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North Shore Streamkeepers Meeting September 21, 2016
7.30pm North Vancouver District Hall
Chair: Barbara Frisken
Regrets: Zo Ann Morten, Doug Hayman, Jan Lander & Glen Parker
ACTION ITEMS
- Prepare guidelines for volunteer weed pull leaders in conjunction with Tyler Farley and NSSK Board members
- Janet to apply for funding from PSF for spring workshop
UPCOMING EVENTS
- Saturday, Oct 1, 2016, 10:00 am – noon at Lynn Canyon Park near entrance by “End of the Line” café Lynn Valley Road
- Sunday September 25, 2016 Rivers Day, Heywood Park, NV
Municipal Reports – District of North Vancouver (Richard Boase)
The Lower Mackay Creek Dike project is under design. The project was awarded 1/3 grant funding from a senior government community natural hazard protection program. Condition of the grant is that construction is complete by December 2017 so the timeline is very tight given the complexity of the project. The project involves work on both the DNV and CNV side of Mackay Creek with work being undertaken just north of Marine Drive in Heywood Park and extending south to W 1st Ave. along both the east and west sides of the creek. Last week the DNV and CNV were presented with a concept design for the dike. We are prepared to setup a specific meeting with the NSSK to review the conceptual plan. We can present the plan at the next NSSK meeting in October.
The Maplewood Creek culvert replacement project was completed with the lower two culverts replaced on the north side of Mt. Seymour Pky. The project has resulted in improved fish passage through both the replaced culverts. The longest culvert that runs from Hogan’s Pools under Riverside Dr. also needs to be replaced. Design for this project is difficult due to the number of underground services in the area.
The DNV plans to start construction of the previously mentioned debris basin on Kilmer Creek just past the end of E. Braemar Rd. in the next week. The work is authorized by the Province and construction will be finished by the end of October in accordance with the authorization. The basin is designed to hold back debris in the event of significant rainfall/flow event to prevent the infrastructure in lower Kilmer Ck. from being flooded.
Municipal Reports – City of North Vancouver (Angela Negenman)
Rivers Day Creek to Creek (McKay to Mosquito) event was discussed re: coordinating NSSK participation. NSSK will be handing out passports, doing the bug survey, and most important hosting the Bewicke mural “unveiling”. A full report will be given at the November meeting
DFO Community Advisor (Sandie Hollick-Kenyon)
Burrard Inlet Water Quality Workshop hosted by Tsleil-Waututh Nation in May, link below leads to reports.
Met with Angela N. and City of North Van Engineers regarding water quality issues on Wagg Creek. The City is taking steps to improve the situation in this watershed.
Walked the lower reaches of McCartney Creek with Glen and Jordon, many Coho fry seen throughout the survey area. Jordon has posted some underwater video on line at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rbj-1BPjiCs
All Seymour Coho smolts transported below the slide and released at Swinburne, with the help of the large transport truck and crew from Capilano Hatchery.
Volunteer recognition event held again this June at A Rocha in Surrey, lots of folks attended from the lower mainland despite the cool weather.
Wild Salmon Policy consultations are coming soon. When dates are posted you’ll find them at the Pacific Region Consultations Calendar at this link:
http://www.pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/consultation/cal/index-eng.html
Fisheries Act Review – have your say; keep an eye on the link below for updates on how you can provide input:
Coho Festival was a great success this year, thanks to at the North Shore Streamkeepers who came out and volunteered.
Seymour River (Marc Guimond)
-rock breaking in the Seymour slide has been ongoing since mid-August 2016
-intention is to have larger boulders broken into smaller pieces so that higher river flows can move them farther downstream
-expectation is for entire project to last 3-5 years at a cost of over $225,000/yr
-funding so far has been procured through lobbying the federal and provincial governments, HCTF, Freshwater Fisheries of BC, Coho society, Squamish and Tseil Waututh Nations and various other organizations
-monitoring of fish passage will take place using telemetry (i.e. tagging fish with radio or acoustic tags)
-interim transport of adult salmonids above the slide and to the hatchery is being accomplished via the use of a fish fence and trap in the lower river and trucking upstream
-fish fence operation and transport is a joint partnership with Squamish and Tsleil Waututh nations
MEMBERS REPORTS:
Friends of Hunter Park (Janet Dysart)
Saturday September 17, 2016 in pouring rain 10 volunteers helped pull weeds and plant a few native shrubs with our new DNV Volunteer Coordinator Tyler Farley. Tim Green, a member of LVCA, has offered to assist Doug with ladder clearing in the fall. A new volunteer, Lisa Jensen, wants to set up a new site for a weed pull, NSSK will help her with this
MacKay Creek (Brian Comey)
Hatchery quiet until October. One of the bird houses in the Bird House Project was in a tree that was cut down; next time would like to know before so the bird house can be removed ahead of cutting. Hatchery cleaned up ready for Rivers Day event. Very successful Coho Festival with interest in the fish situation.
Hastings Creek (Doug Hayman)
We did a Fry trapping on July 9, 2016– At 10 a.m. the water was 14C, air by the creek 15C, 75 % bankful, and the creek was running too swiftly. Trapping results – 38 cutthroat trout (averaging in size 10 to 14 cm), 4 coho fry (6.5 cm), and 14 small signal crayfish, and a few casualties. We did see a lot of fry about the traps. Sep 1, Bob Parrot walking his dog, outlet from Tennyson was dumping white storm drain water into the creek. The last time he reported this to DNV they thought they had found the source, not confirmed. This is the same ongoing episode of dirty water again. Harold and Mountain Highway, just after pouring concrete and gravel all over the road, where there is new construction, their settling tank was spewing dirty water directly onto the road going down storm sewer and into the creek. I called the DNV & EMBC. The Bylaw Officer called me and asked me to come to the site which I did .She then told me the Environmental Dept of the district did not see a problem with this, which seemed very strange to me.
Morten Hatchery (Doug Hayman)
Our Application to PSF (Pacific Salmon Foundation) was granted and we received $1500 for our Project to dig out the pond and put in fry refuge shelters (designed by engineers from DFO) from the recent river otter invasion, or any other critters. Project began June 1st with the release of 3500 Coho fry directly into Lynn Creek with community help. After pumping the pond out twice, trapping any remaining juveniles & Northwestern Salamanders, DNV doing well on July 11 of digging out the pond’s accumulated mud, our installing the refuge shelters we put together, and refilling the pond with new water supply–low and behold a week later, Wally spotted some Coho juveniles and fry swimming about. What a reward! Work remaining: more fencing and a curb to build on the road coming down to the hatchery, without it, all the road debris runs into the nursery pond. This could be ‘road building’ material if Sandie thinks this is okay. There is about $600.00 left from the PSF grant which we would like to use for fencing to prevent dogs from entering top and bottom of nursery pond, but have run out of energy to do this year, maybe spring 2017.
List of Permit Approvals – (Bob Gelling)
There were 253 Building Permits and 11 Demolitions since NSSK May 2016 meeting
DISCUSSION OF OTHER CREEKS AND CONCERNS
Herring on North Shore (Jonn Matsen): There are 20,000 tons of herring potential off the Fraser River mouth, it’s the safe spawning area that is the weak link. Our hope is that as the herring in False Creek increase they will widen their spawning area to Burrard Inlet which may include the North Shore.
NEW BUSINESS:
NSSK Workshop:
The group has decided to hold another NSSK workshop with Glen and Janet working on the topic of The Integrated Stormwater Management Planning for Streamkeepers. Site and date TBA.
BUSINESS: Finance (Karen Munro) –
Bank balance Sept 1 = $7138.45
Recent deposits: $1400 (PSF grant for SK kit), $550 (Ron’s book – for the Environmental Education Project)
Recent expenses: $65 (Society registration), $248 (SK insurance)
NEXT MEETING – Wednesday, November 16th – 7:30 to 9:30 pm, District Hall, 355 West Queens Road, North Vancouver
DFO VIOLATION REPORTING: OBSERVE, RECORD, RECORD (ORR) 604-607-4186
A SPILL OF ANY TYPE Environment Canada – use EMBC number below
EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT B.C. – 1-800-663-3456 www.embc.gov.bc.ca/index.htm
CITY OF NV – Operations Division 604-987-7155 (8 am – 4:30 pm Monday to Friday) or After-Hours Emergency Line 604-988-2212 (after 4:30pm, weekends & Holidays).
- President: Barbara Frisken, 604-985-9497, frisken@gmail.com
- Secretary: Janet Dysart 604-983-3092 mervynd@telus.net
- Pacific Streamkeepers Federation: Zo Ann Morten 604-986-5059, pskf.ca
- North Shore Streamkeepers Web Site: nssk.ca
- Message board http://disc.yourwebapps.com/Indices/232171.html
- District Web Site: dnv.org/Services/Environment/District Information
- City of North Van: Angela Negenman 604-982-3932 anegenman@cnv.org, cnv.org
- DFO Advisor: Sandie Hollick-Kenyon 604-666-0743, Sandra-Hollick-Keynon@dfo-mpo.gc.ca
- Hastings Creek: Doug Hayman 604-987-0434, pastoys@yahoo.com
- Lower Mackay Creek and North Shore Fish and Game Club incubation facility: Brian Comey bmcomey@hotmail.com
- Upper Mackay Creek: Ron den Daas, ecosystem@shaw.ca
- McCartney Creek: Glen Parker 604-929-8450, gepa@telus.net
- Morten Creek: ZoAnn Morten 604-986-5059, zmorten@shaw.ca
- Seymour River: Sharee Dubowits, 604-288-0511; volunteering@seymoursalmon.com or seymoursalmon.com
