Author: Kyle Prince, LLC Program Coordinator
In late August/early September, Living Lakes Canada assisted completing fish passage assessments, fish habitat confirmation surveys, and fish sampling on high priority streams in the Bulkley Watershed near Smithers, B.C. This project leverages an incredible amount of work conducted by local groups, regulators, governments and individuals over many years including the Wet’suwet’en and Gitxsan First Nations on whose traditional territory the study area is located.
These efforts are very important to help identify where fish passage remediation initiatives could restore access to high quality upstream habitat, which has become inaccessible for fish species due to stream crossing developments like closed bottom structures (culverts) on resource roads, highways and railways. Culverts are notorious for restricting fish access due to increased water velocity, turbulence, a vertical drop at the outlet, and/or maintenance issues. The crossing assessment protocol documents the structure, and determines whether it is a “barrier” by using a scored system based on attributes such as embedment, stream width ratio, slope, length, and outlet drop.
The prioritized streams with moderate or higher habitat value are then surveyed downstream approximately 300 metres or to the next confluence, and upstream at least 600 metres. This confirms and further defines the quality of fish habitat present, documents any fish sighted, and ensures there are no other barriers, natural or anthropogenic in close proximity to the crossing that were not identified during the field preparation phase.
Fish sampling is being utilized at some sites to collect biological evidence of impacts from structures that potentially prevent migration. Aerial imagery is sometimes collected by remotely piloted aircrafts when survey conditions are difficult and/or when forest canopy conditions allow. The Bulkley Watershed contains multiple salmon species including coho, chinook, cockeye, steelhead and pink salmon. There are also cutthroat, bull trout, lamprey and numerous other species, and the watershed provides important spawning and rearing habitat, some of which is no longer accessible due to impassable crossings.
The project is currently led by the Society for Ecosystem Restoration in Northern BC (SERNbc) and is a collaboration between New Graph Environment, Hillcrest Geographics, Living Lakes Canada among others. The project was funded by the Habitat Conservation Trust Fund with support from the Provincial Fish Passage Remediation program and the Canadian Wildlife Federation. Contact Program Coordinator Kyle Prince with any questions: kyle@livinglakescanada.ca.
LLC staff met the Selkirk College IEP class on site to explain Targeted eDNA, field and filtration protocol, explaining how all animals slough off DNA through skin, mucus, feces, etc. into their immediate environment, and that these eDNA fragments can be captured by properly filtering a water sample, which is then analyzed in a lab. The importance of decontaminating equipment between sites to eliminate eDNA transfer and keep results accurate was also emphasized. LLC demonstrated the field collection protocol, and then students were given a chance to try it out for themselves.
LLC is making progress towards finalizing the Columbia Basin Water Hub as a repository for water quantity and quality data, and other water-related data. Recently, we have managed to solidify different categories of data that are important to monitoring groups within the Columbia Basin. We have also created a user manual that guides database users and we have conducted testing of the database with different people from around the Basin.
The Kootenay Lake Partnership has been proceeding with training on the 
The Groundwater Monitoring Program has been implementing social distancing and safety protocols – both in the office and in the field. The British Columbia Ground Water Association (BCGWA) has compiled 
We are fortunate that most of our work is carried out remotely. However, in order to minimize the risk of exposure and spread of COVID-19, and to protect our team members and database users, we have set up extra precautions. With the release of our database approaching, we anticipated the need to connect with some of our users face to face, so we are setting up online “Office Hours” to minimize contact and still meet with our users. We also adhere to the policies put in place for the Living Lakes office space we work in. Following proper guidelines for hand washing, physical distance, and staying home if sick. We are grateful that we can support the access to important water data through these challenging times.
Since most of our recording stations are automated and can be serviced by one person, NKLWMP was able continue monitoring streamflow, climate, and snow accumulation around Kootenay Lake during the pandemic without much impact. To protect our volunteers we did decide to miss two of our regular snow course measurements as they require volunteers to stay in remote backcountry cabins that could not be guaranteed to be well-sanitized. We also reduced the amount of volunteer involvement on field visits as a precaution, and continue to be vigilant in our approach to managing the health of ourselves and our volunteers.
