Both the Vancouver Sun and the sa国际传媒 have run stories recently regarding the federal government's pulling the plug on fish habitat work by eliminating environmental assessments of new and existing projects that impact habitat. There are some 500 projects in sa国际传媒 This, of course, will have an impact on our roughly 100 million wild salmon that return each year.
In the recent past many projects have had negative impacts on fish habitat - and that was before the federal goverment decided not to do environmental assessments, changing both the Environmental Assessment Act and the Fisheries Act (sections 36 and 38). In 2006, for example, gravel removal from the lower Fraser went ahead, killing an estimated three million pink salmon fry.
Other examples of negative effects include Run of River power plants, typified by the Kokish River near Port Hardy - a river bearing all five species of salmon and steelhead, too. Then there are the effects of fish farms that need to be on land in closed containers. sa国际传媒 Hydro projects, like replacement of the John Hart dam in Campbell River, now need no environmental assessment as in its case the power increase is less than 50 per cent.
Then there is logging damage. I stood below Red Rock Pool on the Nitinat last week, a section of a kilometre in length. The river level had been raised as much as two metres with gravel and silt from logging damage and 100 metres across. That means 200,000 cubic metres of damage - in one run that in the past has supported big Chinook and chum spawning but is for now largely ruined.
I received an email from a former senior government official who would like to remain nameless: "I can't begin to tell you how disturbing and discouraging I find this. During the 1990s and early part of the 2000s, realizing that jurisdictional boundaries were both artificial and unhelpful, and recognizing that all orders of government had to work together, sa国际传媒 and sa国际传媒 built a series of mechanisms to cooperate on fish habitat protection and oceans management.
"A great example was the sa国际传媒-British Columbia Fish Habitat Management Agreement of 2000 that [we]- along with many others on the federal side, had a hand in negotiating." It's still on the DFO's website.
The purposes are given in the "whereas clauses": "Whereas, the Governments of sa国际传媒 and British Columbia share mutual interests in cooperating to conserve and protect fish and fish habitat ...;" and "Whereas, the Governments of sa国际传媒 and British Columbia recognize the importance of the fisheries resources and fish habitats to the economic well being and social fabric of British Columbia communities and First Nations, and both governments are committed to conserving, enhancing, and protecting the fisheries resource, fish habitats and the aquatic environment" and "Whereas, the Governments of sa国际传媒 and British Columbia are committed to work together to conserve and protect fish habitat in support of sustainable fisheries for present and future generations of Canadians."
Therefore, the Governments of sa国际传媒 and British Columbia agree . . .
"Today's news story- is a very long way from the sa国际传媒/sa国际传媒 Habitat Protection Agreement that we signed in 2000- I'm starting to agree with Justin Trudeau - this doesn't feel like my country anymore."
The dismal outcome is, not only is the DFO doing too little fish habitat work, now the feds will not even be assessing the damage.
