SEHAB Member: Janet Lemon

Area: North Coast

Community Advisor: Rob Dams

Date: November 2015

Key Issues:

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

1. Need for monitoring, baseline information and science to bring credibility, continuity and direction for industry, NGO’s, general public while developement esculates on the north coast

2. Habitat issues where the issue is reported, response time is not soon enough and by that time damage is already been done

3. Decline this year of coho across our whole area and no way of telling what actual returns are as streasm assessment seems to be non-exsistent to compare returns to brood year escapement

Stories:

A few examples of successes, failures, challenges.

Failure of the Skeena scockye returns to come in as predicted with no five-year-old sockeye and small 3-4 year olds returning.

Challenge to meet future stock assessment needs with the retirement of key senior persons in the Prince Rupert Office

Success with the groups in the Kitimat watershed joining together, hiring a professional and beginning baseline water quaility monitoring.  This will be critical information for the future when air shed problems start to arise as industry increases in the area

Failure of the government authories steering the Port of Prince Rupert and LNG proponents away from Lulu Island right from the beginning. This has lead to a stand off with the company (which has put millions of dollars and large amounts of human effort in planning and replanning to avoid Flora Bank and impacts) and First nations and their many supporters who see the potential impacts this will have on the Skeena estuary no matter what mitigation is used. A total waste of everyones energy and money right from the get-go and now we have a tense situation than can easyily lead to violence.

 Challenge to work in rivers swollen by torrential rains and unusually dark water in coastal streams from incresed tannins.