How Fisheries Act changes could impact the Shuswap

A Shuswap Passion column for the Shuswap Market News
May 18, 2012
by Jim Cooperman

The list of those speaking out to oppose the current plan by the federal government to weaken the Fisheries Act through its massive omnibus budget bill grows daily. In addition to the fishing community, conservationists, former Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) directors and hundreds of scientists, the former conservative Minister of Fisheries, Tom Siddon, has now spoken out for the need to scrap the plans to gut this important law that helps protect fish habitat. If the bill is passed, the changes will have huge consequences throughout Canada, including the Shuswap.

Within the bill are amendments that will change the focus of a section of the Fisheries Act from habitat protection to fisheries protection. The changes will occur in two steps. Once the bill is passed, the prohibition against works that pose harm to fish habitat will be weakened to only apply to permanent alteration or destruction through an order of cabinet. As well, the amendments will expand the government’s ability to authorize harm to fish habitat or allow for pollution to occur and DFO staff will no longer be required to review proposed works. Essentially, it will be open season for industry to do whatever they want regardless of the impacts to fish habitat.

There are DFO staff stationed in Salmon Arm and Kamloops that have played a key role in protecting and restoring salmon habitat through a wide variety of activities.  Perhaps the greatest benefit to the community has been the efforts that DFO staff have made to help bring groups together to achieve significant results. For example, the Salmon River Roundtable has made great strides in rehabilitating riparian vegetation and improving farm practices, as well as improving understanding of the need to protect fish habitat.

Much of the work that the Salmon Arm DFO staff do is behind the scenes, including reviewing development plans, helping groups apply for funding to do restoration and mapping and restoring the foreshore of Shuswap and Mara Lakes. For situations where development has caused significant harm, such as the riparian clearing alongside the Eagle River near Old Town Bay, DFO was able to prosecute the offending developer. As a result, the developer was fined and thus had to fund the reclamation efforts.

Another example of where DFO has protected key habitat is in the North Shuswap near Roderick Haig-Brown Park where a developer began to fill in a lagoon that floods in the spring. Because this seasonal body of water provides habitat for salmon fry and other species, the developer had to remove the fill and now this area is protected, although the adjacent RV park residents remove the riparian trees and bushes to get a view of the lake.

The federal government claims that under the existing legislation that was established in 1977, DFO has caused unnecessary delays to developers and has prevented development in floodplains and ditches, which they claim is not important habitat. However, in most cases the proponents who have not provided the information needed in a timely manner have caused the delays. And, for many parts of Canada, especially the Shuswap, ditches and floodplains does indeed provide key rearing habitat for salmon.

In addition to the legislative changes, DFO faced significant budget cuts last year and deeper cuts are planned for this year. Most of these cuts are to staff that work on habitat protection. It is entirely possible, that the local office of DFO could be closed and most of the jobs lost.  The federal government’s primary concern is to ease the restrictions on industrial development, particularly the proposed Northern Gateway Pipeline that would cross over 800 streams and rivers.

Most Shuswap residents support efforts to protect habitat for our iconic salmon. If we lose DFO, we will see threats to the viability of salmon increase. Environmental protection has long been the cornerstone of our democratic society, as most of us know that a healthy economy is dependent on a healthy environment. The plan to gut the fisheries act and weaken the environmental assessment process threatens our democracy and will in the long term weaken our economy.

To learn more, read the Ecojustice Fisheries Act backgrounder

Shuswap Environmental Action Society

Media Release

May 7, 2012

Old Town Bay Marina plan should be rejected

The Shuswap Environmental Action Society is opposed to the plans to allow a massive marina for Old Town Bay near Sicamous. Our concerns include the potential impact on fisheries, as well as the impact on recreational values.

Government agencies have promoted the removal of the houseboat operation from the Sicamous channel for a number of years, due to the impact on fish habitat. While moving the houseboats may seem like a positive change, the reality is likely the opposite. If the houseboat docks were removed and the foreshore returned to a natural state, then the move could be beneficial. However, the plans call for the houseboat docks to simply be replaced with docks for speedboats and thus many impacts would remain. Even if the new docks in the channel were built using the best practices, there would still be impacts.

The mapping of fish habitat shows that the channel contains high value habitat on the east side and very high habitat on the west side. The same mapping shows both high and very high habitat along the foreshore of Old Town Bay. If the docks were allowed to move to Old Town Bay, there would be impacts to an area that is now nearly pristine and some of the impacts would remain in the channel, with the result being an increase in impacts.

As well, the channel has been filled with docks for many decades, and any impacts to salmon have already occurred. Salmon continue to swim through the channel in the fall to spawn up the Shuswap River and the fry continue to spread throughout the lake during the year. The main difference between the channel and the bay is that the bay is located in the freshwater estuary of the Eagle River and thus provides critical habitat to the salmon fry exiting the Eagle River in the spring up until high water. Locating a massive marina and breakwater in this area could be pose significant problems to these salmon fry, even though it is proposed for deep water.

According to Craig Orr, a fisheries biologist with The Watershed Watch Salmon Society, fresh water estuaries are “ecologically sensitive areas that are important to the ecosystem and are very vulnerable to disturbances.” Craig added, “These areas tend to have the highest fish biomass and biodiversity by providing a place for fish to spawn, feed and rear juveniles and should be avoided by such projects.”

Impacts from the marina include the potential for fuel spills, pollution from washing the houseboats, shade from the boats that create hiding places for more predators of the salmon fry, as well as noise and siltation.  While a comprehensive, independent impact assessment will be prepared; it should be made available to the public for review before a final decision is made.

The marina would also impact other species that utilize the foreshore, such as shoreline birds that feed and nest in bays. Sandy beaches are rare in the Shuswap Lakes and many of these beaches have some form of development. An assessment is also needed of the use of this area by other species and of the impacts that could occur from a marina development.

In addition to the impacts on recreation, the marina would also impact public recreation values. The proposal calls for privatizing public foreshore.  The Shuswap Lakes Integrated Planning Process (SLIPP) is just in the beginning stage of developing a recreation management plan for the lakes. Any proposal to privatize a large area of the foreshore should wait until there is a publicly approved plan in place to manage recreational values.

In conclusion, Jim Cooperman, President of Shuswap Environmental Action Society (SEAS), urges that “the public, especially all those concerned about salmon habitat and recreational values provide comments to the Integrated Land Management Bureau about the inappropriate marina development as soon as possible, as the deadline for comments in May 19th.”  “Even though the marina is designed to be located in deeper water outside the primary zone critical to salmon fry, we remain concerned that this massive marina, that would fill in the entire bay, will still negatively impact salmon and other species,” he added.

Note that the public can access what little information is available about the project and can provide comments using this link:

http://www.arfd.gov.bc.ca/ApplicationPosting/viewpost.jsp?PostID=29366

For more information, see the Backgrounder