080121-08MN006-Sabina Hackett River Project Proposal ... - NIRB

Description of the Existing Environmentmarine bivalves and crustaceans. Sediment may be deposited along the shoreline; however,yearly ice scour prevents significant amounts of fine sediment from occurring in the intertidalzone.Table 6.2-5Species of Fish Captured in Bathurst Inlet in August 2001Common Name Scientific Name Habitat Spatial Distribution *Fourhorn sculpin 1 Triglopsis quadricornis Marine DemersalStarry flounder Platichthys stellatus Marine DemersalSaffron cod Eleginus gracilis Marine DemersalArctic flounder 2 Liopsetta glacialis Marine DemersalPacific herring Clupea pallasi Marine PelagicOgac 3 Gadus ogac Marine DemersalBroad whitefish Coregonus nasus Freshwater/Brackish BenthopelagicLake trout Salvelinus namaycush Freshwater/Brackish BenthopelagicArctic cisco Coregonus autumnalis Anadromous PelagicRainbow smelt Osmerus mordax dentex 4 Anadromous PelagicArctic char Salvelinus alpinus Anadromous Benthopelagic1formerly Myoxocephalus quadricornis (Kottelat, 1997).2formerly Pleuronectes glacialis (Cooper and Chapleau, 1998).3also known as Greenland cod.4sub-species found in Arctic Canada. Not to be confused with Osmerus mordax mordax, the Atlantic rainbow smelt(Mc Allister, 1990).Habitat types and spatial distributions were taken from species descriptions shown on FishBase (2002).Demersal = bottom feeders, pelagic = feed in open water, benthopelagic = feed in open water and on bottom.Substrate composition along the shoreline was mapped along zones in 2001 (Rescan, 2002), andalong transects in 2007 (Rescan, 2008b). Habitat was mapped up to the high water line in bothyears. Gravel and cobble dominated the sites closest to the proposed development in 2001, whileboulder and cobble dominated a third site on the west side of the peninsula (Rescan, 2002).Marine vegetation was almost non-existent and cover for aquatic organisms was low. In deeperwaters, fine clay and silt dominated the substrate, and there was a paucity of organic material insediment grabs from stations around the proposed development, particularly at depths greaterthan 40 m. This is reflective of the absence of woody material on shore (Rescan, 2002).In 2007, substrate composition was determined for evenly spaced quadrats along transects whichextended perpendicular to the shoreline from the high water mark to 1 m below the water level.These transects covered the entire length of shoreline that will be altered by the proposeddevelopment. All transects were dominated by gravel and cobble substrates; however, a fewindividual quadrats were composed mostly of fines or boulders. Three distinct habitat zoneswere present between the high water mark and the terrestrial vegetation, and likely indicate anarea of ice scour. Sandy substrates are considered to be of high value due to their potential forsupporting benthic invertebrate communities (RLandL/Golder, 2002; Urban-Malinga et al.,2002). Such substrates were not common in the intertidal zone at the port site due to ice scour,but were present at depths exceeding 3 m.The water column structure near the port site is typical of partially mixed estuaries. The watercolumn exhibited a warmer, less saline layer of water over a more saline, colder layer. At theJanuary 2008 Hackett River Project – Project Proposal Sabina Silver CorporationReport Version B.1 6–14 Rescan Environmental Services Ltd. (Proj. #833-2)