We are already seeing the affects of climate change in BC with many rivers, lakes and streams too low and too hot for fish some parts of the year.
2C is often talked about as the danger threshold of global average warming, a threshold discussed as early as this 1975 paper by economist and Yale professor William Nordhaus. At the recent Paris Conference, Canada helped to set 1.5C as an aspirational target. However the BC Ministry of Forests, Lands, and Natural Resource Operations states that “BC will have greater warming and changes in its precipitation regime than the global average” and that even with “emission scenarios with significant reduction in emissions, the warming is 2 to 3C by the 2080s [1]. This puts BC beyond the oft-cited danger threshold well within the lifetime of today’s toddlers, a sobering thought given that any emission reductions still seem a long way off as federal and provincial governments plan for new oil pipelines and LNG projects.
We have two tools to help give salmon and other aquatic life a fighting chance against warming waters:
Wild salmon are an important food source from the marine environment to the tops of west coast watersheds; sharks, orcas, seals, people, invertebrates, fish, bears, wolves, herons, eagles, the list of species that rely on wild salmon goes on and on…even the forests themselves, the trees and plants in salmon-bearing watersheds are fertilized by the migrations of salmon back from the sea. You can actually track the relative annual abundance of salmon in tree rings! Not to mention the economic importance of food, recreational, and commercial fishing in BC.
With the salmon foremost in mind, WaterWealth began a streamkeeping program in 2014. We will be gathering data on temperatures, oxygen levels and other metrics that we hope will help us help the salmon have a fighting chance.
If this aspect of our work appeals to you, we are always looking for volunteers to get involved! Or if volunteering isn’t in the cards for you this summer, we’re always looking for donations too! Together we can take care of our shared home waters.
The WaterWealth Project has launched a freshwater focused climate monitoring program inspired by work of US Forest Service researcher Dan Isaac and the Climate Shield program in the USA.
Our plan is to identify streams with natural advantages where native species might find refuge to thrive despite changing climate. Sites selected for the program are having temperature loggers installed to provide on-going hourly records of water temperatures.
At those sites regular water quality monitoring and various habitat and species surveys will be conducted. In addition to gathering data about the waterways going forward, we will also seek to understand the human and climate history of the streams and surrounding areas. Participation and public outreach will enhance awareness of the value and vulnerability of these natural areas. Information and data collected will be public and made available to interested parties to contribute to climate-smart land use planning, management, and conservation.
To date the program has benefited from funding and material support from the Visscher Group of Companies, Gerry Enns Contracting, and Emil Anderson Construction; technical support from Pearson Ecological and our area DFO Community Advisor; and the time, energy, and inspiration of WaterWealth volunteers and donors.
The current phase of the program is being conducted in the watersheds of the Sts’elxwíqw’ and Th’ewálmel stó:lō (Chilliwack and Vedder River), within territory of the Ts’elxwéyeqw Tribe and the area of negotiations of the Stó:lō Xwexwilmexw Treaty Association. With that in mind, WaterWealth has developed policies to conduct our work based on zones of the S’ólh Téméxw Use Plan. These policies will form part of the orientation and training of program volunteers, and public engagement associated with the program.
Monitoring locations have been added to our list in response to requests from the Chilliwack River Hatchery and the People of the River Referrals Office. This brings our list of monitoring sites to 33, including two where we will use temperature data from Pearson Ecological and one using a federal hydrological station’s temperature data. At Sxótsaqel (Chilliwack Lake) our deep logger (hypolimnion) will add data to the site of Pearson Ecological’s shallow (epilimnion) logger. Five locations spanning from Vedder Crossing to Post Creek (near Sxótsaqel) will include air temperature monitoring.
We believe this program is poised to be a leading example of citizen science in BC.
Support, involvement, and inquiries are welcome.
WaterWealth is participating with diverse partners in a 5-year study of effects of road salt on salmon, producing data and research to guide management decisions.
The Road Salt & Salmon Success Project came about initially through the work of the Stoney Creek Environment Committee in Burnaby, B.C. after they noticed road salt contamination from a site on Burnaby Mountain. Thanks to their efforts and outreach, the project grew to involve thirteen stream stewardship groups, the DFO Pacific Science Enterprise Centre, and researchers from BCIT, UBC, and SFU. Funding has been provided by the Natural Science and Engineering Council of Canada and Pacific Salmon Foundation. Additional support has been provided by Capilano Hatchery and the DFO Salmon Enhancement Program.
WaterWealth’s role is collection of data on two Chilliwack streams, Luckakuck Creek and Peach Creek. On each stream we have one data logger site where water level, temperature, and conductivity are recorded every ten minutes. Data is generally collected twice each year. Upstream and downstream of each data logger site we have sites where invertebrate surveys and juvenile fish surveys are conducted. These surveys examine the productivity of young salmon and other fish in the streams, and the variety and abundance of aquatic invertebrates on which the young salmon feed. On each visit to the Luckakuck and Peach Creek sites we also take other water quality measurements, looking at dissolved oxygen, pH, total dissolved solids, and turbidity. The downstream site on Peach Creek is also the location of WaterWealth’s oldest stream temperature monitoring site. There another data logger — initially provided by Chilliwack Rotaract — records water temperature hourly.
Data from our two conductivity logger sites for this project can be found among the Community Stream Monitoring (CoSMo) project sites on Pacific DataStream.
Learn more about the Road Salt & Salmon Success Project at www.theroadsaltproject.com.
WaterWealth picked up an almost forgotten habitat enhancement project, only to have it destroyed a few months later. We didn’t let it go though, and now it’s ready for salmon again!
Off-channel habitats were largely lost in B.C. due to early settler developments that didn’t take into account the needs of natural systems or even the needs of profitable species like wild salmon. The Deer Creek Off-Channel habitat area began as one of the environmental restoration efforts under Forest Renewal B.C., extending an existing 100 m of spawning habitat in 1998/1998 to a 350 m complex of groundwater fed ponds and channels.
In 2000 the system was extended almost 1500 m further to include an intake on Deer Creek, bringing surface flows into the off-channel system. For many years the intake was maintained by the Chilliwack River Action Committee, work that included replacing the intake in Deer Creek after the original became clogged with sediment. In time the Chilliwack River Action Committee disbanded, the Deer Creek intake again became clogged with sediment, and all but the groundwater fed portions of the off-channel system became unavailable to salmon.
WaterWealth learned of the system in 2020, in conversation with owners of Tamihi Meadows Campground, whose property portions of the off-channel system flow through. With help from DFO we obtained funding from the Pacific Salmon Foundation and in August 2021 restored the intake and flows to the entire off-channel system. Coho and chum spawners soon rewarded our efforts!
But to our dismay, climate change fueled atmospheric rivers in November 2021 devastated the Chilliwack River watershed. The Deer Creek intake was smashed and filled with boulders from the torrent that raged down Deer Creek, and Chilliwack River changed course, wiping a huge area of forest including hundreds of metres of the off-channel system right off the map.
We kept in touch with contacts at DFO, looking forward to the day we could fix the intake and restore flows to what remained of the important off-channel habitat again. That day came in August of 2024 when DFO installed a new, more robust intake on Deer Creek! With the system flowing again, WaterWealth applied for funds from Pacific Salmon Foundation again, this time to buy data loggers to monitor water levels and temperatures at the Deer Creek intake and at the outlet of the largest pond in the system, “Deer Lake”.
This is the first time we’ve used data loggers to monitor depths as well as temperatures. DFO staff said they could help with development of a stream profile from which we will be able to estimate flows using the depth data. We also placed a logger for barometric data, used to compensate for air pressure to get accurate depth numbers. All of this data will be made public, with hopes that others working in the watershed (within about 15 km) will also be able to make use of our barometric data.
While dealing with the new intake and data loggers we also looked at updated Google maps imagery and realized that not all of the forest area we thought had been lost to the river in 2021 was actually gone! There’s a section the bottom of the off-channel system flowed through still present down river. It’s isolated, would be tough to get to, and the old stream and ponds may have been filled with sediment during the flooding. But we’ll check, starting with a drone flight to see if it looks worth trying to get there on foot. Will update here when there’s news!
Want to chat? Reach out to us at
info@waterwealthproject.com
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