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[Matt]

BC's most productive steelhead rearing ground is being seriously threatened by the development project Garibaldi at Squamish.  Basically the development will be straddling the creek and its bridges will impede fish traffic during the day (this is a small creek), runoff from the development flowing into the creek and water draw-off for a multi-thousand person development from a creek that you could wade across at its deepest point and not get your knees wet.  Basically, if this development goes in, my understanding is that Cheak steelhead are toast, no more, gone for good.  The Cheakamus' steelhead have already been jeopardized by the CN train sodium hydroxide spill, losing Brohm Creek would be the nail in the coffin.

There's an informational meeting about Garibaldi at Squamish on Monday in Squamish, I'd really like if I could convince some of you guys to show up.  If you've fished and enjoyed the Cheakamus River, the Squamish River Valley, or even don't like seeing big developments wipe out in a couple months what came to be over tens of thousands of years, the you owe it to yourself to inform yourself about Garibaldi at Squamish.

Old news clip, but the same issue, just more urgent now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxVhvasxOis

Facebook event:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=107833665920652&index=1

[Matt]

Here's a short summary of the notes I made tonight at the Garibaldi At Squamish public info meeting.  I went to this meeting chiefly interested in the outcome for Cheakamus steelhead.  Suffice it to say that even in the event that Cheak steelhead were not at risk of being impacted, this still would be a major concern due to negative economic implications for Squamish and the environmental destruction.

Brohm Ridge/ Garibaldi At Squamish development

• 22,000 bed units planned in 5700 houses (this will effectively double the population of Squamish)
• 100km or road put in over rocky geologically unstable terrain (tax burden to maintain road will be placed on Squamish residents)
• three 40-50m high dams to catch water during the freshet on Brohm to be installed in a seimically-active unstable slope (having been injured to one Sea-to-Sky corridor rockslide, I think this may not be the best of plans)
• water usage estimated using 200L daily water allowance (400L is the average amount used per person in the real world)
• no allowance for water used in fire suppression 
• 17 at risk species are threatened by this including G bears, goats, Cheak steelhead

Threat to Brohm Creek

• water will be collected in dams during the freshet and stored for use to make snow and supply water to GAS year round
• computer flow modeling predict that GAS will draw more than is needed to maintain a minimal flow of water once every 6 years during a low water year.
• Brohm creek produces porportionally 3-5x more steelhead than any other creek in BC due to ideal phosphorus content
• Cheak steelhead are frequently repeat spawners due to their large size leaving the Cheak due to their stay in Brohm Creek.
• 90% of "Cheak" steelhead smolts survived the CN spill (actually??) because they were harbouring in Brohm Creek at the time of the spill  --> gives some perspective as to the importance of Brohm to Cheak steelhead
• sewage will be treated then dumped into Chekeye Creek (considering how small Chekeye Creek is, that porportionally a huge amount of sewage)
• fertilizer from golf courses will runoff into Brohm Creek

Urban Sprawl
Squamish, in order to be sustainable, needs to densify.  The preferred area to expand into is the waterfront (hopefully consideration is given for the estuary, but that's another matter).  Urban sprawl means more reliance on automobiles, more roads to maintain and plow.  Building a community halfway up Brohm Ridge will increase urban sprawl and be unsustainable financially and environmentally.

Threat to Squamish tax-payers

• economic viability of the project not demonstrated by GAS
• Brohm Ridge will have to be financed by the community of Squamish, thus there is inherant risk to tax payers
• jobs created in Squamish will be partially filled by people from out of town and wont benefit residents
• in order to attract workers, GAS will need to provide higher wages, thus, to keep workers, other businesses will have to pay employees more--> bad for small business
• loss of outdoor tourism due to visible environmental destruciton at Brohm Ridge (ie: steelhead fishing in Cheak impacted, dirt bikers, ATVers, snowmobilers, hikers, mountain bikers in Squamish area will be displaced leading to crowing in other areas in the Squamish Valley
• no documentation is being released to show feasibility

Reasons GAS is risky economically

• limited potential as a ski resort due to weather conditions similar to Cypress mountain
• wouldn't be able to compete with Whistler for quality of skiing experience when Whistler is only 30 minutes away
• ski resort users have plateaued- in order to be successful, GAS would need to syphon skiers from Cypress  (closer to Vancouver) and Whistler (much better skiing)
• Brohm ridge has been rejected many times by developers because of poor weather and unsuitability as a ski resort, nothing has changed about the ridge to make it any better, in fact, climate change is only making it less suitable

First Nations concerns

• loss of fishing, trapping, hunting and culturally significant land

Impressions
It seemed to me like the promise of a 25-lift ski resort and two golf courses is a carrot being dangled to allow developers to pay minimal sum for the purchase of the land in order to build a duplicate of Whistler, but in a warmer, rainier climate at large financial cost to Squamish tax-payers, the environment, First Nations peoples, recreationists etc.

[chris gadsden]

Thanks for this Matt and your excellent summary of the meeting.

It seems issues like this never seem to go away and our environment is threatened more and more every year.

When will we as a society understand bigger is not always better.

[Rodney]

Thanks Matt. Good summary, the only item that I question is, is it 90% of juvenile steelhead survived the Cheakamus spill, or 90% of the survived juvenile steelhead from the Cheakamus spill?

It seems rather unbelievably high if 90% of the juvenile steelhead indeed survived the cheakamus spill and the returns have not reflected that survival. Either way, it demonstrates how crucial brohm Creek is to the Cheakamus steelhead density and diversity.

[jon5hill]

Thanks Matt. Good summary, the only item that I question is, is it 90% of juvenile steelhead survived the Cheakamus spill, or 90% of the survived juvenile steelhead from the Cheakamus spill?

It seems rather unbelievably high if 90% of the juvenile steelhead indeed survived the cheakamus spill and the returns have not reflected that survival. Either way, it demonstrates how crucial brohm Creek is to the Cheakamus steelhead density and diversity.

Fish counts are insanely inaccurate. Even the best data can only quantify with around 40% confidence. I love where they come up with these numbers, some of it is just absolute hog wash.

[Matt]

Thanks Matt. Good summary, the only item that I question is, is it 90% of juvenile steelhead survived the Cheakamus spill, or 90% of the survived juvenile steelhead from the Cheakamus spill?

It seems rather unbelievably high if 90% of the juvenile steelhead indeed survived the cheakamus spill and the returns have not reflected that survival. Either way, it demonstrates how crucial brohm Creek is to the Cheakamus steelhead density and diversity.

That's what I have written in my notes as a quote from Brian Niska, it seemed far reached to me as well, but I believe that to be what he said.

What were to take away from that is that Brohm for critical to Cheak steelhead juvies.

[bkk]

No I'm afraid the note takeing was incorrect. In fact 90% of the juvenile fish in the Cheakamus River died because of the CN Caustic Soda spill. The chief impacted return years for steelhead are in 2009, 2010 and 2011. In 2009, the aggregate escapement to the Cheakamus system was 237 fish, of which 76 and 161 were wild and hatchery in origin, respectively . We estimated that a total of 57 adults spawned in Brohm River in 2009.  This info is from the Cheakamus River Steelhead Juvenile and Adult Abundance Fall 2008 – Spring 2009 Final Report Prepared for BC Hydro. Brohmn Creek escapement was generated by redd counts. There is a resitivity counter being placed in the stream for this years run and this should give a better idea what uses the creek. In 2009, Brohm supported about 25% of the total Cheakamus population and about 50% of the total wild escapement.

 As a Squamish local, I also was at the meeting on Monday night. This meeting was sponsored by the people opposed to GAS so there were not many supporters of the project there but there were 3 people there from the developer. They did not take questions and answers but did take notes ( they were sitting directly in front of me). In my opinion there was no new info presented at this meeting that I was not aware of. This project will have a huge impact on this area so it was a good way for Joe public to understand the scope of this project. This is a land developement project first, ski resort second. Very high risk for the environment as well as the taxpayers of Squamish. Developer has close ties to the Liberals so you can guess what I think will happen.

[Matt]

^ thanks for the correction.  Perhaps what was meant by Niska's statement was that 90% of the Cheak stock survivors were from Brohm Creek.  That sounds more accurate.

[Matt]

Brian Niska addressed this in a post on FlyBC:

[quote name='Whistler' date='Apr 14 2010, 01:45 AM' post='260030']
My intended point was that the Cheakamus river enjoys a high percentage of repeat spawners and that the Brohm is the most productive of Cheakamus tribs delivering a high production of smolts. It is the overall fitness of the outgoing smolts that contributes to their survival at sea. Interference in creek flows would likely negatively impact juvenile fitness and thus lower overall production as well as mature fishes ability to repeat spawn.

The thing about the evening was that although anglers were well represented in the room the majority of the attendees were non anglers. The presentation was aimed at giving these non anglers an appreciation for the importance of wild Cheakamus Steelhead survival in general as well as an understanding of the Brohm's importance as irreplaceable Steelhead habitat. As much as possible we tried to simplify our info to engage the non angler component in the room.

to reiterate what Scott said, although there are issues working against the proponent we cannot underestimate their ability to get past the political red tape. Ultimately this battle will be won and lost through the opinions of Squamish tax payers. Please take some time and educate your peers(especially any Squamish voters) so they can make an informed decision as to whether this proposel is good for the town.

Keep your eyes on this one, the stakes are extremely high and it will be the voice of the people that will keep government accountable

B
[/quote]

[Matt]

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[marmot]

It seems so absurd to me that we have to wonder if our environment minister will sign off on the Garibaldi at Squamish project or not. 

[dennyman]

I think the last thing we need in this province is another golf course and ski resort. 

[Bavarian Raven]

we dont need more golf courses. i mean, to me, i find the whole idea of gold to be boring

having only been through this area a handful of times, it would be a shame to ruin it with yet another gold course and development...

[dennyman]

Hey BR I think you mean golf not gold. If there was gold in them hills it would be a done deal, they would have the heavy duty mining equipment up there digging it out as fast as they could.