates in the river, Dollhopf said. Oil remaining in the river tends to mass at natural deposit points — most commonly near dammed areas.

The EPA says the work will continue to the end of 2012 and even into 2013 if necessary to remove as much remaining oil as it can without harming the environment.

Some parts of the river may be reopened to the public in 2012.

An Enbridge spokesman, Jason Manshum said in an email to the Michigan paper “Enbridge has committed since the outset of this incident to restore the area as close as possible to its pre-existing condition, and to the satisfaction of the U.S. EPA, Michigan DEQ and the local community. We remain fully committed to that goal.”

The EPA situation report says that after a year of extensive cleanup work in the Kalamazoo River system. the EPA identified pockets of submerged oil in three areas covering approximately 200 acres that require cleanup…

To date, more than 766,000 gallons of oil have been recovered and 113,000 cubic yards of contaminated soil and debris have been sent to EPA-approved disposal facilities. Enbridge will be required to repay the government for all response costs.

Work during the summer of 2011 was focused on:

Revisiting shoreline areas cleaned up in 2010 where winter weather and spring floods exposed previously unseen oil or spill impacts.
Excavating oil contaminated soil and weathered tarry oil from the overbank areas.
Recovering pockets of submerged oil in the sediment. EPA has identified three major submerged oil areas including the delta leading into Morrow Lake.

Michigan cleanup by the numbers

766,288 gallons of oil recovered
6 million gallons of oil/water collected and disposed
144,942 cubic yards soil/debris disposed
783 personnel on site
$33.9 million costs to date

Source EPA, Sept. 16, 2011

Salmons’ extra large guts are a survival tactic

Image via Wikipedia

Environment Fishery Science

Salmon have extra large guts–up to three times larger than its body would suggest–that help it survive, scientists at the University of Washington say.

The study “Excess digestive capacity in predators reflects a life of feast and famine” is published in Nature.

A news release from the university calls the large gut a “previously unrecognized survival tactic.” Although fishers who gut a salmon may say that no one noticed how big the gut actually was as they threw it away, the same apparently applied to scientists as the article states: “Despite …basic principle of quantitative evolutionary design, estimates of digestive load capacity ratios in wild animals are virtually non-existent.”

The study is by PhD student Jonathan “Jonny” Armstrong, originally from Ashland, Ore, who says he has been fascinated by salmon ever since he saw a Chinook leap out of the water when he was ten.

The study says that when the “foraging opportunities for animals are unpredictable, which should favour animals that maintain a capacity for food-processing that exceeds average levels of consumption (loads), The study that piscine [fish] predators typically maintain the physiological capacity to feed at daily rates two to three times higher than what they experience on average…”

“This much excess capacity suggests predator-prey encounters are far patchier – or random – than assumed in biology and that binge-feeding enables predators to survive despite regular periods of famine,” Armstrong said. Co-author and supervisor on the paper is Daniel Schindler, University of Washington professor of aquatic and fishery sciences.

“Guts are really expensive organs in terms of metabolism,” Armstrong said. For instance, maintaining a gut can require 30 to 40 per cent of the blood pumped by an animal’s heart.

Some animals have some capacity to grow or shrink their guts in response to changing conditions. For example, according to previous studies, the digestive organs of birds that are about to migrate expand so they can eat more and fatten up. This is followed by a period when their guts atrophy and then, freed of the baggage of heavy guts, the birds take off. But this study shows that many fish species maintain a huge gut, which enables them to capitalize on unpredictable pulses of food.

Ravens and crows, for example, are known to cache food far from where they find it. Fish can’t do that. “Unlike some other animals, fish can’t just hoard their food behind a rock in the stream and eat it later. They need to binge during the good times so that they can grow and build energy reserves to survive the bad times,” Armstrong says.

Armstrong is part of the university’s School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences which has a field site at the Alaska Salmon Program’s Lake Aleknagik. Using a dry suit, Armstrong snorkeled the Aleknagik tributaries, swimming in waters as low as 5°C where he found out the Aleknagik streams exhibited tremendous variation in water temperature, which inspired him to study how those temperatures affected the ecology of the streams.

In his initial studies, he looked at the effect of water temperature on juvenile coho’s ability to consume sockeye eggs. He says, “In cold streams, juvenile coho salmon were too small to fit the abundant sockeye eggs in their mouths. In warmer streams, the coho grew large enough to consume eggs, gorged themselves, and achieved rapid growth, and this suggested that small changes in temperature can have disproportionate affects on coho salmon production.”

The “previously unrecognized survival tactic” might apply to other top predators, such as wolves, lions and bears, Armstrong says.

B.C. first nation challenges oil and gas tenures sale: Globe and Mail

Globe and Mail

B.C. first nation challenges oil and gas tenures sale

The sale of oil and gas tenures in northeast British Columbia by the provincial government for $260-million is being challenged in court by a native band.

The Dene Tha, a first nation that straddles the B.C.-Alberta-Northwest Territories boundaries, has filed a petition with the Supreme Court of B.C. The band alleges that the B.C. Ministry of Energy and Mines failed to adequately consult with the first nation, or to undertake studies on the environmental impact of gas drilling, before selling the leases in the Cordova Basin, near Fort Nelson. Shale-gas deposits in the Cordova Basin are thought to be extensive.