Province Gets Fined For Habitat Distruction

[DonAndersen]

Good stuff!!!

 

 

http://www.cochraneeagle.com/?p=7873

 

 

Don

[Taco]

Yup good stuff

[fishinhogdaddy]

While it's just that they are paying for this type of mistake, TU has a big job with their programs once this sort of thing occurs. Such a shame to see really.

FHD

[Neil Waugh]

There have been some pretty evil riprap attacks on the Red Deer River below the Penhold Bridge. Including one by a certain oil millionaire's house.

I wonder if that one was legal? And how about the number they did on the Crowsnest River through Blairmore?

Instead of a RAP-Line (as in report a poacher) maybe we should start a Report a Riprap Line. It could become quite an earner for TUC.

By the way, it's nice to see that Fisheries and Oceans actually has a pulse here-a-bouts. If ever so faint.

Did anyone in the provincial government get fired over this? And if not, why not? You gotta think there was a county council also lurking in the background. They seem to be Alberta's Great Riprap Warriors.

Nice one Don. By the way, how is your in-stream containment project coming along on the Clearwater?

 

[Guest Sundancefisher]

can someone post the words on this thread. I can't seem to open the links...blocked.

 

I worked on the studies for the rip raps on the Crow as part of the Oldman River dam mitigation. Curious what is said.

 

Thanks.

 

Sun

[bigbowtrout]

September 16, 2009

By: Alan Mattson The Alberta government and a private contractor were handed stiff penalties by a judge after pleading guilty to destruction of fish habitat along the Elbow River.

 

Alberta Tourism, Parks and Recreation and Wilco Landscape Contractors Ltd. will pay $95,000 in fines, and do extensive repairs after a valuable fish habitat downstream to the Allen Bill Day Use Area, near Bragg Creek, was destroyed in 2006.

 

Wilco was contracted to do bank stabilization near the Allen Bill Pond, but a member of Tourism, Parks and Recreation decided to remove trees and landscape on the river shore downstream of the pond without informing Fisheries and Oceans Canada.

 

Trees were cut down and replaced by a landscaped bank with large boulders, meant to protect the day-use area’s washrooms and picnic tables from erosion.

 

“The simplest explanation that came forward was that the person (responsible) might have felt the other area needed to have more protection (from erosion),” said Wayne Johnston of Fisheries and Oceans Canada, the lead investigator on the case.When trees are undercut by natural erosion, they create sweepers and logjams downstream that provide valuable cover and food for fish, like Alberta’s provincial fish the bull trout. The area destroyed was said to one of the best such habitats on the Elbow River.

 

The offence site will be remediated by planting trees and other vegetation, but it will take decades to restore it to its original state. “Mother nature is the best at creating habitat,” Johnston said. “We can only do so much to be able to get to that certain stage.”

 

The provincial government will pay $65,000 in fines, while Wilco will pay $30,000. Most of that money, $75,000, will go to Trout Unlimited Canada for a fish habitat enhancement project in the Crowsnest Pass, while $20,000 will be donated to the Elbow River Watershed Partnership to promote public awareness and education.

 

“It’s really nice for us to be benefited, but it’s unfortunate that it had to be a benefit because of (habitat destruction),” said Brian Meagher, a biologist with Trout Unlimited.

 

“The fish habitat in that stretch of the river is very limited, at best. If they don’t have a house to live in, it makes it a lot trickier for them to live.”

 

The judge also ordered the province to remediate two other damaged fish habitats along the Elbow River, totalling about 2,700 sqare metres. The cost of that work is in addition to the fines.

 

The province and the contractor — who was told to do the work by Tourism, Parks and Recreation — were charged under the federal Fisheries Act.

 

Their guilty plea and agreed statement of facts submitted to the court allowed a quick resolution and sentencing, avoiding a trial and further expense of taxpayer dollars, Johnston said.

 

“There are certain responsibilities that everybody needs to be aware of, from the guy wearing the white hat to the director of the company,” Johnston said.

 

Tourism, Parks and Recreation must also implement a training and awareness program for employees working with fish habitats by June 2010.

 

“It’s good to see that Parks was held accountable,” said Meagher of Trout Unlimited. “I think that we often take our watersheds for granted. We often are in a repair mode rather than a protectionary mode.”

 

 

[bigbowtrout]

http://flyfishcalgary.com/board/index.php?showtopic=9987

[Harps]

Sundance, did you work on the "weirs" or the armouring?

 

The Crowsnest is to straight.

[Guest Sundancefisher]

Sundance, did you work on the "weirs" or the armouring?

 

The Crowsnest is to straight.

 

The biology side of the work. Stream sampling, flow rates etc. The whole processed was not...how shall I say...making sense.

 

Anyways...as to the Elbow. I really love that little river. Not for the fishing as years of neglect, over fishing, bait fishing etc. has done a significant impact on the fish. Even the whitefish, once plentiful and feeding the larger trout are hard to find. What people call large numbers now is just 1/1000 of what used to be.

 

I hate to say it but with so much biomass removed from the Elbow I strongly believe we should replace the nutrients in the river however that makes sense and then have it catch and release for the next 10 years.

 

 

[DonAndersen]

Nice one Don. By the way, how is your in-stream containment project coming along on the Clearwater?

 

 

Neil,

 

It isn't my containment project. It is the County of Clearwater. Tried to interest TU's Brian Meagher in helping the project along. He sent a letter. Suspect that he figures a letter will stop the overland flow.

 

Don

 

 

[Neil Waugh]

It appears there are many shades of riprap. Some habitat-destroying outrages like the Allan Bill kind. Or therapeutic "bank stabilization and containment projects" trying to stop the Clearwater River rerouting itself down Stauffer Creek.

Still, DFO for once in a blue moon appears to have done something positive.

The Elbow rock wall was discussed at our TU meeting not so long ago so I suspect a member of the Alberta Trout Underground fingered the Parkies and probably had to apply a lot of pressure to make the feds do their job.

Good work who ever you are and a tip of the fishin' hat.

[maxwell]

thats good news~!

[LastBoyScout]

I understood the Blairmore mitigation was pay back for the realigning of the Crow at the east Blairmore access when the highway was realigned.

[Guest Sundancefisher]

I understood the Blairmore mitigation was pay back for the realigning of the Crow at the east Blairmore access when the highway was realigned.

 

The groins and rip rap along the Crow were meant to "improve" habitat in the river as a result of the loss of Habitat when the Oldman Dam was constructed. Expectation was that the placement of rocks would create pools and back eddies for fish to be happy...

[LastBoyScout]

I suppose I was just responding to Neal's comment on the work through Blairmore. It was the early eighties a fair bit of time before the dam. As I remember it a great deal of the work done was dynamited out of the way after the first ice dam hung up on some of it diverting water into Blairmore. As it is the stretch was one of my secret locations and still is. Right through town and along the highway with some decent sized trout available and never another soul.