Paddlers alert -- Public forum Oct 29 on the future of Elk and Beaver Lake

We at Kayak Yak have had a press release forwarded to us from the Capital Regional District, the Gorge Waterway Initiative, and the Victoria Golden Rods and Reel Society.

Mark your calendars for the evening of Thursday October 29! Paddlers of all kinds who use local lakes will be interested in this upcoming free public forum on the health and future of Elk/Beaver Lake. Details below:

UVic ENVIRONMENTAL LAW CENTRE and VICTORIA GOLDEN RODS & REELS SOCIETY Present a Public Forum:

Elk/Beaver Lake “A Tale of Two Lakes”— Can aging lakes be rejuvenated?

Thursday, Oct. 29, 2015, 7 pm – 9 pm  Law Lecture Theatre 159, Fraser Building, University of Victoria

- Dr. Rick Nordin, BC Lake Stewardship Society: What’s Going On Inside Elk/Beaver Lake?

- Erin Gray, JD, Articled Student, Environmental Law Centre: Best Case Practices in Lakes Management

- Michelle Hawryluk, BSc. ES, BC Ministry of Environment: Progress Report on Remediation Options

Here's a map of the UVic campus with the Fraser building marked in red.

What will the evening look like?

1/ people encouraged to park in Parking Lot 8 from 6pm when the evening rate of $2.50 starts.

      ( Carpool, friends! Or take any of several buses to UVic. There's a bike rack at the building.)

2/ people visit at the stakeholders booths from 6pm to 7pm

3/ from 7pm to 9pm there are three speakers and question and answer periods.

The following organizations have confirmed their booth spaces to date:

• Freshwater Fisheries Society of BC
• Habitat Acquisition Trust 
•  Camosun College Environmental Technology Program
• Peninsula Streams Society
• Victoria Rowing Society
• Victoria Golden Rods and Reels Society
•  Gorge Waterway Initiative

Reminder: The CRD Regional Parks Committee has included Elk/Beaver Lake as a strategic priority in its Service Plan for 2016-2019.

Subject to CRD Board approval, a half time co-ordinator for Elk/ Beaver Lake remediation  will be included in the Service Plan for 2016 to 2019 renewable annually. The Committee also voted to purchase a new weed harvester.

Dr. Rick Nordin’s June 2015 water quality report can be accessed through this link and is hosted at the Gorge Waterway Initiative website.

If you have any questions please contact either of the names below. Your assistance in helping to publicize this event is greatly appreciated.

Mick Collins

Co-chair, Elk/Beaver Lake Initiative, Victoria Golden Rods & Reels Society 

 www.goldenrodsandreels.com

Phone 250-598-3294    
and

Kitty Lloyd

Gorge Waterway initiative Coordinator

T: 250-360-3299   F: 250-360-3047

klloyd@crd.bc.ca

www.gorgewaterway.ca

My Life With The Salmon - book review

Paddlers, be on the lookout for small boat use in a variety of books, especially books from modest-sized Canadian publishers. The latest paddling fix I've found was in a wonderful title from Theytus Books. It's the second book from author Diane Jacobson, and it's called My Life With The Salmon. Click here for a link to the publisher's website.

While most of the book discusses the author's time working with salmon enhancement programs, there is a strong element of boating. Jacobson and her colleagues use a variety of boats to reach the various places where they are gathering data on salmon and their habitats. If you're not strictly a kayaker, you can read along and nod sagely as she speaks of the small open motorboats being used to cross a river estuary or reach an island, and of canoes on lakes and rivers. There are even some of her colleagues who swim and snorkel downstream to report on river conditions for salmon. Safety concerns while boating are mentioned several times in her book, as well as a healthy amount of awe for her experiences along the rivers and ocean shore of her homeland.

Y'see, Jacobson is a member of the 'Namgis First Nation, and boating is a natural part of the life in her community on the coast. "The river taught me that it has the power to give life and to take life in an instant," she says at one point.

If this were a kayaking book, I'd ramble on about it. But it's great to see the use of small boats being such an important element of such an interesting book. This book was awarded the Best Regional Non-fiction Prize by the Independent Publisher Book Awards in 2012.
If you want to see what it's like to be offshore in a small motorboat, we've got a link to a video here. And if you're interested in salmon stories, check out Kayak Yak posts here on our forays into salmon-bearing streams.

Fishing Columnist Speaks Out About Cohen Commission

*Ftweet!*
Oi, paddlers along BC's coast! Check out D.C. Reid's column On Fishing in today's Times-Colonist, published today. He's titled it "Make your voice heard in the fight to save B.C. salmon."

Y'see, it's time to do more than just feel sad about how human activities are affecting the salmon runs in BC rivers. Standing up at demonstrations does let us count the number of people who are concerned, but it's only one small step. Keeping our kayaks out of streams when salmon are spawning is a personal action that we take. Now D.C. Reid has outlined two simple ways to make our concerns known to our elected officials who can take effective action.

The first is to contact Gail Shea, Minister of Fisheries and Oceans at min@dfo.mpo.ca , and ask for her response to the Cohen Report. Her department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) has not yet responded to the Cohen Report or its 75 recommendations made in October 2012. It's been 15 months, and a response is needed!
The second is to get a pdf from the Auditor General for Canada showing how to make a request through its environmental petition process. Then send your request to its director Roger B. Hillier at roger.hillier@oag-bvg.gc.ca . Perhaps you too would like to know the DFO's plans and funding for resolving the 75 recommendations of the Cohen Report.

If there are enough requests of this kind, the Auditor General can launch an audit into this issue. I attended local hearings in 2011 of the Cohen Commission on the salmon fisheries. The Cohen Report has had no official response at all.

If you've never contacted a government office before, don't hesitate. These offices exist to serve us as citizens and answer these kinds of questions. Write a polite, brief note.

Book Review -- The Salmon Recipes

This week, I've been reading the best cookbook to come my way in years: The Salmon Recipes. This is a recipe book for anyone wanting to get a West Coast taste into their meals. More than just a list of recipes, this book has short notes from the contributors on their experiences living on the north coast of British Columbia, as well as their memories.

As it says on the back cover: "In this book the people of the north coast reach out in celebration of our rich culture of food in a bountiful region that has supported the gathering and sharing of sea resources since the beginning of time."

The recipes include many ways to prepare salmon as well as other kinds of seafood. But that's only one part of this book's appeal. Taken in series, the paragraphs and stories on pages facing the recipes are a heartfelt invitation to understand more about the lives of people living on the coast. The many colourful and informal photographs alone are worth the cover price!

Many of the stories involve beachcombing or going out in small boats. I particularly liked the story "One of his eight arms" by Luanne Roth:
Once in our prawn trap there was a small octopus holding a prawn. He was a bit scared and disoriented, but the whole time we had him out of the water, tipping the trap to have a better look as he pulled himself around, he kept one of his eight arms outstretched with the end carefully holding his prawn.

The Salmon Recipes: Stories of Our Endangered North Coast Cuisine
by the Prince Rupert Environmental Society
New Society Publishers

www.saveourskeenasalmon.org.
Check here on Facebook for news about their book launch and possibly more news in future.

Vote For The Coastal Environment

Yes, there's an election called for May 14, here in British Columbia. No, that's not a kayaking topic, not at first glance. But I'm hoping we'll all go into this election ready to vote not only as citizens, but as small boat people.
I hope that we'll all make sure that whoever we vote for as a local candidate, whichever party they represent, all of the people we want to represent us will also represent our concerns for the natural world where we live. Sustainable use of our resources supports jobs and people as well as the environment! The Department of Fisheries and Oceans cannot do good work without good directions from provincial and federal authorities.
Check out Alexandra Morton's blog here to see her concerns for salmon preservation. There must be other websites and blogs that you can recommend to help us all be informed about our candidates and our parties, and our local concerns. I also like to go to Anne Hansen's blog, not only for her comments but for her artwork -- check it out and scroll down to see oystercatchers & other charming coastal creatures!

News for Fuel Tank Owners About Spills

Hey, yesterday's post about a fuel spill in a local creek didn't cover everything. I may have mentioned salmon spawning in Colquitz Creek, but there's also many other fish and living things in that creek and Swan Creek year-round. When kayaking there, we've seen raccoons and many kinds of birds.
The Saanich News wrote an article about these animals and also included information of interest to homeowners with fuel tanks. Turns out that they've got advice on fuel tank maintenance and a pdf to download from the municipality. Knowledge is power. We can learn things to help us keep our neighbourhoods cleaner!

Not In My Back Yard!

The usual meaning of "Not in my back yard" seems to be "Put that inconvenient urban necessity out of sight from MY house" for many people who campaign against sewage treatment systems and jails. Now, as for me, I'm usually more of a YIMBY than a NIMBY. I want my sewage treated responsibly and I figure that as far as jails go, though we don't need as many new prisons as the current federal government is trying to push on us, what jails we do have should be clean, supervised and close enough to urban centres for... but I'm digressing.
I had a NIMBY moment today, on the water. Stephanie took this photo a couple of winters ago, showing Karl paddling on Panama Flats when Colquitz Creek was flooded.
This morning dawned so calm that after walking the dogs I got into my wetsuit. The sun was just rising as I took the little green rec kayak down to the beach. Lovely! The mist was rising off the water and blowing off-shore, the sky was so clear that I could have seen the volcano cone of Rainier if there hadn't been clouds piled up along the Olympics and in the direction of Puget Sound. The weather will probably change later this morning.
Today I took time for only a short paddle to the little rock garden and into Sheep Cove. I had to get back quickly to write this post before going to class. The kingfisher scolded me again, and perched to be admired. Other than him, the rest of the birds pretty much ignored me dabbling along. At the head of little Sheep Cove, I looked up into the bare trees along the tiny creek that pounds down the rocks in the rainy season. There it was -- the little red bridge that I love to see in winter! The tiny creek runs under it, and under another footbridge nearer the shore, and falls into a scoop of shoreline mostly circled by a low cement wall. It was a perfect moment to watch the tide swell up just a little, washing a gentle wave into the scooped pond, and then watch the water drain out. This is the only place I've found with a reversing current like that.
I paddled back over winter-clear water, enjoying the sight of the bottom fifteen and twenty feet down as the sun rose higher. The bubbles from my little kayak's wake were still there on the calm water, twenty minutes and more after I'd passed on my way out from the beach.
I passed a floating plastic bag that might have blown off a boat, and a sunken tin pie pan that was probably frisbee-ed from shore. Seeing human trash reminded me of why I had to get to my computer and write this post. There has been another fuel spill locally.
You can read about it in the Saanich News in their article appropriately titled "Oil spill stains urban miracle." It's on the front page, with a sub-heading "Catastrophe strikes Coho-laden creek."
This spill was not from a fuel truck crash. It was from a home heating oil tank that leaked a few days ago.A pipe leading from a homeowner's fuel tank sprung a leak, and over a few days released an estimated 1,000 litres of heating oil into Swan Creek, which drains into Colquitz Creek. John took this photo of Colquitz Creek. That's the salmon stream that we've written about here on the blog, the one Karl and Stephanie have paddled down from Panama Flats.
Swan Creek doesn't run through my own back yard. But it does run past my aunt's condo. I've walked in a little park along this creek that also runs past the townhouses where our friends Leslie and Darren used to live. That fuel tank wasn't mine or in my own neighbourhood, but I must have walked within a hundred yards of it several times before eating and relaxing at a nearby home.
That's it, for me. Not in my back yard. Not in my friends' and families' back yards. Accidents happen, but fuel tanks are owned by people who can look after them. There's no excuse for letting a newly-filled tank drain over several days.
No excuses. I walked back from the beach this morning, put the kayak away and looked at my landlady's fuel tank. No oily stains, no petroleum-product smell, no leaks visible from the tank or lines into the house. No fuel slick on the puddles around the Beach House. Not in my yard.
I'm putting out a call to readers of Kayak Yak. If your home is heated with fuel of any kind, go check that the fuel tank and pipes aren't leaking. I mean it. Go to the tank in your yard or the gas pipe that enters your apartment building. And while you're at it, check if the driveway near your home has any oily stains spreading into a storm drain. I'm just sayin'.
And then write a comment in reply to this post, telling me you checked that your heating fuel is not leaking. John's got some features on the right-hand column of this blog, showing our regular readers. You know who you are. We know that we can't stop all the fuel spills in the world, but we can each look after our own yards.And if you see any fuel spilled on the ground or water in BC, in town or out in the boonies, call the 24-Hour Spill Line toll-free at 1-800-663-3456.

Talking About Salmon Farms

At a potluck dinner this summer, I crowded into a kitchen with several other people. All of us are science fans who volunteer with Straitwatch. We help biologists gather data about how whale-watching affects the local orcas. Over dinner, we chatted about the Cohen Commission that is gathering information on salmon.
Salmon are a big issue here in British Columbia! We Straitwatch volunteers knew that most of what resident killer whales eat is salmon. Humans like these oily fishes, too, locally and around the world. "In the last two decades, global consumption of salmon has risen from 27,000 tons to more than 1 million tons annually," noted McKay Jenkins in his book What’s Gotten Into Us? Staying Healthy In A Toxic World. That's a lot of salmon. And much of the salmon we eat comes from fish farms. "So, what is it about farmed salmon anyway?" one of the volunteers asked. "What's different about it?" He wondered why anyone could complain to the Cohen Commission about fish farms. After all, fish farms supply a lot of food. People need food. If a million tons of wild salmon were harvested every year, there might not be any wild salmon left to spawn in some rivers.

Part of the difference, we explained, is that the farmed salmon doesn't taste the same as wild salmon. Wild fish grow up eating a lot of small sealife, especially tiny invertebrates that look like shrimp. That's why salmon flesh is a pink or red colour. Farmed salmon are fed ground-up fish made into pellets. Without their natural food, the flesh of farmed salmon is more pale and less firm than wild salmon. The food pellets are very convenient for the fish farmers, but some people worry about what might be in the pellets. Pollution like heavy metals or industrial chemicals can build up in the food chain, affecting both fish and humans. "Farmed salmon turn out to have ‘significantly higher’ levels of flame retardants than wild fish, likely because they are fed ground-up fish that are themselves contaminated," McKay Jenkins observed.

Another difference that we notice here on the Pacific coast is that most of the farmed fish are Atlantic salmon, thousands of miles from the habitat where they evolved. These farmed salmon are raised in large nets, suspended in small ocean bays. The salmon in a farm don't have freedom to move about over a wide area and scatter their wastes. Under the farms, the muck piles up on the sea bottom. "Salmon farms are dangerous to wild salmon," wrote marine biologist Alexandra Morton on her website, "because they create a place where viruses, bacteria and parasites breed." Wild salmon migrating past the farms might get sick. The Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform promotes on their website the idea of farming salmon and other fish in closed containers, instead of enclosure nets in narrow sea inlets along the salmon migration routes.
Biologists are taking samples, and bringing their findings to the Cohen Commission. But this Royal commission gets different reports from every expert who testifies! The Norwegian companies building the salmon farms say the germs are no problem. Clam harvesters near salmon farms claim that the clam beds are affected. It won't be easy for the best laws to be written to protect wild salmon as well as support sustainable business development. At each city the commission visits, the public audiences get to see history being made.

Thetis Lake News Release

Hot off the presses -- we've just received a news release from the Capital Regional District (CRD) Parks that will be of interest to anyone who paddles in Thetis Lake this month. Here's the news about how we who use the lake can co-operate with the Salmon Enhancement Program, basically by not launching our kayaks at the main beach during a salmon fry release.

Media Advisory

For Immediate Release
April 28, 2011

Public Cooperation Sought as Students Release Salmon Fry into Thetis Lake

Victoria, BC – The Capital Regional District is requesting the public’s assistance and cooperation in treating the main beach area at Thetis Lake Regional Park as a quiet zone from
April 29 - May 31, 2011.

Fisheries and Ocean Canada has acquired a temporary permit allowing students to release
salmon fry from their classroom projects into Thetis Lake. This is due to the recent fuel spill in
Goldstream River, which damaged the fry’s home stream and compromised that watershed as
healthy habitat for aquatic organisms.

CRD Regional Parks is requesting that the public not disturb the waterfront area if a release is in
progress. Dog owners are requested to use a different beach when a release is underway, and
to keep dogs under control and away from the students and shore.

For further information, please contact:
Laurie Sthamann, Communicatio Coordinator
CRD Regional Parks
Tel: 250.360.3332 | cell: 250.889.8030
lsthamann@crd.bc.ca
www.crd.bc.ca/parks

Quoting Alexandra Morton

I was pleased to be able to attend the salmon rally in Centennial Square on Saturday May 8, and see the march to the legislature.

Alexandra Morton sent a note describing her journey to many correspondants -- here's an excerpt from it:

Once again it is up to us.
The Get Out Migration was a powerful and wildly successful effort. People in every town we passed through and on the road volunteered their time and expertise and the result is emergence of the people of the salmon, people who are strong, independent and understand the contribution of salmon in our lives, our future and our economy. The First Nation voice set the tone and eloquence - uniting, legendary and welcoming. People of all ages walked side-by-side to ensure a future where our children can thrive. We shut down one lane of highway 17 and the police kindly let us walk without traffic lights along Quadra and Government Streets. The Parliament lawns reportedly hold 20,000 people and looking out over the sea of people less than 1/3 of the lawn was visible.
And yet BC's two biggest newspapers mention there were only ---- "nearly 1000 people". This is so wrong in so many ways.
("Sea of people marches to fight fish farms," The Times Colonist, 9th May)
There is no mention of our First Nation families and friends and the number of people was five to ten times lower than reality. You can see video blogs of the Get Out Migration at salmonaresacred.org
alexadramorton.ca
Alexandra Morton