Endangered Rivers

Page 33

Two environmental groups-EarthWild International and Wildcanada.net-released a report in July naming Canada's 10 most endangered rivers.

Rivers were assessed according to two main criteria, said Stephen Legault, executive director of Wildcanada.net, based in Canmore, Alta. The level of threat and the "national significance" of the river.

A reoccurring theme raised by nearly everyone who spoke to Windspeaker about these rivers was succinctly stated by David Mackinnon of the Transboundary Watershed Alliance. He said there has been "piecemeal development" of ecologically important areas with "no thought to meaningful management to sustain ecological and river resources."

At the top of the endangered river list is the Petitcodiac River, which runs through the small Fort Folly reserve in New Brunswick. A causeway built in 1968 grossly interfered with the river's flow.

Once 1.6 km wide, the river has shrunk to 80 metres in width. Its former two-metre-high tidal bore has shrunk to a ripple.

The Eastmain River in northern Quebec flows 756 km east to west, parallel to another major river, the Rupert, situated 100 km north. Both rivers empty into James Bay, with a 46,400 square km drainage basin.

The eastern United States wants hydroelectric power. Hydro Quebec and industrialists aim to dam the Eastmain and Rupert rivers to meet that demand. Ninety-two per cent of the Eastmain River's flow has already been diverted into the La Grande River.

The Cree of Chisasibi are the only northern Cree band to oppose the Eastmain project. They want stricter regulations and a commitment from government to pursue alternative energy sources.

The Okanagan River flows from Okanagan Lake 314 km south to the Columbia River, passing through Canada's only true desert.

Diversion of water to sustain the Okanagan Valley's fruit and wine industries, and urban population pressure is to blame for the loss of most species of salmon of the river.

Tied for the number four spot on the endangered rivers list, the Taku and Iskut rivers in northwest British Columbia are in still largely pristine areas, but threatened by mining and oil and gas development.

The Taku watershed, with seven biogeoclimatic zones, is the largest undeveloped and unprotected watershed on the Pacific shore of North America and one of the most important salmon producing rivers in the transboundary region with Alaska. It's also the home of the Taku River Tlingit who rely on the river for sustenance and who now participate in ecotourism and a commercial wild salmon fishery. That river is threatened by a controversial decision by the provincial government to allow operation of the existing and once abandoned Tulsequah Chief mine despite a recent court decision against it. It is feared if the mine goes ahead, a 160 km access road will enable further mine exploration and contamination of the waterway.

The Iskut River flows southwest 240 km from the village of Iskut to the Stikine River near the Alaska/British Columbia border. The river supports all five species of Pacific salmon, which are the mainstay of the Tahltan First Nation's fishery.

Yet the Iskut River faces threats from jurisdictional disputes over regulation, fish farms, over-harvesting of wild salmon, roads, dams, power generation plants, mining and logging. So far a lack of road access has limited commercial timber harvesting, but the incursion of a proposed transboundary road will make it easier to harvest timber, mine and create infrastructure.

The Groundhog River, with headwaters 100 km southwest of Timmins in Ontario, drains north into James Bay. It supports sturgeon and brook trout feeder streams, and it flows through a recently declared conservation reserve protecting claybelt ecosystems.

The Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources may amend the provincial land use strategy to allow mining giant Falconbridge Limited to build a trench carrying treated wastewater to the river. Falconbridge may also access the Goundhog through its own property at Six Mile Rapids, regardless of whether it obtains the other easement.

The Milk River passes through 160 km of southern Alberta and feeds some of the most geologically and biologically diverse grasslands in North America. Drought, pollution, urban sprawl, off-road vehicle use, increasing water extraction and the likelihood of dams means the fragile ecosystem around the Milk River may soon be flooded in the absence of protective legislation. Alberta Environment is studying a proposal to dam it, which would also interfere with the spring floods that bring silt deposits to renew the few remaining cottonwood forests.

The Blood Tribe band office referred Windspeaker to Narcisse Blood. "We've been quite concerned with the consequences of so-called technology that is trumped up and really benefits very few people," Blood said. As for fishing in the Milk River, "Right now, I simply don't trust it ... After all these years of farming in our area, and all the chemicals that they use, they all end up in the river system."

Asked whether the tribe has an active environmental portfolio he said, "Well, I suppose we sure could use one. As long as we maintain our language and our ceremonies it's almost like we don't need one, but now that things are happening so fast, we have to start looking at those kind of issues."

Blood said the tribe would like to take back ownership of their land, which currently is "mostly leased out. We have a lands department that is funded by Indian Affairs, and it is very narrow what they allow us to do, but I know our committee and our director of lands ... said we have to take on that role and really police the farming practices."

The Peel River watershed covers 14 per cent of Yukon Territory and some of the Northwest Territories. The Yukon's largest herd of woodland caribou inhabit it.

The Tetl'it Gwich'in First Nation in the Northwest Territories and the Nacho Nyak Dun in the Yukon live here too. But developer are eyeing oil and gas and mining prospects anew now that the Mackenzie Valley pipeline project is nearly assured.

Elaine Alexie of the Tetl'it Gwich'in First Nation in Fort MacPherson, has completed her third year of environmental science studies at the University College of the Caribou in Kamloops, B.C. She is also contracted to the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, a non-profit conservation organization.

"I'm really concerned," she said, that industrial proposals and projects are being designed and negotiated "primarily with the Yukon government" without notification and involvement of the affected First Nations.

"We're downstream from these major industrial projects. Particularly they want to build three major coal bed methane strip mines." Also a steel-making plant to create steel for the proposed Mackenzie Valley pipeline in the Northwest Territories, near the headwaters of three major rivers that create the Peel.

Alexie said these projects jeopardize the Porcupine Caribou herd they depend upon and the many summer fish camps and hunting camps on the Peel. She calls it a "subsistance rights issue" and a health issue.

She said First Nations should be talking about the positive aspects of economic development such as ecotourism and "how we could regulate the amount of impact within an area. Also another great economic development strategy is to start thinking about renewable sources of energy, using the land, the environment, to provide energy that won't harm our way of life. Like solar energy, wind energy, small hydro-electric energy ... instead of oil, gas, or any type of mining extraction."

James Andre, a councillor on the Tetl'it Gwich'in Council for Renewable Resources said they had a gathering of 97 Elders and youth in July who met at the mouth of the Snake river to greet paddlers of the Wind, Snake and Bonnetplume rivers, which flow into the Peel. The paddlers were in part there to draw attention to threatened ecosystems in the areas of proposd development.

Andre also has issues with the Yukon government, which he said is opening up land for exploration without consultation with First Nations and without a land use plan in place. "Anything that happens in Yukon affects us."

The 880-km Red River flows from North Dakota and Minnesota in the United States north to Lake Winnipeg in Manitoba. The 290,000 square km watershed includes the Assiniboine River basin.

The Red River is threatened by sewage effluent, expanding hog farming operations, and wetland drainage that affects flood patterns. Contaminated ground water from the river is polluting Lake Winnipeg.

To offset flooding in North Dakota, the Americans want to divert water from the Missouri River basin to the Red River basin.

Gordon Kern, who is attached to the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs' Youth Secretariat and is working to raise environmental awareness among their youth, identified 11 reserves located within the Red River and Assiniboine River regions affected.

"Our treaty rights (to hunt, fish and trap) as First Nation people are being impacted by the current state of the Red River. These inherent rights are also endangered, which directly relates to the health of our environments."

Rivers fed by the Red River also "have been labeled unsafe for swimming and human consumption."

The Youth Secretariat, he said, has been working "towards identifying and addressing these areas of concern through the education of our youth in Manitoba," but they lack funding.

The 853 km-long, lake-fed Churchill River, known as the Grand River to people of Labrador, has another hydroelectric generating station planned for it. The reservoir will destroy a million hectares of boreal forest.

The proposed development has divided the Innu Nation along the lines of who is prioritizing jobs and who is prioritizing resource protection, according to Todd Russell, president of the 6,000 member Labrador Metis Nation. He said that although the Innu government and Newfoundlan