This year, record numbers of coho and chum salmon returned to little Worth Creek, off Highway #7 near Dewdney.
It’s a “gem” for salmon sustainability.
In 1948, the Department of Fisheries counted 7,500 chum and 3,500 coho spawners in this little channel.
DFO projects to increase spawning area since have paid off. A reliable source remembers seeing 10,000 in Worth Creek in 1998.
The bad news? Worth Creek is fed almost entirely from upwelling groundwater from Norrish Creek, via an alluvial fan aquifer (permeable sand).
On Dec. 5, that water source dried up.
Hundreds of spawned-out fish carcasses suddenly sat on top of bone-dry gravel.
Their eggs, oxygen deprived were dead.
I reported details on the DFO hotline, asking for a call back from habitat protection. When none came, I made calls of my own.
Matt Townsend is head of DFO chum assessment in the area. He’d been alerted to the dry creek by his staff on Dec 2.
“It’s not normal for this stream to go up and down like that. Our habitat restoration unit will be looking into it further to see if they can determine the root cause,” he said.
Murry Manson heads the habitat restoration centre for expertise.
“There’s a lot of gravel removal going on,” he told me. “CP is the proponent. They’re worried about losing their bridge. The water level rises and falls. Maybe they’ve dug a deep channel and it’s draining on one side. We’re talking to the regulations team reviewing that work,” Manson explained.
Section 35 (1) of the Fisheries Act prohibits alteration or disruption of fish habitat.
Norrish is an important recreational fishery. What government agency allowed gravel removal?
Tamara Colledge, who heads the Fraser Valley Regional District’s emergency management unit, says the province is responsible for flood control.
But, “gravel removal (in Norrish) is done by CP Rail to protect its bridge,” she told me.
“It’s (authorization) is a federal (DFO Fisheries Act) responsibility.”
Did DFO approve gravel removal?
“They (CP) requested a review,” Manson said.
“I think it was authorized. We went ahead with a Letter of Advice.” (It’s stated purpose in 2018 was “to provide guidance to proponents undertaking projects in or near water” while the Fish Act was being reworded in Bill-C68).
The egg-to-fry survival for little ground-water-fed streams, like Worth, can be 30 per cent, or four times that in the main stream of rivers.
“Yes, it’s been a gem,” agreed Manson.
Gravel removal in Norrish Creek has been a contentious issue for well-known fisheries biologist Dr. Marvin Rosenau.
“Removing smaller amounts were legitimate, back in the old days. But the rail lines were never forced to build a proper sized-bridge with the required amount of flow-through capacity. But, when I was involved in the project in the 1990s or early 2000s, there is no way it would have come to anywhere near the amount that was taken out post-2021 Atmospheric River Event," said the biologist.
"I worked on the referrals in the 1990s. We tried to bring common sense into the whole process, including providing more openings through the rail bed. They kicked the daylights out of this already perturbed stream by doing this.”
On Dec. 8, I returned to Worth Creek to find it had water again. It had rained.
Many more coho had returned.
More will come well into January.
Will their eggs, and those of nearby Railroad Creek – another high producer – be lost?
The DFO may never know.
Townsend said his funding for counting spawners here was removed for 2024.
“We’ve had to instead focus on our major systems (Chilliwack, Harrison, Stave) for our chum work. We hope to get back out there next year. It’s happened before (2003, 2017). I shudder to think how many things we’re missing,” Townsend said.
In the meantime, what’s being done to save salmon here?
Returns from 2021 have been low, perhaps from reduced water supply from Norrish.
“I don’t know how you fix the groundwater supply,” said Manson.
“We’re doing what we can within the confines we have here as an enforcement issue. The first step is to confirm the cause.”
B.C. coho are in sharp decline. The auditor general was right in 1977: Salmon survival depends on our protection of local streams like Worth and Railroad.
– Jack Emberly is a retired teacher, local author, and environmentalist
