Save the North Alouette

Thousands of dead fish on the N.Alouette River
A history and update of original comment entitled,
Who’s on first?
That used to be a good joke when Abbot and Costello were around.  From comedians doubletalk is funny. But, when elected government officials refuse to respond meaningfully to reports of imminent environmental destruction; when they pass the buck back and forth for weeks, no Canadian should be amused. This has happened here in Maple Ridge since my report on May 25th to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans that I discovered “hundreds, if not thousands of dead fish” in the North Alouette River, just east of the Neaves Road Bridge. That same day, I received a call back asking for details. I provided numbers, what I guessed to be the species, and the location. I have since learned that the Alouette River Management Society (ARMS) released 200,000 chum fry into the stream above the kill location on May 27th and May 29th (232nd Street). These may have passed through the system by the skin of their whiskers before disaster struck. However, no one will know for sure unless the samples I have are examined by experts. The next ones might not be so lucky. Why? There appears to be no official safeguards, no official government watchdog to oversee activity that affects life in the N.Alouette, no official spot checks of water use to monitor compliance to licences to draw water. Ask officials why and they’ll say because they’re short of staff. If that’s the case, I think it’s time to go back to the drawing board, maybe to look for creative alternate solutions.

Berry farms, a proliferation of them along the river in recent years, draw large amounts of water from the river for irrigation. I’ve heard quoted the numbr 15 as the licences already granted, and more pending. Could this draw-off increase the temperature in the N. Alouette to the point where fish would die? Is the same thing happening around the province?

Let’s stay with the Alouette.We have had unusually high temperatures lately. Sounds to me like a potentially disastrous situation may easily recur. Consider the hours of dedication and hard work that goes into repopulating the N.Alouette by volunteer groups such as ARMS, prison inmates who contributed to enhancement and taken great pride in their efforts. Efforts like these demands that government staff be found to monitor industrial water use. It is, in fact, a model of what can be accomplished when individuals and groups pull together in their own community.

There were “hundreds if not thousands of dead fish” the size of fry in the river on May 25th. I’ll say that again because I saw them. Why were they there? What was the cause of their death? The answer should come from the DFO or Environment Canada, or both working together. At least they should try to find the answers. But, the response of DFO and Environment Canada so far has been to pass the complaint back and forth like a hot potato, or to evade it all together.

This is how the game began for me. I phoned the provincial emergency line May 25th. They forwarded my complaint (I have a file number-DGIR900498) to the provincial Ministry of the Environment in Surrey. That office forwarded my file to the Federal MOE. The MOE had an officer call me to follow up. That officer seemed not to acknowledge the “emergency” in a fish kill the size I described, saying she might be able to come over in a couple of days. I pressed her for quicker action until she agreed to make the trip the next day. I thought this delay was imprudent, and potentially dangerous, since the cause of the kill could be insufficient oxygen to sustain life in fish, or something else nobody anticipated, perhaps a chemical substance, or dirt, silt, something which might -at its worst- threaten the chain of life in this ecosystem, including “dads and their boys who might be hoping to catch something they could proudly take home for mom to fry up.” 
When the Officer I spoke to finally agreed to come out the next day, I asked her to let me know when she would arrive, and I would take her directly to the spot. She didn’t. Instead, she left me voice message after the fact saying I’d asked them to come out to look at the site, and they did that. That was it!


 I immediately returned the call and asked what she had seen. She replied that they (two officers attended) might have seen two dead fish. “Did you retrieve them?” I asked. The answer was no. “Did you bring hip waders?”

> “No.” 

> “Did you have a boat?”

> “No”. (I had offered to take them in my canoe, but was told they have lots of boats). I expressed deep concern about the quality of this investigation into an event I considered an emergency, and said so. I pressed the officer again to return. She declined, suggesting that maybe she could return another time, if I sent her a map.

Who’s on first? At this point, I decided I had better return to the site myself to collect specimens, since my Government seemed unwilling to do it. I remember thinking, if those fish aren’t retrieved soon, it will be impossible to gather any. The tide will flush them out; the ones remaining will be decayed. Lab tests will be irrelevant. This incident will have not officially existed.
This, I was not going to allow. I went back to the river. On May 25th, I had not been able to retrieve more than a dozen fish because I was in a tipsy canoe, the fish were lying on the bottom, and I did not have a net.

This time, I was better prepared than Environment Canada. I bought a butterfly net at the Dollar Giant, for a buck, grabbed my hip waders and returned to the stream. Within half an hour I had collected about 100 fry sized fish at the location coordinates I had given the officer. The fish are in my freezer.

Since placing them there in their double zip lock bags, (at my wife’s insistence) I have repeatedly tried to convince DFO officers, Environment Canada
officers, Provincial Conservation Officers, MPs, MLAs, and others that these little guys should be allowed to testify in a DFO laboratory. A few have listened with sympathy, some have expressed surprise and dismay, but no one with the ability to act has been willing to stand up at the plate, ie “do something”. I credit Michael Sather though for agreeing to accompany me in my canoe a few days later and make a statement to the local press that even then we saw two dozen dead fish in the river.

Tests are what is needed. The DFO has the labs. If a private lab exists I haven’t found it even after checking with scientists in Langley, and even Oregon State.

So, where do I stand? Where do you stand if you value this river for fish, clean water, or it’s recreational beauty? I know many of you have those interests. The DFO says it’s not sure that my reported fish kill falls within their jurisdiction. People there I talked to won’t admit being the “lead agency”. One DFO spokesman thought perhaps MOE might be the “right people” and that they should be invited to let me know about that. They’ll give me a call he said.

Other players? The provincial MOE deals with water use from licenced farmers, but they don’t monitor how much is drawn apparently.

Maybe, I’ve been told, the source of the kill was pollution. That might make it a Federal MOE responsibility. I admit I’m confused. I’ve seen upheaved, muddy, sludgy dirt piled up on the edge of the river (pictures in the NEWS, on this website, and on my camera). Where did it come from? What was in it, if anything; was there anything “deleterious”. MOE deals with deleterious substances and has powers in the Fisheries Act to deal anyone putting them in fish bearing waterways. “Who’s on first?”

The N. Alouette River was crystal clear when I discovered dead fish on the bottom. The political waters however are still muddy. The gobbledegook explanations like these presented by DFO, and Environment Canada over the past few weeks seems to have a purpose. I am convinced it is to make certain there is never a clear answer to what killed our fish until it is too late to get an answer. That could pin responsibility on one or both of these ministries and force their officers to respond and perhaps even lay charges. That’s easily accomplished if there is no real investigation or testing of samples. But, don’t forget. I have the fish. They’re in my freezer waiting to testify.

So, to reiterate, the primary reason my fish kill wasn’t investigated quickly and efficiently seems to be the convenient, fuzzy division between Ministries. This blurry line clearly confuses and paralyzes official responders in both branches of protection. I know many of them I spoke to would have liked to investigate, but the system makes it impossible. The men in brown have a difficult job. They are invaluable but they need to be backed by political will, and efficient upper management.

Reminds me of Dickens’ novel “Little Dorritt”:

“CHAPTER 10 – Containing the whole Science of Government

“The Circumlocution Office was (as everybody knows without being told) the most important Department under Government. No public business of any kind could possibly be done at any time without the acquiescence of the Circumlocution Office. Its finger was in the largest public pie, and in the smallest public tart. It was equally impossible to do the plainest right and to undo the plainest wrong without the express authority of the Circumlocution Office. If another Gunpowder Plot had been discovered half an hour before the lighting of the match, nobody would have been justified in saving the parliament until there had been half a score of boards, half a bushel of minutes, several sacks of official memoranda, and a family-vault full of ungrammatical correspondence, on the part of the Circumlocution Office…”

Reply From the letter we sent to Jim Prentice
So basically like they are going to forward the letter to themselves.
Circumlocution!

“Thank you for your email to Mr. Prentice. As your email is specific to his portfolio as Minister of the Environment, I have forwarded it to Environment Canada. If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact us. Thank you.

Sarah Campbell
Parliamentary Assistant”

Elected representatives of Canada and BC may be working behind the scenes to address the fish kill in the N.Alouette, possibly they’re encouraging actions that will discover the cause and prevent further repeats. I do know that MP Randy Kamp is aware of the kill because after I informed his office, June 1st, I received a follow up call from the DFO in the Vancouver office. Here’s what happened.

June 9th, I had not heard back from Mr. Cody or the “right people”, perhaps, at MOE. I left two voice messages with Mr. Cody asking that he call me back and let me know what had happened. I did not get a call back.

June 10th I left another message with Mr. Cody to please call. No call for several days. Then, finally, he called apologizing for not calling because he was awaiting a call from Environment Canada. Mr. Cody assured me this time I would receive a call from appropriate officials soon.

June 17th, 1:30 pm. Pacific Time. Received a phone call from Alvin Tremblay, who identifies himself as the Chief Enforcement Officer for Canada, calling from Gatineau. To see if my concern was adequately addressed by Environment. Canada officers. I said not at all, that no adequate response occurred. Mr. Tremblay quoted the Environment. Can. Officer report as saying they didn’t find more than 2 dead fish or an obvious cause of fish kill.

I gave him my account of that visitation and report: stating that I think they went to the wrong place, even after I gave them exact coordinates, and offered to take them to the site. They could have even been looking over the South Alouette. And as a result, I asked them to come back and look again, to which they declined.

I reiterated my request for an investigation of the site to examine possible sources of the fish kill –that the initial report of thousands of dead fish by a citizen warranted that. Mr. Tremblay asked me what I thought the cause was. I said I didn’t know and that was why I was asking for an investigation by Env. Canada. I said I thought any of the following could be the cause and that an investigation might at least eliminate some of these, or point to other causes, and that this knowledge could help prevent another fish kill of the same type and magnitude:

Deleterious substance in the water (berry farms apply herbicides – there are berry farms on both sides of the river.

Deleterious substance – sediment ( sludge piles have been reported on the banks of this river –where it came from, is there any thing in it; does the sludge itself pose a threat? Work has been done there by heavy ground moving equipment.

Low water levels – farmers along the river draw water from it regularly; did water levels correspondingly drop to dangerous levels, that might have produced too much heat, and too little oxygen for fish to sustain life.

Mr. Tremblay said that if the problem was too little water, the responsibility for protection fell with the provincial MOE.

I said no one knows what the problem was without an investigation, and that if his dept. had been willing to investigate properly when I first contacted them, they could have taken samples, looked around, taken a few pictures and communicated with their provincial counterpart, perhaps saving hours of officer time and effort lost from May 25th onward, by passing responsibility back and forth like a hot potato.
I suggested to Mr. Tremblay that a greater presence of Env. Canada at this river is needed to assure its safety in the future; that an Env. Canada officer should be present on an “on-going basis” to monitor water use, and inspect for potentially deleterious substances entering the stream.

Mr. Tremblay said, “It’s impossible with the staff we have to have one person spend time there (on an on-going basis). We have to do other issues throughout BC.” I suggested one person be freed up-not to sit on this river alone – but be present for routine regular checks-perhaps through a staff collaboration with the prov. MOE or DFO would be better than nothing. Another option –I didn’t suggest at the time, but add now – enlist a local group such as ARMS to help out. They know the river, they have an on-going relationship, they live here. Perhaps they could take water samples periodically.

Mr. Tremblay again assured me that he wanted to be certain my concerns were dealt with to my satisfaction. In that regard, he promised that I would receive the call from his BC director, Martin Paheroy (I apologize if I’ve misspelled this name) and that Martin or someone he delegated would set up a meeting with me in the imminent future. He promised also that this person would investigate the site with the aim of trying to discover the cause of the fish kill.

I thanked Mr. Tremblay for his call and his assistance and offered to take him canoeing on the N.Alouette whenever he’s back this way. He seemed to like the idea. Apparently, he was here recently. I am hoping the call promised comes soon.


Fridays Times is reporting that “Two provincial Water Stewart Division employees were in town on Thursday to check out complaints about water licences and withdrawals from the North Alouette River.” See link above.

Julia Berardinucci, regional water manager, said her staff will be “looking at a number of things.”

She said her department has asked Golden Eagle Group for more information about their water licence applications. She said Department of Fisheries and Oceans as well as Ministry of Environment fisheries experts will be involved in reviewing the water licences.

“We’re taking those concerns seriously,” said Berardinucci, referring to complaints by local environmental groups. “Our focus at this point in time is to do our best to in the long term make sure the water is available for ecosystem needs and the users,” she said.

Geoff Clayton doesn’t want to see any more water licences issued until better monitoring is in place.”The first thing the government has to do is they have to demonstrate to the public that the current licences are being monitored in a manner that doesn’t kill fish,” he said.

“They have to show they are responsibly managing the current licences that are in effect.”

I would like to point out that the North Alouette is at the lowest level that we have ever seen it in June. Levels are now more comparable to the usual August lows and yet the pipe, is at latest report, still sucking water from the river.

I would also like to point out that the new pipe is operating under an application for a licence, not even a conditional licence as far as I can see.

Extract form the water stewardship website:

Description of licence/application type

Cnnnnnn – Conditional Licence(”licence that authorizes the construction of works or the diversion and use of water before the issue of a final licence” Water Act – 1996).

Fnnnnnn – Final Licence(”licence that authorizes the diversion and use of water, and does not authorize the construction of additional works or an extension of the use of water” Water Act – 1996).

Znnnnnn – Application Number(an application for a licence to authorize the construction of works and diversion and use of water)

One more thing that bugs me.

The Maple Ridge Times states that:
“According to the Water Stewardship Division, many licences require a minimum flow in the river to be maintained.
That flow can vary according to the season or if a certain flow is required for fish habitat.”

This may be true but it has nothing to do with the North Alouette situation. None of the licences, currently issued, have any such conditions.
See C P I Cranberry Plantation Licence

This is an older licence which is available on the Water Stewardship Website. Applications are not shown in detail.

List of all licences and applications for the North Alouette River.

Note Gerri Partnerships is part of the Golden Eagle Group.

B.H.

Fishing but “no luck”

After leaving the company of Environment Canada at “the pipe” I met two teenagers fishing by the bridge. They hadn’t caught anything. I said that was probably a good thing because anything they caught might not be safe to eat. I told them why. One kid said he’d fished in that area since he was a little guy and used to catch fish all the time, a whole variety of types. Last year, he said, he came across a bunch of dead fish along a slough adjacent to the berry farms. He couldn’t understand it. He said Asians used to catch carp there, but they haven’t been around for a long time. Jack Emberly

To continue my journal regarding the fish kill I reported May 25th, 2009, prov. MOE file# DGIR900498.
June 17th, the Chief Enforcement Officer of Canada, Alvin Tremblay assures me that I will be contacted by the BC chief officer, Martin Pomeroy. I do get this call relatively quickly. Mr. Pomeray is very helpful on the phone. He assures me that we must protect our environment and that an investigation will take place -we’ll find the source of a problem if it is there. I will be called by an MOE officer who will meet with me very soon. I am grateful and say so. Could this finally be the end of “hot potatoe”? I do get the promised call, from MOE officer, Pia Rasmussen (the officer who attended the site, May 26th after my first contact with MOE).As reported in the NEWS, (Phil Melnychuk, June 24th), Officer Rasmussen and two assistants visited the site, took copious notes, and set up for water sampling. I’m not sure what they were exactly testing for but i don’t think it was chemicals. I believe ph and oxygen. If I’m I’d really like to hear from them. Their report has to be made public, along with the results of testing of the fish I gave them which they carefully tucked into a cooler in their unmarked pickup truck.
June 26th I left a phone message with Officer Rasmussen asked her to let me know if the fish had reaced the lab, which lab, and whether they were responding to Geoff Clayton’s suggestion that they test for specific herbicides. I haven’t had a answer as of yet. I am also curious about whether Pitt Meadows’ Mayor, Don McLean believes that the City of Pitt Meadows should “demand better standards for the protection of our environment” (Geoff). I hope to speak with Mr. McLean on that topic soon.

Silence is almost deafening

Re: Berry farms good for nature (The News, Aug. 21)

I was shocked and dismayed to read Ministry of Agriculture Mark Sweeney’s public misinformation campaign started in The News.

Not only did he contradict himself several times in the article, but most of what he said is simply not true.

We need honesty from our government officials; we do not need them to be public apologists for industry.

Cranberries need up to 27.9 million litres of water per hectare every year, versus up to six million litres of water per year for blueberries. That is why blueberry farmers are not applying for the same massive water use licences as the Golden Eagle Group for its cranberry operation.

Golden Eagle currently has a licence for close to three billion litres and wants an additional 4.7 billion litres (water use estimates from the University of Michigan).

Mr. Sweeney said, “A field is flooded for a day, enough for the harvest.”

He also said that process usually lasts 24 hours, which is not enough to drown insects on which wildlife feed.

Flooding is also used for pest control, as a means of drowning the harmful pests that could damage the crop.

So is he saying that only harmful insects drown?

Do they give the benign insects little life jackets or something?

Mr. Sweeney said a Ministry of Environment study in the Lower Mainland about 10 years ago found there was no pesticides present in the discharge water used for the flood harvesting.

One study in 10 years is hardly enough to come to the conclusion that dumping cranberry field water back into the river is a safe practice.

In other jurisdictions, such as Michigan, the water is kept in ponds where the pesticides and mud are allowed to settle before the water is dumped backed into the rivers.

This is an extract from an article by Dan Wandler, a Wisconsin farmer turned organic.

“I won’t grow another conventional cranberry,” Wandler said.

Asked why and he replied: “I’ll be honest, my first concern was getting a better price.”

Organic cranberries are often sold for as much as two and a half times that of conventional berries, meaning that Mr. Wandler had a little bit more money in his pocket. He had a better chance at making his farm viable. Price came first; environmental issues were secondary.

“But I’ll tell you, that’s changed for me now 180 degrees.”

His experience as a conventional farmer demonstrates the difference that organic agriculture can make for the environment.

“Before, after we sprayed the bog, you didn’t hear a sound for two weeks. You knew you’d killed something,” he said.

“Now the bog is full of sound.

“There are beneficial insects, and that means the frogs have something to eat. They’re everywhere. You can see the difference.”

Ever wonder where all those sounds of nature have gone when you walk the dikes alongside the cranberry fields. The silence is almost deafening.

Mr. Sweeney said “both cranberries and blueberries are great for the environment.”

Ever heard of the concept of biodiversity?

I believe we will soon reach an irreversible tipping point in the Pitt Polder. The percentage of land devoted to two crops will be so high that there will not be enough biodiversity left to support the wildlife that we cherish so much.

We need to think really hard about what we are doing here. Is there really an economic benefit to destroying one of the most beautiful areas of the Lower Mainland?

It is high time that the government agencies, farmers and people of Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows sit down and discuss the future of Pitt Polder and the Alouette valley in an honest and constructive way.

There is something very wrong when our government feels it has to defend the interests of the powerfully few with misinformation while ignoring the huge body of evidence that shows that they are clearly wrong.

Bruce Hobbs

Green Party of BC seeks answers to North Alouette River fish kill
Posted September 25, 2009 – 16:39 by hnicholds

Recommends Ministry takes responsibility for managing BC Rivers

Victoria – - Thousands of dead fish fry were found this spring in the North Alouette River. The Green Party of BC has learned that little will be done to find the cause of this unusual fish kill. “We only hope the provincial Environment Minister, Barry Penner is as concerned as we are. We would support him in launching a full inquiry,” said Green Party Leader, Jane Sterk. Sterk informed the Minster of the incident on September 8th with no response to-date.

BC Greens worry about overlap in the river’s management. Because salmon-bearing streams are a federal matter, the Department of Fisheries is responsible, but only concerning sediment and silt problems, not pollution. That is left to Environment Canada. Neither has enough staff to investigate or to ensure that appropriate action is taken.

“We understand the challenges. However, we need leadership to protect our rivers at the provincial level,” said Sterk. “Washing our hands by passing it over to the DFO lacks vision and dedication to BC. We hope that the Minister will show leadership. If he does, we support his Ministry having the ability to investigate this and similar incidents across the province.”

The North Alouette River is under pressure, and threat to the health of the salmon population. Rather than protecting the river, the Ministry of Environment has issued multiple water licenses, allowing farmers to use the water for agricultural purposes. Agriculture is critical to BC, but more licenses are pending despite evidence that water flow rates are already too low to support salmon. There is also evidence of water use violations with little or no enforcement.

“The BC Greens assume that Minister Penner understands there are cumulative environmental impacts on rivers. Overwhelming scientific evidence states that minimum flow rates must be maintained. This must take precedence over granting water licenses,” said Sterk. “We recommend that the BC Ministry of Environment has responsibility for protecting our rivers, and needs to investigate the fish kill on the North Alouette,” said Sterk.

Media Contact
Simon Lindley, Media Chair
mediachair@greenparty.bc.ca
250-732-6260

To learn more about the N. Allouette River, please visit:
http://www.savethealouette.ca
http://www.youtube.com/riveralouette