Endangered Rivers Issues

Thought this was interesting in regards to the Pitt River dams & other issues


Canada's Endangered rivers '08

1. Upper Pitt River (proposed independent power project).

2. Flathead River, (proposed coal mine, coal-bed methane development).

2. Fraser River, (urbanization, sewage, pollution, industrial development).

4. Taku River (proposed mine, acid-mine drainage).

5. Peace River (proposed hydroelectric dam).

6. Headwaters of the Skeena, Nass and Stikine rivers (proposed coal-bed methane development).

7. Kettle River (water extraction, proposed power project).

8. Coquitlam River (urbanization, excessive sedimentation).

9. Glacier/Howser creeks (proposed power project).

10. Coldwater River (water extraction).

11. Okanagan River (water extraction, channelization, urban encroachment, riparian habitat loss).

12. Salmon River (low flows, pine beetle, riverside habitat loss).

13. Little Campbell River (agricultural impacts, water-quality concerns).

From-

http://www.canada.com/theprovince/news/story.html?id=e438cec2-06d9-4562-8345-5dd401637a5e

I survived & the Pitt River

I found this lonely old post sitting in my drafts-

Hello everyone- I officially lived thru the second worst quarter of my academic career! & the morning warmed into a beautimous spring afternoon- for awhile anyway. Found myself with too many projects & not enough time & energy last quarter.

I have been listening to my CBC (Canadian Public Broadcasting) & the subject of interest today is the run-of-river (& without large reservoir) Pitt River hydroelectric proposal that sounds like just got shot down (maybe?). This would require moving the boundary of Pinecone Burke Provincial Park for a transmission line, or an amendement to the "Park Act". Sounds like 1,000 public members showed up at one meeting- largely in opposition. The place of hydroelectric dams in th interesting topic that has been on my mind lately. I wrote a paper about the Snake River dams last quarter & listened to some interesting talks at the Elwha Research Consortium meeting yesterday, including one discussing different current dam removal projects, controversial stuff but it seems that the tide of public opinion is shifting to question new dam projects & support dam removals.

Here's a link to the content of the Park Act (just cuz I was interested)-
http://www.qp.gov.bc.ca/statreg/stat/P/96344_01.htm#section7

So evidently I'm having an attitude problem of late. I try to thing of something to blog about & it just comes out negative, so I guess I'll just roll with it, like the rest of life. Team Nearshore just got back from the Pacific Estuarine Research Society Meeting. It was quite an experience. I thought I pretty much knew what I was in for as I have a long, long history with veterinary conferences but- as it turns out- it was kind of a whole different thing. The talks are only ~15 minutes long each & tend to be pretty specific in topic, like about a specific grad or other research project. So for someone of my little experience it was difficult to get oriented to the topics- I just found that I didn't know enough about eel grass or zooplankton etc to get as much out of it as someone who had a broader knowledge base in the marine world. I guess that is probably the same at vet conferences, much of the difference is probably the knowledge base that I already had through lots of experience & also from conferences. Veterinary conferences come in many shapes & sizes so it is not difficult to find topics that are aimed at audiences with different levels of experience. Hopefully I will find this to be more the case at the American Fisheries Society conference that we are leaving for tomorrow bright & early. I don't know about that tho- in reality what I know about fish could be probably be written on a 3x5- okay maybe not quite but you get the gist, my knowledge base isn't really any stronger.

I did meet some great people, 2 in particular made helpful comments on my project & poster. Someone by the last name of Emmett who does forage fish research along the coast & another gentleman who works for a private environmental consulting company had some great thoughts on the sediment work. Only one person seemed a little overly aggressive with her questioning.

Anyway it's all a great learning experience & I certainly know a lot more than I did last week. The best part was the dinner at the aquarium in Newport- I forget the name at the moment but it is a beautiful facility. I loved all the different rockfish & everything else. The hotel was also great, beautiful ocean view/ balcony- I ended up with a huge room to myself. It was sad to not be able to really get out to the beach- it was all go, go, go. If only I was an early riser & not feeling so thoroughly sleep deprived at the moment!

So thank you to Dwight, Karen, Anne & all the people who provided funding & support to get us to the conferences. I'm a little jealous of the snow teams conference plans- I have the feeling their group won't be quite as stressed out on their travels:)