How Flood Improvements Could Save Wild Salmon in British Columbia

British Columbia is at a fork in the road, and only one road leads to a better future for salmon, says a charity working to rebuild the species’ population.

After last month’s atmospheric river in the province caused at least $ 450 million In infrastructure damage, the Watershed Watch Salmon Society is asking the government to take fish into account during rebuilding.

In Sumas Prairie, pumping stations like the Barrowtown facility are responsible for keeping water out of the ground. However, the way they work kills the unfortunate fish that get caught in the machinery. Similar stations are located along the Fraser to prevent flooding and keep stream levels level. However, if the fish go through the seasons, they die and die.

Flood prevention levees also pose a problem because they block 1,500 kilometers of salmon habitat in the lower Fraser River.

There are alternatives to levees, pump stations and other flood protection infrastructure that save fish and still protect communities, said Aaron Hill, the organization’s executive director. Some improvements have already been made in the province, such as the fish-safe gate the group completed through a project called Resilient waters in Lower Agassiz Slough, but Hill said it is only scratching the surface.

In terms of how last month’s weather event affected salmon, Hill said it’s too early to tell. Fish were seen in farmers’ fields and between park benches; Contamination was detected in the flood water.

However, it is not too early to take action to protect salmon, Hill said. National Observer of Canada He reached out to him to find out how that might happen with fish-friendly flood design and why he thinks it should be a priority for the government as British Columbia rebuilds.

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How can you make your flood infrastructure fish-friendly?

For example, with flood pumps, instead of using a small tube with a small turbine, use a large tube with a very large turbine that rotates slowly. So you move the same amount of water, but you don’t chew the fish when you pump.

Gates: The bad ones are really big and built with heavy steel. They are top mounted and only open when there is a large amount of moving water. And then the rest of the time, they are just closed. So you can use lighter side mount aluminum doors that open and close very easily with a small amount of water. Or just have people manually open and close doors when they need to be opened and closed.

Wetland restoration it can also help. What about levees, which block fish habitat? Is it possible to make them fish-friendly?

There are a number of natural flood defenses or nature-based solutions.

One of them is a setback levee, where the levee is built up from the river bank a bit to give the river some room to safely flood. Farmers and landowners need to be compensated for giving up land along the river, but most of those lands are being hit by floods anyway, making them quite vulnerable.

Or you will have a smaller dike along the river bank, and then a much larger dike a little further back. So you may have a little dirt flooding from time to time behind that smaller levee, but everything behind the large levee is still safe.

Does fish-friendly infrastructure protect communities in the same way?

There are so many successful models that show that these flood protection methods actually make our community safer from flooding. And they save money in the long run. It’s not that we’re giving up flood protection to save fish. We can do both.

Fish-friendly infrastructure is working elsewhere. Where and how?

Washington state is a great example. They are across the border from us and they have very similar challenges in geography, and they have a great program called Floodplains by design where farmers, landowners, tribes and different levels of government collaborate. They are making their communities safer from flooding and opening up habitat for salmon. And we can do that absolutely here.

Also in Holland. There are many Dutch farmers in the Fraser Valley and their relatives back home have been doing these things very well for a long time.

Wild salmon faces many threats. What difference would this make?

I think it really depends on the exact salmon populations that we are talking about. Because salmon face a wide range of threats, it is very difficult to tell any of them how much it will make a difference. It changes from year to year, depending on what is happening. I don’t want to just speculate, but I will say that, at the very least, this would mean that thousands more salmon would survive each year. How many thousands? I can not tell

What would you like to see from the government?

There are a couple of things. There is really broad support for this from First Nations and local government, but we really need the province to step up. They have committed a little money to BC Salmon Restoration Innovation Fund, which is a joint federal-provincial initiative.

However, during the last provincial elections, the government promised to create the BC Basin Security Fund. Fish-friendly flood infrastructure is an excellent example of the kinds of things the fund should support. But now that a year has passed, and they are not even close to having that fund ready, we are really worried that they will drag it out until the next election. And it is so obvious that there is an urgent need for this to be done right now.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.