March 24 2010 » News Clippings » Vancouver Sun
Kettle River, Sacred Headwaters most endangered rivers in BC, recreation council says.
The "Sacred Headwaters," an area of northern B.C. near the south end of Spatsizi Pleateau Wilderness Park that is the source of the headwaters of the Skeena, Nass, and Stikine rivers. Coalbed methane development is proposed for the area. It is on the Outdoor Recreation Council of BC's annual top ten list of endangered rivers. Photo: Brian Huntington
One of B.C.’s smallest rivers and the source of three of its biggest are tied atop the Outdoor Recreation Council’s list of the province’s top-10 most endangered rivers released Wednesday.
The Kettle River, which flows through southern B.C. and into Washington state east of Osoyoos on Highway 3, topped the council’s annual list because of low water flows and high temperatures that threaten fish.
The report says the problems range from excessive water extraction to development, including Big White’s proposed extraction of 1.8 million litres due to expansion of the ski hill and new condo development and snow making.
The report calls for a watershed management plan that would put the brakes on “seemingly unbridled development now taking place in the upper watershed.”
Tied with the Kettle River is an area of northwestern B.C. known as the Sacred Headwaters, source of the salmon-bearing Stikine, Skeena, and Nass rivers.
Shell Canada is interested in coal bed methane gas extraction in the headwaters, located south of Spatsizi Plateau Wilderness Provincial Park.
The headwaters is home to some of the greatest abundance of wildlife in the province, including caribou, Stone sheep, grizzly bears and wolves.
A provincial moratorium on coal bed methane development in the headwaters is due to expire in December, but should be made permanent, the council states.
The council describes coal bed methane extraction as a “highly invasive process that would compromise the biological richness” of the area. The generation of vast amounts of waste water, high in salts and heavy metals, poses a risk to groundwater aquifers, it concludes.
Mark Angelo, the council’s rivers chair and an Order of Canada recipient, said in an interview that the long list of threats to rivers around the province include pollution, development, power production, and excessive extraction.
These threats cry out for change to B.C.’s Water Act to “ensure the needs of fish and river ecosystems are adequately considered before making decisions on water extraction for various industrial uses.”
The B.C. government is conducting a review of the Water Act, established in 1909.
The government says the four goals of modernizing the Water Act are: protection of stream health and aquatic environments; improvement of water governance arrangements; introduction of more flexibility and efficiency in water allocation; regulation of groundwater use in priority areas and for large withdrawals.
The council whose members number about 100,000, has for the past 18 years compiled a list of B.C.’s top-10 endangered rivers, based on responses from members, the general public and resource managers.
Angelo, who is also chair of the Rivers Institute at BCIT, said the list has had a “significant and positive impact” on raising awareness of threats to rivers among the public and government officials.
The Flathead River in southeast B.C. was named the province’s most endangered river in 2009 due to international concerns over proposed coal mining and coal bed methane extraction. Last month, the B.C. government announced a ban on mining, oil and gas, and coal development in the Flathead basin.
The upper Pitt River topped the list in 2008, after which the province killed a developer’s proposal to run a transmission line from a vast run-of-river power project in the remote watershed through Pinecone Burke Provincial Park.
Other rivers on the 2010 list, along with specific threats to them, are, in order:
2. Coldwater River – water extraction, development.
3. Fraser River – urbanization, industrial development, pollution.
4. Peace River – hydroelectric dam proposal.
5. Similkameen River – cross-border dam proposal.
6. Glacier/Howser creeks – independent power proposal.
7. Elk River (East Kootenays) – development, increasing selenium levels, wildlife migration issues.
8. Coquitlam River – excessive sedimentation, urbanization.
9. Salmon River (Langley) – excessive groundwater extraction, development.
10. Bute Inlet rivers – independent power proposal.
