Email from a Buddy:
Received this last night.
The Premier’s office organized a technical briefing late last year.
Essentially, about 275,000 fish made it past the slide, mainly by natural passage, with some 60,000 being transported, most of which were unlikely to spawn.
Early Stuart sockeye (<100 spawners out of 21,000), mid and Upper Fraser spring 1.3 chinook are at grave risk of extinction. Early summer and summer sockeye and mid-Fraser 1.3 summer chinook are at “considerable” risk of extinction. The slide is expected to prevent passage for most of the 2020 migration season.
The site is very remote (the slide went unnoticed for more than six months) requiring crews to scale the rock face for access and some 110,000 cubic metres of debris under the surface.
The goal of the Joint Command (DFO, FLNRO and FN) is to restore sustained natural passage. It has taken extensive advice from the Armed Forces, US Army Corps of Engineers, Rio Tinto and other mining and construction companies. Remediation work risks further slides.
With water flow dropping recently to under 600 cubic metres per second, the federal government has just contracted Peter Kiewit Sons ULC to remove rock and debris between now and March before spring freshet makes further operations impossible.
Some limited strategic enhancement took place in 2019 and is under consideration for 2020.
The consequences for all South Coast fisheries are likely to be severe.
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Topic: Big Bar Slide Update (Read 33733 times)