That TMLF Meeting Notes
September 18, 2013
Steering Committee:
Roy Howard
John Wilmshurst
Anna McIndoe
Dave Poulton
Ted Zimmerman
Project Managers and Technical Support:
Niki Wilson
Regrets:
Terry Antoniuk
Agenda:
Site 26
Site 66
Mile 9
Morris Creek
Kerkeslin
Yellowhead Brook Trout Project
Site 93
Buffalo Prairie Athabasca Rainbow Trout
Budget
1) Site 26
a) Site 26 is done!
b) Getting the work train was a surprise to everyone, including the guys that drive it!
c) A small blurb and photos will be posted on the website by Niki by the end of the week.
d) Mark La Ruez of Triton will prepare a post-construction report. Will have by year-end.
e) In the end, the construction team didn’t need an extra person, and the ballpark estimate Mark
gave us will be more than adequate. The original estimate for the project was $79,000, however
as CNR donated the work train and materials, the cost will be significantly lower – approximately
$50,000 or less. ACTION: Niki will confirm costs with Mark LaRuez, and find out if before pics
were taken immediately before the work began, or when Triton did the assessment.
f) Work was done with minimal damage to surrounding vegetation.
2) Site 66
a) Niki met with Mark LaRuez about site 66. He let her know that CNR has put money allocated for
66 toward another project for this year. CNR is not convinced that site 66 is worth doing, and the
fact that there were no fish captured upstream put doubt in their minds. The site does not
require high rail to access the site, and the work could be carried out by independent contractors.
b) Refresher: This project was rated 9 out of 11 overall. The Triton report says “the combined
project and Site 66-only project ranked as the second and third least preferred options of all the
candidates considered. Although high quality fish habitat was identified upstream, no fish were
captured despite the availability of perennial fish habitat. Since no fish were captured in
downstream (albeit lower quality) habitat either, it is likely the productive capacity of the
upstream habitat would be low should aquatic connectivity be restored.”
c) The Steering Committee decided to revisit during budget conversation.
d) ACTION ITEM: Niki will ask Mark for clarification on the ecological potential of site 66, and
whether it is worth doing, from his perspective (pros and cons).
3) Mile 9
a) North West Hydraulic Engineering Report completed.
b) Need to tender the construction contract immediately. Terry will hold the liability through his
company.
c) John says there are some people in the park right now that could do the project. John has their
contract information, and will forward to Niki.
d) ACTION: John will talk to Margo to obtain any guidelines or template material from her.
e) ACTION: Niki will work with John, Mark and Terry to ready the project to be done ASAP.
4) Morris Creek Projects
a) Niki had a meeting with Ward Hughson, JNP aquatic ecologist. He walked the length of the creek
along the culverts to assess habitat. Ecological recovery would amount to about 70 metres
maximum, if you fix the culvert furthest downstream, and opened up habitat to the second
(hanging) culvert. However, there is a significant natural rock-step barrier just upstream of the
lowest culvert. It’s very likely this prevents fish passage. If it does, the recovery amount is down
to 20 metres. It’s also likely that there are bedrock shelves providing further barriers upstream.
Ward can’t tell whether or not natural barriers would have rendered this area naturally fishless.
Conclusion: to get 500 m of nice habitat, it would require replacing all three culverts, and doing
quite a bit of in-stream work (like blasting out the barriers) to make the habitat usable. Ward
feels this is a high-risk project from an ecological perspective, when he is uncertain that fish ever
used that area. He recommends against the project.
b) The Steering Committee decided not to pursue this project further.
5) Kerkeslin
a) Niki spoke to Ward Hughson about a project to back water and rehabilitate the newly found
fourth culvert. Given just how secondary the route through the underpass would be, he is
uncertain as to why fish would follow this passage given their tendency to follow primary flows.
However, he is not convince that the smallest of the main three culverts couldn’t be backwatered
and rehabbed. He recommends against the fourth culvert project, but would support having
another look at a third culvert.
b) Niki spoke with Mark LaRuez of Triton again about backwatering the third culvert. He says it
really comes down to hydraulics, and feels that the flows already use up a lot of culvert space in
the spring. He suggests that when we do the Mile 9 project, we have the NHC engineers pop over
to the Kerkeslin site to evaluate the third culvert (they already have the data for the fourth). If
engineering reports on the third culvert suggest a project can be done without alterations to the
highway, then the Steering Committee will need to decide whether or not they want to pursue it.
c) Refresher: Kerkeslin was ranked number 2 on the list of projects proposed by Triton. “Sampling
that occurred in association with the detailed level surveys (Triton 2011) identified Kerkeslin
Creek as the most productive stream out of all the project waterbodies considered. Bull Trout
were the only species captured, but were present at a density of 8.3 fish/100 seconds of
electrofishing effort downstream of the crossing and 10.6 fish/100 seconds of effort upstream in
high quality habitat.”
d) John suggested it would have to be a pretty deep backwater to wipe out the pipe, and it seems
e)
f)
reasonable to have the engineers look at it once more.
Action – Niki will work with Mark to set up an engineering consult. Niki will send cost estimate
from Engineers to Committee to do approval.
The Steering Committee decided to pursue getting an engineer to provide a quote to assess
hydraulics of the third, smaller culvert. Ideally, the engineer would be here on other work (like
Mile 9) to help minimize costs.
6) Yellowhead Brook Trout Project
a) Anna says the details of the project have not been confirmed enough to bring any info to the
steering committee at this point. She would like to see how the planning goes this winter and
bring it to the SC when we have a confirmed need for funding. Anna will clarify as details emerge.
7) Site 93
a) Project potentially worth considering.
b) Triton report says:
i) Although this crossing had the lowest FBS rank among the cross section of opportunities and
the least amount of available habitat upstream, it also has the lowest associated cost making
it the fifth overall option in the priority-ranking matrix. The structure is located on an
unserviced road that has become overgrown, and it is unclear who owns it. However, half of
the fill material has begun to slump into the creek making it an unnatural sediment source.
Several fish species have been documented to use this stream including Mountain Whitefish
(Triton 2011), Rainbow Trout and Bull Trout (Applied Aquatic Research Ltd. [AAR] 2007). As
such, it is recommended the crossing be deactivated. Located 30 minutes (35 km) from
Jasper, ~1 hour 10 minutes (85 km) from Valemount, or ~1 hour 40 minutes (128 km) east of
McBride, this would be a relatively easy project to complete since the construction approach
would be straight forward and there is limited risk the project objectives would not be met.
c) Niki spoke with Mark LaRuez about this site. He says that although not particularly glamorous,
this site is an easy fix: an excavater could be walked in along an abandoned road, the old wooden
structure obstructing the culvert removed. A little in stream work would be required, and then it
would be done.
d) Cost in Triton report estimated at $33,405.00.
e) ACTION: Niki will contact Mark LaRuez and ask him to clarify the sediment risk. Is there any way
to measure how much the sediment source is. What is Mark’s opinion. Is this a project to
improve what is downstream, as opposed to projects that remove barriers and increase
connectivity? Are we getting enough habitat quality for the cost?
f) The Steering Committee decided to revisit this project next meeting after Niki collects more
information.
8) Buffalo Prairie Athabasca Rainbow Trout Project
a) The only remaining population of genetically pure Athabasca Rainbow trout exist in the stream
through Buffalo Prairie.
b) Ward Hughson is writing a recovery strategy with a provincial team for the project. At this point
it is not a restoration project, but they do need to gather baseline data. E.g. When do they
spawn? Where do they spawn?
c) Its part of a provincial recovery strategy, but there isn’t provincial funding associated with this
particular species.
d) This project could use funding. Niki wonders if, because it’s a species of concern, it won’t get
adequate funding from the government?
e) The Steering Committee decided that this project was out of scope at the moment, but might be
worth considering down the road should the scope of the project change.
9) Expanding the project scope of the TMLF committee
a) The group discussed visiting projects outside the scope of on-the-ground aquatic connectivity
projects
b) The group wants to set up a meeting in the near future about how we go forward.
c) Anna wondered if there were any restrictions on putting out a call for proposals to TMLF SC
contacts to see if any projects come forward?
d) John suggested that we re-read the Triton initial report. Are there other things we’ve overlooked.
e) ACTION: SC members and Niki will re-read the report, and make sure we’ve completely
exhausted all of options presented by Triton. Niki will summarize the process to date, including
what projects have been considered, and why the SC has moved on from them.
10) Budget
a) At the last meeting, Niki and Terry said they would factor new projects into a budget projection
to help the SC make decisions. Since no estimates have been submitted, or projects have been
dropped or altered, we were unable to do this at this time.
b) ACTION: Niki and Terry will produce a budget regardless of future projects for the next meeting.
11) Next Meeting
a) Wednesday, November 6th, 1:00pm PST, 2:00 MST.