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[Xgolfman]

Kind of interesting that Salmon Trout and Steelhead did a small piece on the gravel extraction problem on the Fraser this month..."British Columbia Government puts dollars ahead of Salmon"
It pretty much relates what C.G. saw and brought up about the massive gravel mining on the Fraser...good on you Chris. Here's a couple exerts...
"The British Columbia government has approved massive gravel mining operations on the Fraser River. Once example of the complete disregard for the environment came in April when a CHilliwack gravel mining company was allowed to build a road across a portion of the Fraser to reach a gravel island called Big Bar Island. The road temporarily dammed a portion of the river killing an estimated two million pink salmon.
This and other egregious acts continue to undermine sound fisheries policy in return for a quick buck on the part of gravel miners...

also.

It seems the DFO , the agency responsible for protecting salmon runs is indifferent . "Heads should roll at DFO over this" said ex DFO habitat biologist Otto Langer. "In a sense, they are putting the coyote in charge of the chicken coop, the only real obligation is to make money, it's not to protect the environment."

It goes on to tell how the demand for cheap gravel to help with the many construction projects for the upcoming Olympics etc. it part of the reasoning and how the Sierra Legal Defense Fund recently filed a petition on behalf of several fisheries experts and environmentalist groups...

Good job C.G. looks like the work you all did is not going un noticed...hopefully something will be done about it but sadly....it's going to be a huge uphill battle...

[ColinB]

Sounds pretty dreadful to me, but how did it kill 2 million pinks?

Will the gravel be restored by the river? Or is it a case of when it's gone it's gone?

Forgive my ignorance

Colin

[Xgolfman]

Sounds pretty dreadful to me, but how did it kill 2 million pinks?

Will the gravel be restored by the river? Or is it a case of when it's gone it's gone?

Forgive my ignorance

Colin

would have been more I'm sure but C.G. and fellow anglers from the wack saw it and reported and filmed it...Ask Chris and he can give you the whole story...amazing stuff when you hear it..

[troutbreath]

I doubt Lokota Hearn would agree or Barry Penner. Look you just got to dig the Fraser up once and a while and say to h3ll with environmental concerns.
My favorite pic came out today in the Vancouver Sun showing the environment Ministry flying by a logging slash in the Seymour watershed. A logging slash from about 10 years ago that according to the BC government don't exist. Can you say Vancouver Stock Exchange and fish farm in the same sentence or what eh.

[Eagleye]

Sounds pretty dreadful to me, but how did it kill 2 million pinks?

The causeway they built to access the gravel on big Bar island blocked off the flow to a side channel with a high concentration of pink redds and some chum.  The decrease in flow exposed the redds, killing them off.  They were supposed to put a 3 meter? gap in the middle with a bridge over top but the contractor said it wasn't safe and DFO apparently let them build it without the gap.  IMO this is not acceptable.

Will the gravel be restored by the river? Or is it a case of when it's gone it's gone?

The Fraser flushes tons of gravel down each year, but Big Bar is a man made island so I don't know if it will replenish itself or not.  In this case the catastrophe was caused by what they did to access the gravel.  But this is only one of the many places gravel is/was mined. 

[ColinB]

Eagleye,

Thanks for the explanation!  So it's the future generations of Pinks that have been killed off.

Have you thought about having a memorial service on the banks of the Fraser to draw more media coverage of this obvious outrage?

I'm in the UK but spend a lot of time in Ireland, where just about anyone seems to help themselves to river gravel.  Just drive in with the digger and help yourself. The local trout anglers then blame Pike for eating all the trout that never hatched in the first place.

Extraction seems a worldwide problem for fish and anglers alike.

Sadly money talks!

Colin