From Hansard today
V. Huntington: I'm just using the language out of the service plan. So I was assuming that there might be something in addition to the delegation agreement that we aren't aware of at this point. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
As the minister will recall, I asked a couple of questions a number of months ago, I guess now, on gravel extraction in the Upper Fraser. My concern at that time was that they were proceeding with a gravel extraction agreement prior to the Cohen Inquiry. I thought that that showed a lack of respect for the purpose of the inquiry. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I also asked whether the minister or the office of the Solicitor General, the emergency measures office, would provide the scientific documents that sustained and showed that gravel extraction was helpful in flood control. I haven't received those documents. I was wondering whether the minister and his staff could see fit to provide me with the science they have that says extraction is good and does help with flood control. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Hon. B. Penner: I'll check with our counterparts in emergency management B.C. and the Ministry of Solicitor General. But it's self-evident that when you have 300,000 cubic metres of gravel deposited within a confined area every year — that fluctuates, but on average, 280,000 or more tonnes per year are deposited within a confined space, and it's confined because of the dikes there — you know that the river bottom has to rise. I know that it doesn't rise equally, and it doesn't rise in every location all the time, but over time we know that as you deposit something in a confined space, that area will start to fill up. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
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We have spent considerable dollars over the last number of years — tens of millions of dollars — on dike improvement projects around the province, including along the Fraser River. But you can't continue to simply build the dikes higher and higher without risking a more severe flood if those dikes should breach as the river gets higher in relation to the adjoining [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
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improvement projects around the province, including along the Fraser River, but you can't continue to simply build the dikes higher and higher without risking a more severe flood if those dikes should breach as the river gets higher in relation to the adjoining land. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
There's also the issue of seepage, which farmers in my community are very familiar with. Even if the dikes are not overtopped, as that water level gets higher relative to the adjoining land the water starts to get pushed up through some kind of hydrometric pressure scenario that I don't fully understand. But the water does come up through farmers' fields, even if it doesn't come right over the top of the dike itself. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
We will check with our counterparts in emergency management B.C. about what kinds of reports they have, but we have been committed to an environmentally responsible and regular process of gravel removal in an effort to try and maintain or improve the leeway between the top of the water and the top of the dikes. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Just before I sit down, I remember, too, last fall that the member herself expressed interest in having material removed from the part of the Fraser River near where she lives, and I guess that's indicative of other comments you get around the province, whether it's from Golden or elsewhere. Flood mitigation management is an issue of particular interest wherever people live close to rivers, and that's why our government's committed to continue to try to manage for that. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
V. Huntington: I think, first of all, I'd like to say that I too live behind a dike, and I'm as equally concerned about flood control measures in the province and on the lower Fraser as anybody else. Yes, we do have a sedimentation problem, and I'm deeply in discussion with the Ministry of Transport at the moment with regard to their head lease negotiations with the Port of Vancouver, because all of their leaseholders are along the lower Fraser, and yes, we do sit on the river bottom. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
My concern with gravel extraction versus sediment removal is primarily a concern for what it does to the downstream siltation of spawning beds, and there's a great deal of science that shows that it's extremely hard on those beds. I am looking forward to the information about the scientific documents, because the documents I read, and I'll quote here…. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
One, for instance, is the 2009 spring report of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development — it's federal: "Engineering and scientific studies at different sites," some commissioned by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, "concluded that there was no reduction in the flood profile after gravel removal." And this is on the lower Fraser in the gravel reaches. "These studies stated that changes in the flood profile were minimal in the removal area" and were local only to that removal site. The report concludes that "gravel removal would not significantly affect the potential for flooding." [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Similarly, a document by the Pacific Fisheries Resource Conservation Council states, "The gravel extraction appeared to have provided little benefit for flood control," and it adds that "according to the hydraulic models the water surface flood profile changes have been trivial as a fraction of these removals, generally less than 15 centimetres for up to 4.2 million cubic metres of gravel removed…." The document concludes that the "gravel removal agreement has been largely ineffective from an engineering standpoint." [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
So I truly am interested in receiving the science that the province is relying upon, because I think the spawning beds are in jeopardy, and I see no science that is indicating the gravel removal is anything but of benefit to the extraction companies and perhaps, too, the large-scale projects that are being undertaken in the province today. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Hon. B. Penner: I appreciate that the member thinks there's some kind of conspiracy, but let me tell you that people living in the Fraser Valley, I think, have every right to expect flood protection, just like the member says she's interested in. She says that she wants sediment that's deposited in the river behind the dike where she lives to be removed to afford her flood protection, and so do people in the Fraser Valley where I live. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
[1500]
The principle's the same. Material gets deposited, and it erodes the freeboard — that is the difference between the high-water mark of the river and the dike — and reduces the amount of protection. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
It's true that any one year's worth of work in terms of gravel removal is not going to dramatically reduce the profile. That's why you have to do it [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
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the difference between the high-water mark of the river and the dike — and reduces the amount of protection. It's true that any one year's worth of work in terms of gravel removal is not going to dramatically reduce the profile. That's why you have to do it on an ongoing basis, and that's why a number of years ago the federal government signed an agreement with the province for a five-year plan. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
In virtually every one of those five years the total amount of material removed did not reach the amount that had been indicated in that agreement. The amounts were often dramatically less than what that agreement had contemplated, for a variety of complicated permitting reasons. That's because permitting is required, and a lot of work has to go into it before the work is allowed to proceed. That is because we want to make sure that we're also balancing public safety with making sure that the environment is protected — in particular, fish habitat. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Just as Rome wasn't built in a day, you're not going to see a dramatic reduction in the flood levels or the water profile of the river through one year's or one season's worth of work. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I should note that the work isn't allowed to take place at any particular time of the year or throughout the year. It's restricted to what's known as the fisheries window when fisheries biologists indicate that it is the best time of the year to do work in and around the river. That typically, where I come from, is between January and mid-March, before the Fraser River starts to rise due to the melting of the accumulated winter snowpack around the southern half of the province. Sometimes also in August or September, after the spring freshet and before the fall rains come, there can be fisheries windows, but that's left up to DFO to determine. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
V. Huntington: Just before I take my seat I just want to say that all I'm interested in receiving from both the Solicitor General's Ministry and from the Ministry of Environment are the scientific documents that show that the annual gravel extraction does in fact aid flood control and does not hinder downstream spawning beds by the siltation or the removal of the hard sediment that holds those beds together. All I want is the documentation that reinforces the minister's position. I'm sure the department must have it, and I'd love to see it myself. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
To the official opposition: they can take over here. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
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Topic: "There are safer places to get gravel" (Read 144181 times)