Bow River Shuttles

Thursday, May 17, 2012

How could we think otherwise?

Jeff Surtess

Trout Unlimited Canada (TUC) was asked to make a submission to the House of Commons Standing Committee on the Environment regarding the creation of a National Conservation Plan for Canada.

CEO Jeff Surtees (right) appeared before the committee in Vancouver on Wednesday May 15, 2012.

For additional information and to view a copy of Jeff's speaking notes please visit the Newsroom section of the TUC website.

Although Jeff's presentation was directed to the topic of a National Conservation Plan for Canada, Jeff found it necessary to mention TUC's concerns regarding proposed changes to the fisheries act (Bill C-38).

Here are some of those comments:

Question 5 – What should be the implementation priorities of a National Conservation Plan?

17. In light of the budget bill, Bill C-38, currently before Parliament, this question proved very difficult for us. After a great deal of thought and discussion we concluded there are currently too many uncertainties to answer the question.

18. Mr. Chairman, you have told us this morning that we are to stick to the topic at hand, the development of a National Conservation Plan, that we are not to get into the legislative changes that are proposed. But whether you like it or not, these things are all connected.

19. In the natural environment, everything is connected to everything else. To have any lasting effect, to make a difference in the environment, all actions must be consistent. You always want to start at the top of a watershed and work down, because water and problems flow downhill.

20. So when we are asked for recommendations about implementation priorities to be included in a National Conservation Plan for Canada, we are forced to take into consideration the legislative changes that are being proposed. .

21. As I said at the start, Trout Unlimited Canada is an action oriented organization. We try to work cooperatively. We will, ultimately, learn to work within whatever legislative and regulatory framework our elected representatives put in place. Subject to our funding constraints we will always offer our expertise and our assistance to help.

22. Under the existing legislation if any activity causes harmful alteration, disruption or destruction of fish habitat, an environmental assessment would be triggered. Under the new legislation, our understanding is that will not necessarily be the case. A lot depends upon what is included in the regulations, which are not yet written. So we can’t answer the question.

23. We support improvements to regulatory efficiency so long as the conservation outcomes are not compromised. When considering the amendments to the legislation within Bill C-38, we acknowledge that the increased penalties and the new provisions related to invasive species are positive steps. But we view some of the changes that are being made as steps backwards. We are firmly of the view that destruction or alteration of any real fish habitat should always trigger an environmental assessment. Protection of fish habitat is the reason our organization exists. How could we think otherwise?

Looking back along the Bow River - Season 2011

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Today along the Bow River - May 2012

Environmental Roundtable on Water Issues – A Look Back

Brian Meagher. Photo, courtesy TUC

On May 2nd, The Federation of Calgary Communities and Calgary River Valleys, supported by Encana, presented its fourth event on water issues.

One of four presentations was “The Importance of the ‘Blue Ribbon Fishery’ to Recreation and Tourism in Calgary”, by Brian Meagher, Trout Unlimited Canada.

Brian has both a diploma in Fish and Wildlife Technology and a B.Sc. in Environmental Biology. He is a registered member of the Alberta Society of Professional Biologists and a member of the American Fisheries Society, as well as currently sitting on the board of CRV. He has worked as the provincial biologist for TUC for the past 8 years working on projects throughout southern Alberta and British Columbia. He is also an avid fly fisherman who gets out as often as possible to enjoy nature and all that this province has to offer.

You can view Brian’s presentation here.

You can find the other three presentations here.

Conviction under [proposed] Fisheries Act “difficult if not impossible”

PM warned amendments to Fisheries Act threaten communities, B.C.

Watering down of the law poses a risk to fish and fish habitat

By Peter O'Neil

Edmonton Journal

May 14, 2012

OTTAWA — A new front in the battle against the federal government’s omnibus budget bill opened Monday when B.C. Conservative Party Leader John Cummins sent a letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper warning of major threats to fishing communities and the environment if major Fisheries Act amendments are passed.

Cummins expressed concerns about the weakening of fisheries habitat provisions and warned that commercial and sports fishing communities across Canada could be squeezed out by First Nations fisheries due to new wording in Bill C-38.

Cummins, a former federal Tory MP and commercial fisherman who, like Harper, was elected as a Reformer in 1993, also suggested that British Columbians view the amendments as a way to help remove regulatory burdens on projects like Calgary-based Enbridge Inc.’s $5.5-billion Northern Gateway oilsands pipeline.

“Public perception is that this amendment is being proposed to ease the passage of certain mega-projects through the environmental review process,” Cummins, a supporter of the Enbridge project, wrote in a letter provided to The Vancouver Sun.

He said there is a “consensus” in B.C. fishing communities that a conviction under the Fisheries Act, considered by some organizations to be Canada’s most powerful environmental legislative tool, would be “difficult if not impossible” if Harper’s amendments are passed.

Cummins’ intervention adds to public concerns on the West Coast that extend beyond environmentalists, scientists and left-of-centre parties. Former federal Tory fisheries ministers John Fraser and Tom Siddon have also condemned Harper’s amendments.

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Today along the Bow River - May 2012

Eco-fascists and fishery value

The following is an excerpt from an article published today in the Chilliwack Progress. Up to this point, I did not understand what was meant by farmers, fish and 'ditches', in relation to the proposed changes to the fisheries act in Bill C-38.

By Robert Freeman

Chilliwack Progress

Published: May 15, 2012

Marvin Rosenau, a vocal fisheries critic, said he wasn’t surprised by Strahl’s one-sided roundtable meeting.

“Mark Strahl is leading the charge of eco-fascists intent on making the last dime off the backs of the last remnants of an absolutely spectacular eco-system,” he charged.

Rosenau, a former provincial biologist and now a fisheries instructor at BCIT, said an “extremely good” inventory has been collected on the ditches that farmers claim hold no fishery value.

“We know what goes on in those so-called non fish habitat ditches,” he said. “Essentially, what these farmers are doing is industrializing the landscape.”

He said some of the “engineered” ditches “are simply coho streams re-arranged for irrigation.”

“A massive and productive floodplain of fish and aquatic values ... has been drained, ditched, tiled and laser-levelled for agricultural profit,” he said.

“All we’ve got left is a tiny fraction of the vast schools of coho that once thrived in the floodplains of the Fraser River,” he said.

Read the full article here

Looking back along the Bow River - Season 2011

Monday, May 14, 2012

Today along the Bow River - May 2012

Looking back along the Bow River - Season 2011

Sunday, May 13, 2012

Today along the Bow River - May 2012

Green issues threaten to give Harper a black eye

Barbara Yaffe

Green issues threaten to give Harper a black eye

Barbara Yaffe,

Calgary Herald

Saturday, May 12, 2012

While the Harper team has worked hard to keep hot-potato items such as gay marriage and abortion off its agenda, it now has a new policy nemesis: the environment.

As Conservatives move to implement their jobsand-growth plan, they've predictably attracted significant blowback from environmentalists.

And activism by greenminded groups protesting giant resource-related projects such as Alberta's oilsands and the Northern Gateway pipeline in turn has prompted the government to introduce legislation and regulations in a bid to restrict the activists' effectiveness.

The yin-yang interplay catapulted the environment into the forefront in Ottawa this week, as opposition parties lined up to condemn a 420-page omnibus budget bill, brimming - inappropriately, they contend - with environmental provisions.

And in the midst of that fuss, federal environment commissioner Scott Vaughan released a report slamming Conservative inaction on climate change policy. The report also notes Ottawa is facing a $7.7-billion bill for the cleanup of some 13,000 contaminated federal sites such as abandoned mines and military installations.

The environment is a tricky issue and the Harper Conservatives are getting on the wrong side of it.

Looking back along the Bow River - Season 2011

Saturday, May 12, 2012

Today along the Bow River - May 2012

Trevor Greene: From one battlefield to another

Trevor Green in an Afghan village two days before he was wounded. (March 2, 2006)

RICK MADONIK/TORONTO STAR

From one battlefield to another

by Trevor Greene

the Star

Sat May 12 2012

Every generation updates and renews the values that make us who we are. I once found it hard to truly understand what those in my grandfather’s generation meant when they spoke of making the ultimate sacrifice in wartime to allow their loved ones back home to live in a democracy.

Until, that is, I myself almost lost it all in a remote village in Afghanistan on behalf of the values that make us Canadian, values that I now see as under threat not by a foreign force, but by a domestic one.

Compared with others who did make the ultimate sacrifice in Afghanistan, like my friend Bill Turner, who took my place in the field, my story has been well publicized.

On March 4, 2006, I was part of the 1st Battalion PPCLI battle group in the tiny village of Shinkay, when during a meeting with local elders to discuss their needs for water, housing and education, an insurgent sneaked up behind our group and buried a crude axe in my skull.

Unconscious, I was taken to the base hospital in Kandahar, where I was stabilized for the flight to a U.S.-run hospital in Germany. Fast forward through 10 hospitals and today I am back living in Canada with the goal of proving wrong those doctors who said that I’d never walk again.

Every morning, I also wake up and count my blessings, as we all should, that I get to spend another day with loved ones. My wife Debbie has stood beside me like a rock, and my young daughter keeps giving me that jolt of energy that only kids can give their parents, and I need it more than most. We now have a son on the way.

Frequently, however, the newspapers bring clouds to my day. The Canada I went overseas to fight for was a tolerant and open society, always striving to do the right thing, and to bring to the world a sense that tomorrow can be better than today.

Today, though, the government in Ottawa seems to want to throw all that out the window. Stephen Harper’s vision of Canada seems to begin, and end, in the tarsands, and everything else be damned. Tolerance is redefined as applying only to anyone who agrees with that vision. Everyone else is “radical,” an “extremist,” or even included in his government’s new program battling terrorism.

This is an insult to those of us who have fought, and sacrificed for our country, against real radicals, real extremists and real terrorists.

Monday May 07, 2012

McKinnon Flats to Carseland

I had one hit on a copper leech with some flash in the tail, the river was very muddy. I could hear silt washing against the bottom of the boat very often .

I saw 3-5 fish rise for some emerging caddis but very little action on top of the water, all the fish I saw rise were small and holding in large pools of very still water.

I think that the only fish I saw rise were at the bow river resort island. the water was a little clearer at some of the big gravel bars but only because of the depth I think.

THANKS TO RYAN M. FOR THIS FISHING REPORT.

Looking back along the Bow River - Season 2011

Friday, May 11, 2012

Today along the Bow River - May 2012

Bow River Fishing Report - from May 06 2012

Sunday May 06 2012

Glenmore Trail to Policeman’s Flats

We had a pretty decent float. A little windy at times, but manageable.

Conditions.

Mostly sunny, 13 degrees C

Visibility poor, 2 feet at Glenmore launch, less than 1 foot below Fish Creek confluence

River flow 86 m3/s, down from 101 m3/s on Saturday

Fished mainly with streamers, some nymphing, but no real success with either method.

Hatch. Prolific mid afternoon BWO mayfly hatch, a very few rising fish near the Southland dog park.

So no fish to the boat, lots of shore fishermen, who didn't appear to be having much success either. Thanks for the shuttle.

THANKS TO RICK M. FOR THIS FISHING REPORT

Adversaries of the Government?

Adversaries of the Government?

Environmental groups provide a great service to citizens

A message from Pat Letizia, Executive Director, Alberta Ecotrust

In the 20 years that Alberta Ecotrust has been supporting environmental nonprofit groups in Alberta, we have only seen an honest effort among our grantees to protect the public good by investing in environmental conservation and protection. Albertans have said over and over that the environment is important to them and the corporate and ENGO partners of this Foundation have worked hard to break down barriers and jointly invest in community-based environmental action. From education and awareness campaigns, remediation and reclamation projects, multi-stakeholder efforts to protect land and water, to policy development - Alberta environmental organizations work hard with very limited resources to ensure that Alberta's natural heritage is considered and protected when necessary as our economy and industrial development grows. Thus it is difficult to stand by and watch what is happening on the national landscape of political rhetoric and government finger-pointing.

Since the launch of Ethical Oil's campaign against environmental charities on January 2 of this year and the open letter one week later from Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver echoing that organization's position that environmental organizations are "threatening to highjack our regulatory system to achieve their radical ideological agenda," there has been a growing backlash against this type of characterization. Last week's unsupported assertion by Environment Minister Peter Kent that some environmental charities are laundering money from offshore interests - suggesting criminal activity - has the charitable sector in Canada increasingly alarmed.

Also, given that the new budget omnibus Bill-C38 devotes 150 of 400 pages to environmental regulation that repeals the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act and diminishes the Fisheries Act, the Species at Risk Act and the National Energy Board Act to apparently expedite development and reduce delays, it is no wonder that environmental charities and their funders and donors are feeling frustrated; singled out as potential "adversaries" of the government in a country renowned for its tolerance and democratic rights and freedoms. At a time when it is more important than ever for charities to continue working on solutions with industry and government, there is a sense that the sector is in someone's way. Big time.

So, the sector is speaking out. Imagine Canada recently sent an open letter to Minister Kent and Prime Minister Harper. The Philanthropic Foundations of Canada have prepared a statement of position [PDF] on the funding of political activities of charities and the Canadian Environmental Grantmaker's Network recently submitted a letter to the Finance Committee. The sector opinion seems to be that this is an attack on democracy and the important role that all charities play in Canadian Society.

We believe that all sectors should be respected as strategic partners on environmental solutions and that community-based environmental action is critically important - whether it is public awareness on alternative transportation, a creek clean-up or a legitimate protest that expresses concerns about the environmental impacts of a major industrial project. If you agree with us, please consider showing your support for a local environmental group by volunteering or donating a few dollars to them, or speak up by writing a letter to your MP, the Ministers of Natural Resources and Environment or your local newspaper and telling them how you feel about what's going on.

LINK: Alberta Ecotrust

Looking back along the Bow River - Season 2011

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Today along the Bow River - May 2012

Pelican hangin' with his bud, the cormorant, at Mac today

On 22X, heading home from Mac.

Fly Fishing Photogs - Listen Up!

Getty Images wants your best shots

Photo service seeks top 10 photos of Canada

Lee Rickwood

Whatsyourtech.ca

Calgary Herald

Tuesday, May 08, 2012

Anyone with a camera - doesn't matter what kind - can participate in a unique photographic contest that's looking for images that say "Canada!"

Getty Images, the world-famous image bank, and Flicker, the popular photo sharing service, want to see them.

Now through May 19, they're inviting Canadians to get into the this is Canada photo contest (www.showusyourcanada.ca), and send in up to 10 of their best images that look at everyday life here, that convey a visual definition of our country.

Getty Images (www.gettyimages.ca), its partnership with Flicker (www.flickr.com) are offering photo enthusiasts a chance to not only win some great prizes, but have their photos shown and sold around the world.

Since launching the Flickr Collection on Getty Images, all sorts of images have been licensed, all taken by Canadian contributors.

"The Flickr Collection empowers a global community of photographers to license authentic and regional imagery from around the world," said Andrew Delaney, Director of Creative Content for Getty Images. "this is Canada (www.showusyourcanada.ca) celebrates uniquely Canadian images, and plays an important part in fostering photographic talent in this country."

Read more here

The Adventure for a Pothole Brown

A short from HomeWaters Fly Fishing

Bow River Fishing Report - from May 04 2012 (3rd)

Photo, courtesy Mat D.

Friday May 04 2012

5pm - 9:30pm

22X to Policeman's Flats

On Friday it was just two of us; my buddy Andrew and I. It was only Andrew's third time fly fishing and his first time ever floating the bow.

I found the fishing to be average or a little slower than average for this time of year. Fish Creek was quite dirty coming in and the water downstream had about 18 inches to 2 feet of visibility depending on the side of the river.

All hookups occurred in larger, deeper features, it seemed most fish were still in and around their wintering holes. We had five good hookups and three fish to hand.

Dark streamers and red wire (San Juan) worms were most productive for us.

Photo, courtesy Mat D

Two of the three fish to hand were scarred up heavily around their mouths and had scales missing and some old scars on their bodies, reminding us that we all need to be as gentle as possible with these fish to ensure they survive to be caught and to spawn many times again.

Of the fish to hand, two were rainbows and one was a brown. Of the two rainbows caught, one was clearly spawned out.

Overall it was a great first day of 2012 on the river for us!

The first two pictures are of Andrew with his first ever Bow River brown (about 22") and his first ever Bow River rainbow (about 19'')

Thanks a lot for the Shuttle Michelle!

THANK YOU TO MAT D. FOR THIS FISHING REPORT AND PHOTOS

Photo, courtesy Mat D

Looking back along the Bow River - Season 2011

In past years, this was pasture land, with small bushes and trees, that housed bee hives every summer. Last year, it was turned in to a fuel storage depot. No more bees. The price of progress.
On the road between McKinnon Flats and Legacy Island.
Photo: Copyright © Bow River Shuttles All Rights Reserved. 2012