Officials will mark the near completion of fish habitat at Wilson Farm at Colony Farm Regional Park with a celebration with the Kwikwetlem First Nation today.

TRI-CITY NEWS FILE PHOTO

Juvenile salmon will have more protected habitat to get a good start in life thanks to a $4 million habitat enhancement project now nearing completion at Colony Farm Regional Park.

Environment Minister Terry Lake will be celebrating the near-completion of the project today, Monday, with members of the Kwikwetlem First Nation who were key to its development

Lake will join Metro Vancouver Environment and Parks Committee Chair Heather Deal and Kwikwetlem First Nation Chief Ron Giesbrecht in a ceremony to welcome the salmon, unveil a new interpretive sign on the Colony Farm walking path and showcase the habitat enhancement work.

The project, located on the “Wilson Farm” portion of Colony Farm Regional Park, has build a vital habitat for juvenile salmon and restored tidal function to a part of a river traditionally ranked high in the Outdoor Recreation Council’s ‘Endangered Rivers List’.

“This project went a long ways to addressing a major limiting factor to the production of salmon in the Coquitlam River,” said Dr. Craig Orr, environmental consultant to the Kwikwetlem First Nation in a press release. “Urbanization has claimed much of the juvenile salmon habitat in the lower Fraser River area, and this project aimed to restore a large part of that critical habitat.”

The Wilson Farm project, a negotiated highway construction mitigation project funded by the provincial Gateway Transportation Project, has deepened and expanded existing channels for juvenile fish, replaced old tidal pumps with newer and fish friendly pumps, and added cool groundwater to allow fish to survive better. The project was planned with help from experts from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada and the private sector, and input from the public. It was also designed to have minimal impacts on the old field habitat of Colony Farm Park and its associated wildlife.

See the dozens of unique artificial fish habitat models, fish attractors and fish cover used at fishiding.com, the leader in proven science based, fish protection.

The project received complaints from Burke Mountain Naturalists but went ahead with public consultation.

dstrandberg@trictynews.com

Future fisheries panel to meet today

The 14-member Future Fisheries Improvement Program’s Citizen Review Panel will meet today at Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks in Helena, 1420 East Sixth Ave., beginning at 8:30 a.m.

The panel will review project applications for the winter funding cycle and prepare recommendations that the FWP Commission will review in March.

The future fisheries panel is appointed by the governor and makes recommendations on funding for projects to restore or improve Montana’s wild and native fish habitat. See the dozens of unique artificial fish habitat models, fish attractors and fish cover used at fishiding.com, the leader in  science based, proven, fish protection.

The panel will review 13 applications requesting about $380,000. The public may attend this meeting, or review and comment on the grant applications on the FWP website at fwp.mt.gov, click on the Fishing page. To comment, select “Public Comment.”

Individuals or groups with opportunities to restore or improve wild and native fish habitat may apply for Future Fisheries Improvement Program funds. Landowners and other project partners usually share project costs, which extends Future Fisheries Improvement Program dollars. Applicants are encouraged to work with local area FWP fisheries biologists.  The next deadline to submit project applications is June 1.

For more information on the Future Fisheries Improvement Program, call 444-2432, or send an email tomlere@mt.gov.

Swimming against the current won’t be quite as hard for fish in parts of the Siuslaw basin thanks to a project that replaced 11 culverts on creeks southwest of Eugene.

Oil spill stains urban miracle in Colquitz Creek

Three-year-olds Anabelle Irvine Topping, left, and Cyrus Lessard, from Playtime Preschool, get a close look at a spawned out male Coho salmon, held by volunteer Dorothy Chambers, during a visit to the fish counting fence in Cuthbert Holmes Park last Thursday.

Don Denton/News staff

“This is a teenager, a Jack” he says, referring to the youthful age of the three-year-old salmon. “He’s protecting the genetics of this river.”

A group of wide-eyed preschoolers listening to his presentation are unfazed by the explanation – their attention is focused on the fish dangling in the net in front of them.

“A salmon!” one girl exclaims excitedly.

Unbeknownst to her and her schoolmates, seeing a good stock of grown salmon in Colquitz Creek is something Bos and two other passionate volunteers have had to work extremely hard to achieve.

At the far end of the short metal footbridge that traverses the creek, a large wooden box partially submerged underwater is the best tool of the trade for the trio of volunteers protecting the natural habitat that thrives in Cuthbert Holmes Park, behind Tillicum Centre.

The box itself is a counting fence. The fish heading back upstream from the ocean via the Gorge waterway are funnelled inside so the volunteers can collect numerical data on the fish returning to spawn.

So far this year 252 fish have turned up in the counting fence. That includes 162 counted last Tuesday alone.

The numbers this year are indicative of a stable habitat. See the dozens of unique artificial fish habitat models, fish attractors and fish cover used at fishiding.com, the industry leader in science based, fish habitat, proven to provide all fish with cover they prefer to prosper.

Last year, only 52 fish returned to spawn, but there have been years where nearly 700 have come back. The volunteers will continue counting fish until mid-December.

“We’re getting one-third adult males return, one-third adult females and one-third Jacks – that’s a good sign for the future population,” Bos says.

“If you don’t know how the health of the creek is, you have no idea if you have to do mitigation (to improve spawning numbers). … Right now you can say it’s a healthy creek.”

Catastrophe strikes Coho-laden creek

But that health is now in jeopardy, as an estimated 1,000 litres of home heating oil leaked into the river last week, killing dozens of fish over the weekend.

“The sight of the salmon at the surface gasping for air and swimming erratically was sickening,” said Dorothy Chambers, who volunteers alongside Bos.

The source of the leak has been tracked to a home on Kenneth Street, said Mike Ippen, Saanich’s director of public works. Crews installed booms at five locations downstream of the spill on Friday to minimize any further environmental impact.

Chambers said the counting fence was covered in oil Sunday, despite assurances from Saanich that steps had been taken to ensure the booms were working.

“The oil was rapidly free-flowing over the band-aids,” she said.

A sixth boom was added Sunday and Ippen is hopeful the worst is over.

“The leak has been found, the (homeowner’s) connection has been isolated from the drainage system, so it could very well be that most of the product is already through the Colquitz. Now it’s dealing with the residue that’s stuck on plants and things like that,” he said.

Adriane Polland, manager of environmental services for Saanich, says the municipality is “a little bit scattered” as to the timeline of events late last week, but says there’s optimism now, as live fish have been spotted between the spill and counting fence.

“It’s our most important watershed, it’s our biggest watershed, and keeping the salmon run going in this system is very important for the salmon, and also as an indicator species of the health of the creek,” she said.

The Ministry of Environment and Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) are also looking into the oil spill.

Though leaking heating tanks don’t always come with such environmentally dire consequences, Pollard said Saanich needs to improve its messaging to homeowners to ensure they have their tanks inspected and maintained on a more regular basis.

“The public living in town get a chance to see fish in their natural habitat (in this creek) and this provides an understanding of the impact that urbanization has on our water systems, our watersheds,” she said.

Chambers isn’t sure just how badly the salmon spawn will be affected yet.

Oil’s long-term effect unknown

The salmon, in ideal conditions, would continue swimming up Colquitz Creek, well past Tillicum Centre, and will lay between 3,000 and 5,000 eggs in the waterway near Quick’s Bottom Park and the Royal Oak neighbourhood. The adult fish then reach the end of their life cycle and their carcasses provide the creek with nutrients.

Bos, Chambers and fellow volunteer Barrie Goodwin don’t just count the number of fish, they also identify the species and sex, measure each one, and inspect its visual health (looking for such things as bite marks or net and hook marks).

All that information is then provided to the DFO to help with monitoring of the national fish stock.

“What they do for us is huge,” says Tom Rutherford, acting sector head for community involvement and resource restoration with DFO. “We have a mandate to protect fish and fish habitat, and it’s easy for us to protect it if we know the fact that there’s a vibrant run in that system. It gives our regulatory folks a leg up to make sure we protect the habitat that’s there.

“The Colquitz project is a highly urban system. It goes past Tillicum Mall, under the Trans-Canada – it’s not pristine wilderness. These small runs of urban salmon are important to us,” Rutherford adds.

Bos calls their contribution just “one piece of the jigsaw” to ensure enhancements are made – both streamside and oceanside – so the fish have a better chance at survival now and in the future.

If it weren’t for the trio of volunteers who are creekside daily counting the fish, the gravity of the oil spill may not have been known for some time and the environmental impact could have been even more severe.

“The counting fence has been removed so the Coho can try to escape back out to the ocean.  They will die, they will not spawn, but we cannot keep them heading upstream into such a toxic environment,” Chambers said. “We are very worried that it will kill this year’s salmon run.”

kslavin@saanichnews.com

U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERSThis photo from the 1930s shows the 750-foot-long dike that dammed off the east channel of the Sandy River near its mouth. The structure today is not readily recognizable, as it is covered in silt with rock laid on top. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is proposing to remove the dike next summer.

It seemed like a good idea 73 years ago.See the dozens of unique artificial fish habitat models, fish attractors and fish cover used at fishiding.com, the industry leader in science based, man made and artificial fish habitat, proven to provide all fish with cover they prefer to prosper.

To help funnel smelt up the Sandy River each spring, the Oregon Game Commission in 1938 finished a huge rock and wood dike to close off one of two river channels. The result was a single channel to the west of a large delta of low-lying land where the Sandy flows into the Columbia River.

And it appeared to work. Commercial and recreational fishing for smelt prospered for years.

But now, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, with help from thePortland Water Bureau, wants to remove the dike and reopen more than 1.4 miles of the old channel through the delta to restore habitat for endangered salmon and steelhead.

“The commission thought it was a good idea at the time,” said Todd Alsbury, regional fish biologist with the Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife, the commission’s successor. “Now we’ve discovered that closing that channel was not so good.”

If the dike is removed next summer as planned, it would be the biggest yet of a dozen corps habitat projects planned for the lower Columbia River under special legislation passed by Congress 11 years ago and funded with $30 million.

It would also move the main channel of the Sandy back to where it was before humans began messing with the river.

“We’ve identified this as a very important project at the mouth of the Sandy River,” said Steve Kucas, a Water Bureau environmental manager. “This is really valuable habitat for fish coming out of the Sandy and for fish in the Columbia River.”

River history 

Until the state closed it off, the east channel carried most of the Sandy’s flow into the Columbia. In the 1930s, the state felt that two shallow channels were hampering the upriver movement of finicky smelt, so it built the massive dike — 750 feet long, 45 feet wide and 8 feet high — to close the east channel and dredged the west channel to make it deeper.

But the dike ended up hurting salmon habitat by limiting cool-water flow from the Sandy into the delta. Water from the Sandy flowed over the dam during winter floods, and water from the Columbia flowed west through the channel during spring runoff. When waters receded in the summer, it left isolated ponds of warm water, stranding juvenile salmon and steelhead seeking shelter and food to grow.

The east channel gradually silted in, reducing fish habitat even more.

The listing in the 1990s of 13 runs of Columbia River salmon and steelhead as endangered or threatened gradually changed how state and federal agencies — with pushes from a federal judge — managed fish-killing dams. The corps and Bonneville Power Administration also began paying greater attention to fish habitat, seeking ideas from other agencies and interest groups.

At about the same time, the U.S. Forest Service took ownership of the Sandy River delta from theTrust for Public Lands, which had bought the property from Reynolds Metals. The land would become part of the Columbia River Gorge Scenic Area, and the Forest Service would oversee its rehabilitation from decades of grazing.

“Very early on we identified removal of the dike as something we wanted to do,” said Robin Dobson, a Forest Service botanist who has spent more than 20 years working on the delta.

A tangle of jurisdictions, lack of coordination and little money prevented much from happening for years. In 1999, Portland General Electric announced it would take out Marmot Dam 30 miles upriver, bringing more attention to the Sandy basin’s habitat. A year later Congress authorized and provided money for the corps to undertake habitat projects on the lower 143 miles of the Columbia.

In 2005, the corps started working with the BPA, which also owned transmission towers on the delta. It brought in the Forest Service, which wanted the whole dike out “and the river back to its original channels,” said Dobson. The Portland Water Bureau, which agreed in 2009 to spend $93 million over 50 years on habitat mitigation for its dams in the Bull Run watershed, said it would help.

“Everyone wanted to do it, but everyone had issues,” said Laura Hicks, chief of projects and planning for the corps’ Portland district. “It took a while and at times it got pretty frustrating.”

U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERSA U.S. Army Corps of Engineers van makes its way along the top of a 73-year-old rock dike near the mouth of the Sandy River. The corps, Portland Water Bureau and U.S. Forest Service want to remove the dike, now nearly covered with trees and underbrush, and dredge the east channel of the Sandy.

The plans 

The dike is now completely covered with trees and brush. Its top serves as an access road onto Sundial Island.

Under the corps’ proposal, it will pay to remove 65 feet of the dike, and the Water Bureau will pay for taking out the remainder. A contractor would then excavate a 7,350-foot-long “pilot” channel from the Sandy to the Columbia.

The channel would be 8 feet deep, 20 feet wide at the bottom and 60 feet wide at the top. The work could start next July, last until October and cost anywhere from $500,000 to $2 million, said Mark Dasso, project manager for the corps.

The new channel will cut off public access to Sundial Island. The corps is working out agreements with the BPA and the Williams Co., which has a large natural gas pipeline on the island, for access during emergencies.

The Forest Service’s large, new parking lot and the Thousand Acres recreational area that stretches from Interstate 84 to the Columbia would not be affected, Dobson said.

Once the dam is gone and the pilot channel dug, Dasso said, the river will “find its own path” through the delta and eventually carry the main flow.

Environmental groups agree with the project, as does Jack Glass, a longtime fishing guide who spends more than 100 days a year on the Sandy. Glass believes having two channels again will help “unplug massive deposits” of sand still working their way downstream from Marmot and from recent winter floods.

“It will be a good thing in the long run,” Glass said. “Everybody hates change, but this is a good change.”

That’s the kind of acceptance that the corps, Water Bureau and Forest Service is hoping for as it seeks public comment on the plans.

“I think everyone now realizes that we should have left the river alone and not mucked around with it,” Dobson said. “In this case the concept is simple — we’re trying to make the delta function as a delta again.”

— Quinton Smith, Special to The Oregonian