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Roundtable Report

Nov 2017

Lee Hesketh Central Interior S of 100 Mile

• Over the past summer and into the fall we have continued to have impacts from flooding, drought, water quality and last week wind here in the southern interior. Bring in the fact that the plan for SEP was to turn off the lights on education and habitat restoration it has been a challenging summer. Some might even call it a disaster. 
• The regular issues haven't changed with lack of funding, staffing and permitting but ironically awareness by government and the general public of impacts created by our society's own ignorance with the environment seems to at least be starting conversations on change again.
• My new mantra though is "why waste a good disaster! " 
• In my roll with FRISP and as a steward, I've been engaging in helping as many situations as possible to find solutions around resource management.  This has pulled me into the world of ground water licencing, utilization, quality, quantity and flood preparation dealing with all levels of government brought on by these disasters. With the changes in government we've also seen a new agenda in Victoria and promises made. Always looking to the positive, I'm hoping some of the situations have been shaken up that we will see:
• new provincial agricultural waste regulations implemented sooner than later. These should help address issues related to conflicts between agriculture and the environment  
• ground water licencing being further implemented and monitoring occurring to better understand the connections with surface water. 
• discussion moving ahead addressing fish passage on a number of interior dams by BC Hydro. 
• flooding and drought has brought back the discussion of water storage and conservation flows to sensitive watersheds between different levels of government.  
• damage created last spring may generate opportunities to restore flooding capacity through habitat restoration. Have to move suburbanites to focus away from confinement and protection from the creeks to allowing the creeks to function by giving them room.

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Salmon Enhancementand Habitat Advisory Board

Roundtable Report Template

Please provide details:

The Salmon Enhancement Program and community volunteers have done a commendable job in the past 10 years to strengthen and protect fisheries habitat throughout the interior of the province given the challenges of balancing diminishing budgets, and changing community priorities. That said, I see ground is being lost as Fisheries and Oceans Canada tries to manage more with less as they take on the management of the Aquiculture sector and see cuts to operating budgets of programs related to wild salmon protection and enhancement.

In one sense, it is ironic that the good news that major positive changes having occurred in the interior in regards to overall habitat protection especially around large private landholdings is impacting the stewardship movement in a negative manner. That and thefact that we did have such a large return of Sockeye to some of our tributaries this past year has given society and perhaps upper DFO managementa false sense of security that everything is just fine now.

Today I believe the challenges of habitat loss are even more critical than before as we see a more formidable impacts created by population increases.The challenge of having a rancher change his management practices and restore a riverbank along a hayfield is pretty simple compared to addressing some sectors of society’s demands for housing development along our rivers and lakes foreshores. In other words restoring a riverbank is alot easier than stopping a housing development.

While I understand the need for strong fiscal management due to the economic challenges at this time, I will not accept that it is sound management by government or DFO to reduce or abandon the volunteer sector and the need for resource management because we have done such a good job in the past. In fact, now should be the time to re-invest and allow stewardship organizations to have a stronger voice if we are to see habitat values and resources protected.

I would use the example of a sound investment by DFO would be to restore funding or increase funding levels for the Kingfisher Interpretive Centre.While the funding from DFO in past has been critical in its development and day to day operations, the return on the investmentfrom the local volunteer community and its influence on 100’s of children and their parents far exceeds the annual $10,000invested by DFO. The reality is that volunteers get worn out when they move to having to spend most of their time and energy finding funding versus gettingthe work on the ground.

Sadly, the loss of a organization like the interpretive center would only negatively influence the local community not those in Ottawa. But DFO should remember, that there are no Salmon in Ottawa that need protection!

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SEHAB Member: Lee Hesketh

Area: Southern Interior

Community Advisor: Tom Niven acting for Fred Lockwood

Date: November 2015

Key Issues:

What top three points can you distill from community input to take to DFO RHQ?

1. CA capacity, Community is very happy with acting CA’s Tom Niven’s efforts and we are fortunate to have had Bob Harding’s assistance in keeping the stewardship movement alive through consistent efforts to help community find solutions.

2. Rec. Fisheries funding not being the solution for habitat enhancement for smaller community groups with minimal core funding to carry projects through. Other outside programs like Environmental Farm Plan are becoming more restrictive making it harder to qualify for funding so projects simply aren’t being done.

3. Concerns over SEP’s future as possible diminishing budgets will mean less capacity given that austerity has DFO staff limited in their present capacity.   

Stories:

A few examples of successes, failures, challenges.

            The 11^th Annual Interior Stewardship meetings were held in Enderby November 4,5 2015 with a great turn out of Stewards from throughout the interior. I presented as a SEHAB representative and asked for feedback from constituents on issues relevant to SEP management.  The concerns brought forward were the perpetual issues that have been constant the last few years around capacity, funding and long term planning. The good news was that the stewardship community while tired, still exists. 

Kingfisher Interpretive Center and Hatchery has been successfully restored through cooperation and support from Community, NGO’s and Government agencies working together to restore over 400 meters of Cooke Creeks flow corridor and infrastructure.  Final habitat restoration was completed this past summer. Support from DFO staff was key to the successful recovery.

Habitat restoration projects are occurring throughout the interior due to hard work by DFO staff in securing permitting and supporting projects through the Notification or Authorization process. The challenge is more the habitat restoration staff not being able to fill requests for assistance.

Relationships between first nations and stewardship groups being strengthened as funding partnerships or collaboration between stakeholders has led to successful restoration of salmon back into the Okanagan and multiple restoration projects throughout the region. 

Wilsey dam fish passage committee is active but frustrated by the process in evaluating the potential restoration of salmon above Wilsey Dam. BC Hydro and DFO’s lack of leadership on issues under their management due to funding restraints has other stakeholders questioning the process and their commitment to the wild salmon policy. 

Concern as always with diminishing returns due to low water flows and high water temperatures in streams throughout the interior. While the Province has taken the lead by implementing the Fisheries Act, and restricting irrigation use on the Coldwater as a example, more dialogue is needed around planning for future occurrences. Will DFO be able to help lead these discussions?