Fishing with Rod Discussion Forum
Fishing in British Columbia => Fishing-related Issues & News => Topic started by: chris gadsden on August 23, 2016, 07:09:37 PM
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Filmed this today, always have concerns about this as it is not good for any river system.
https://youtu.be/lMjJlDym2NQ
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Where about is this happening? Do they have a permit?
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http://threeissues.sdsu.edu/three_issues_sandminingfacts01.html..
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Where about is this happening? Do they have a permit?
Just above the BC Electric Bridge, by the new parking area. They closed off the road we drove on until recently citing one of the reasons was people driving on the gravel bar but they do not mind these big trucks doing so. ???
They do it every 2 years and would have the blessing of the province, it is all about the money they can get for the gravel at the expense of fish habitat, please read my link above.
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Isn't this what they call 'flood control measures'?
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Isn't this what they call 'flood control measures'?
That is what they call it the same on the Fraser River but it is the gravel they want One only has to look what gravel mining did to the Coquitlam River in the past.
You may wish to take the rime to read this on the subject.http://ibis.geog.ubc.ca/fraserriver/reports/The_problem_with_the_Fraser_River_MChurch.pdf
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Brutal. But. Maybe you should grab a gold pan and a shovel and poke around in that hole they made. Yes I know so wrong. I'm sorry :-X
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Ah Yes but that beautiful Chilliwack 3/8"s sure makes nice exposed agg driveways!
Just sayin! They're not making round rock anymore these days if you catch my drift. Can't make exposed driveway with fractured rock and even if you could the people that live on the hills would complain then.
Not saying this is right or wrong what's going on here as I don't have experience in this type of extraction. I do know that I've worked most of my life in the Agg business and everybody complains about pits and mining in general then drives home on roads made with aggregate protected by concrete barriers made with agg then into their house made on a foundation with aggregate. It sure didn't grow there.
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Ah Yes but that beautiful Chilliwack 3/8"s sure makes nice exposed agg driveways!
Just sayin! They're not making round rock anymore these days if you catch my drift. Can't make exposed driveway with fractured rock and even if you could the people that live on the hills would complain then.
Not saying this is right or wrong what's going on here as I don't have experience in this type of extraction. I do know that I've worked most of my life in the Agg business and everybody complains about pits and mining in general then drives home on roads made with aggregate protected by concrete barriers made with agg then into their house made on a foundation with aggregate. It sure didn't grow there.
Taking any material out of a river is always damaging, other places to take it with out so not to interfere with a river system.
https://www.uvm.edu/~vlrs/Environment/gravel%20removal%20from%20rivers.pdf
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i saw it today on my walk. Seems like a necessary move. the gravel has accumulated quite a bit to one side. It was starting to divert the river towards the south side. It is actually starting to wear away against the rotary trail bank and during high water has washed away trees along its edges. So yes the city should remove that section of gravel to prevent soil/bank erosion on the other side. Their is a benefit as a large pool has been created as holding water for migrating salmon on their way upstream away from the main current. I hope they dredge the channel as well so the fish have some deep pools to hide in and becomes less of a slaughter fest for bottom bouncers.
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Chris do you know the tonnage that was planned on being extracted?
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One of the main concerns in the lower section of the Chilliwack/Vedder River is the undercutting of dykes by water pushing directly into it, which can potentially lead to damages and collapses. The pits are not directly used to prevent flooding, but rather to divert or ease the flow where water is hitting straight into the dyke.
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Chris do you know the tonnage that was planned on being extracted?
Sorry I donot know but I know the mining can cause more damage than good good as the article I posted above tells us. https://www.uvm.edu/~vlrs/Environment/gravel%20removal%20from%20rivers.pdf
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I would have to disagree that removing gravel is always a bad thing. If it is done responsibly and correctly, it can actually benefit the river. The Nooksack is a good example. When I was growing up, there were two or three gravel companies that would take rock off specific bars every year. They wouldn't do anything inside the river, just the stuff above the water. It was only specific bars that constantly were built up during high water times. They have been forced to stop for a number of years.
Growing up, the lower river had a good flow to it and there were plenty of deep holes for fish to hold. When they stopped removing the rock, the river deposited what it wanted to on the bar but then started just filling the main channel too. Currently, the lower probably 10 miles of the river has very little for channel, very little current, and no holes for fish to hold. It used to be up in the upper river you would never find fish that had lice on them. You do now because they don't hold in that lower section. They are swimming mostly through a pond and quickly without stopping because there is no place to stop.
With the dikes, the river can't change it's location to find less resistance but there isn't enough flow to clear out all that is piled in there.
The key point is doing only specific locations. In this case, there were probably 4 bars in the lower half of the river. The flow of the river wasn't affected because it wasn't enough removed to make it difficult for fish to move upstream but it was enough to keep the lower river clear enough that it could clean itself out. You may disagree but I've seen enough myself to know the effects of having the rivers diked, creating an artificial system for the river and then not dealing with the consequences of that artificial system.
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One of the main concerns in the lower section of the Chilliwack/Vedder River is the undercutting of dykes by water pushing directly into it, which can potentially lead to damages and collapses. The pits are not directly used to prevent flooding, but rather to divert or ease the flow where water is hitting straight into the dyke.
Some clarification to what someone may have told you on this issue that I was able to obtain today.
"The issue is that the dykes were built too close together in the floodplain (and maybe too low) and the sediment (gravel) recruitment is great enough in the stream that when it gets out of the Chilliwack River, and through to the low-gradient parts of the Vedder River, it deposits.
If enough gravel settles down in critical parts between the diking system, which should have been spread out further and provided more floodway capacity, and maybe built higher, it pushes up the water profile to the point that it will overtop the dikes for big floods.
What really makes it complicated is the railroad bridge is at a really awkward angle so the river has to make the big dog-leg above the bridge and causes the stream to backwater and many of the coarse sediments drop out at this really vulnerable part of the river.
The amounts and locations are largely determined by measured cross sections (the change in topography, or river bed height, since the last removal), and hydraulic models (how high the stream will be for a given flow), and flood-return models (how often a big flood will happen of a certain magnitude). These are all used to calculate how high a particular design-flood will be based on a probability of how often it returns. In the old days they used a 1:200 year return period and the estimated water surface couldn’t exceed 0.6m below the top-of-dike.
Historically there was quite a bit of my smelly socks surrounding this process, but I think they cleaned some of it up when a few others started to really question what was going on. In fact, the word was by the old Water Management Branch engineers that there was quite a bit of collusion in the early days when it came to bidding for the gravel. I think that Tara (Chilliwack’s engineer) keeps a pretty tight ship on the whole process.
The gravel removal appears to be effective (?) in the part of the river between Yarrow and Peach Road. Down in the Canal, the reason it is so high is because of Fraser River backwatering in the spring time, and largely has little to do with the fall/winter floods that threaten Yarrow and the Vedder Crossing area. So there is little reason to take out gravel from the Canal as it is basically a stillwater issue, particularly from below the KWR bridge, and related to the Fraser River backwatering.
One of the things about the Canal is that it has recruited some very nice gravel for pink spawning over the years since I started fishing there. Also, some really nice pool riffles, which are good for angling as well as probably some good rearing habitat. Additions of some constructed log jams would make it fabulous habitat, but the diking authorities freak out over that stuff. The Province’s steelhead biologist, Ron Ptolemy, once told me that some of the highest densities of juvenile steelhead parr were sampled rearing in the Canal.
If there is an instance of the river heading for the dike, and gravel is taken out to reduce erosion, I would be surprised. It may happen, on occasion, but it would be the first time I saw it. Again, I have been away from the issue for over 10 years, so maybe there are shenanigans going on that I don’t know about, but on the whole, the above description is how I remember it."
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Still continuing today, seems a bit late this year, note the hoe in the water in video 1. Sad situation in many of our minds when money comes before fish habitat.
Here is the 2 videos I filmed today, https://youtu.be/vcRlB6bvuR0
https://youtu.be/aj13jRub9Ik
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Sad situation in many of our minds when money comes before fish habitat.
Always has, always will. The good news is the authorities have agreed in principal to augment the upper river with lower river gravel every 2 years. This in itself is a monumental shift from past thinking about gravel recruitment in the upper river, it's value to salmonids, and the necessity of doing so.
I'm told the major excavations in the Lickman road area is an attempt to divert the river away from the Vedder River Campground. The lake that has been made there should provide a lot of area for spoon/jig/fly anglers in the coming months.
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Still continuing today, seems a bit late this year, note the hoe in the water in video 1. Sad situation in many of our minds when money comes before fish habitat.
I watched it three times looking for the Coho in the water......Doh!
I wonder if their permit actually allows them to work in the stream bed?
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the major rainstorms we had last year in chilliwack was an eye opener of how badly the river needs excavation. it wears away the bank during high water/heavy rainfall creating what looks like a large lake between peach and lickman rd. During low water the gravel is so high it causes the river to be flat and fast flowing with few holding areas. looking forward to these new pools creating new fishing oppurtunities this season.
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Always has, always will. The good news is the authorities have agreed in principal to augment the upper river with lower river gravel every 2 years. This in itself is a monumental shift from past thinking about gravel recruitment in the upper river, it's value to salmonids, and the necessity of doing so.
I'm told the major excavations in the Lickman road area is an attempt to divert the river away from the Vedder River Campground. The lake that has been made there should provide a lot of area for spoon/jig/fly anglers in the coming months.
Glad they did this but as most of us know it is a PR move but once again it is one positive from a bad practice of gravel mining a fish bearing river.
Filmed this yesterday, a bit late to be doing so one would think with salmon in the river. https://youtu.be/gc-3-o5__h8
Pictures are on the Fraser Valley Salmon Society FB page for anyone interested in seeing the scope of the mining. https://www.facebook.com/Fraser-Valley-Salmon-Society-111769675563789/
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We have been actively working on this file the last few weeks and have a number of concerned people and groups involved. We will be having a meeting of all those involved next weekend. Will keep you posted.
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10 of us met yesterday after the tackle sale and a great presentation by given Dr. Marvin Roseanu. We in attendance did not know what a mess this gravel mining program is, no justification for it at all. More meetings coming up including with DFO early in the new year.
We will keep you posted here for those interested.
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10 of us met yesterday after the tackle sale and a great presentation by given Dr. Marvin Roseanu. We in attendance did not know what a mess this gravel mining program is, no justification for it at all. More meetings coming up including with DFO early in the new year.
We will keep you posted here for those interested.
please do. I like reading about important issues about our local fisheries.
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please do. I like reading about important issues about our local fisheries.
After a lot of e mails and time we are finally getting a meeting with DFO, the province of BC and City of Chilliwack to discuss this issue. Meeting to take place in Chilliwack in the next few weeks.
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Wait......... Isn't that the Hoffman crew :o
;D ;D ;D ;)
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Gold did someone mention Gold ::)
time to try some panning ;)
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joking aside this must have an impact on the fish eggs that are in the gravel :-\
right?
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The gravel was extracted from dry gravel bars. Machines were not supposed to be in the water although I think Chris showed a video of a bucket in the main stem.
I watched a lot of this gravel removal last summer and imo it did not impact spawning salmon. What it does for rearing juveniles and the overall river itself is perhaps another issue.
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One of the reasons they went so late and took so much gravel from the Vedder River this year was the need for easy obtained gravel for the construction of the new Molson's Brewery plant being constructed by the Sardis Overpass on A1 farmland too. :'( Of course that is another issue.
If you drive by you will see it.
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Are you suggesting that river Rock was used for the concrete Chris?
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I don't know nothing about this issue , but highly dought the gravel was used for concrete, unless they crushed it to certain sized rocks, anyways , besides the point , why the hell wouod they have to extract gravel from one of the rivers that brings in ,probably the most money in the province as far as fishing turisam goes , or what ever you wanna call it ...
Why desturb what already works somewhat good compared to other rivers around the province .
I know it's probably a total nother topic , but WHY?
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Are you suggesting that river Rock was used for the concrete Chris?
Fill for the site and roadways.
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I have witnessed the construction site and they have indeed used hundreds of tons of gravel to create a large pad to build on. Don't know the source of all the gravel but im sure Chris is correct that it came from the vedder.
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Im not so sure they would use round rock material for fill. River Rock doesn't pack period. It's probably the worst material you could use to build a pad. Engineers hate river Rock due to the lack of surface area compared to fractured Rock in reference to concrete. Placers love it though.
I think it's safe to say they're not using river Rock to build roads when they can sell it at a profit and buy 5" minus off the mountain for dollars a ton. As someone who was in the seat of a ready mix truck for over 10 years I would flat out tell the guy to get stuffed if he wanted me to drive on a road made of river Rock. Actually come to think of it not once have I ever seen a road built out of round Rock.
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FYI if you have an exposed agg driveway chances are it came from the Vedder. Good ol chilliwack exposed agg. Some of the finest, and guess where it comes from. The same guys that hauled it out this last year.
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The gravel "pad" at the molson site is for a preload and all that material will be coming off to be used on other parts of the site and at other jobs and the vedder river gravel from the summer is long gone and has been used already. They were in fact shipping it right from the river to job sites. That gravel from the river is a pain to use onsite like already stated.
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What material are they using to preload Jeff sand?
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jeff, Noahs Arc ... great information on this contentious issue. Please keep it coming.
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The gravel "pad" at the molson site is for a preload and all that material will be coming off to be used on other parts of the site and at other jobs and the vedder river gravel from the summer is long gone and has been used already. They were in fact shipping it right from the river to job sites. That gravel from the river is a pain to use onsite like already stated.
Here is one of the video I filmed from Nov. 2, 2016 of the gravel coming from the Wilson Road (Yarrow) gravel extraction site to the the Molson site. https://youtu.be/uin108cCkvc
Of course so sad to see this beautiful farmland covered up forever too but of course another issue.
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Here is where some of the gravel was coming from.https://youtu.be/gbSXe4rl-Dg
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Thanks Chris I'm quite suprised to see that.
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The gravel "pad" at the molson site is for a preload and all that material will be coming off to be used on other parts of the site and at other jobs and the vedder river gravel from the summer is long gone and has been used already. They were in fact shipping it right from the river to job sites. That gravel from the river is a pain to use onsite like already stated.
There is some piles that have not been used yet. Salwein Pit is one of them.
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Another pile is at Bergman Road... that, I'm told, is the property of DFO for use in upcoming gravel augmentation projects on this system.
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Another pile is at Bergman Road... that, I'm told, is the property of DFO for use in upcoming gravel augmentation projects on this system.
Hope you are right I will try to ask them at out upcoming meeting.
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Noah's arc I would say from what I can see and given who the contractor is the material being used is most likely is a 3" minus product the can be used for back fill and road building on the site later on. Also they could be using some sand it really depends and what other jobs the company has coming up. Hope that helps.
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Noah's arc I would say from what I can see and given who the contractor is the material being used is most likely is a 3" minus product the can be used for back fill and road building on the site later on. Also they could be using some sand it really depends and what other jobs the company has coming up. Hope that helps.
Not sure if you work for them but if not the Contractor for this project and who took out the gravel is Jake's Contracting.
Gravel also went to their project on the old University site on Old Yale Road West for a housing development.
http://www.jakesconstruction.ca/projects/vedder-river-gravel-extraction/
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I was aware that Jakes is doing that work and that they took the gravel out and I also know where a lot of there gravel comes from and I have seen the material they are using and it doesn't look like the vedder gravel And no I don't work for them.
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Looks like river gravel to me and I walked on that stuff down there for 50 plus years. Easy enough to follow one of the trucks to see where it goes or just get a close up picture aftr work hours. ;D
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You could be right. Maybe it is Vedder material. But After being in the agg industry most of my working life, I know what a ton of river gravel is worth to the retail market, compared to any old fractured 5" minus is worth off the mountain. It's just not a good business decision. Or a practical one to use as a road base. Go pile up a bunch of marbles and try to drive a toy car over it.
That said much weirder things have happened. As a truck driver I would tell a guy to pound sand if I was the first one to a new site to get to try out a new road made of river gravel.
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Maybe this will effect gravel mining our rivers.http://vancouversun.com/news/national/fish-protection-laws-should-be-beefed-up-parliamentary-committee