Falls River Project Water Use Plan Falls River Fish ... - BC Hydro

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Falls River WUP Monitoring 2008/2009 4 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR YEAR 2 Due to depth/discharge discrepancies encountered in 2009, additional winter site visits are recommended in January and February of 2010 to monitor ice conditions on site and how this may relate to discharge and depth. Winter surveys would also provide the opportunity to monitor the relationship between the pressure transducer depth and manual depth measurements from the sample site locations. In year 1, there were concerns of damage to and/or loss of water level recorders installed at the incubation locations as seen with some of the piezometers which were bent during the study period in year 1. The installation of relatively inexpensive non-vented pressure transducer/data-loggers at incubation areas 1 and 2 alleviating the equipment loss versus expense risk is proposed for year 2. In conjunction with the water level recorder currently installed on the right bank, the proposed pressure transducer/data-loggers installed at the incubation areas would allow for monitoring of both recording methods; reducing overall uncertainty with regards to water level. In order to maintain consistency and allow for comparison between study years, the metal sampling syringe will be used to extract intragravel samples in years 2 and 3. The piezometers currently installed at area 1 (which were not bent based on last survey May 12 th , 2009) could be used to calculate hydraulic head and permeability. The Falls River Project Water Use Plan Monitoring Terms of Reference (BC Hydro 2006a) for the Spawning Habitat Monitoring study recommends commencing the egg incubation phase (Year 2 and 3) of the study using green eggs. Chinook salmon gametes (eggs and milt) would be obtained from a nearby hatchery facility (e.g. Kitimat Hatchery) and transported to Falls River, fertilized on site and buried at the selected incubation sites. However, the use of green eggs as a starting point for the incubation study increases the risk of confounding survival results from egg mortality due to embryo quality, egg collection and fertilization procedures. The remoteness of the Falls River site and proximity of hatchery facilities that could supply Chinook eggs, the logistics of arranging travel into the site, and the need to complete the work during a narrow window of conditions (discharge, tides, weather) create several challenges that could affect the study if green eggs are used. Viability of Chinook gametes may be negatively influenced with increasing storage times. Therefore, we are proposing to use eyed eggs for the study since there is a greater degree of flexibility in the availability of the eggs and they are much easier to transport at this stage. Incubators will be buried at two incubation areas, rather than three as described in the TOR. This decision was made following various site visits to the Falls River between August 2008 and April 2009 during which time spawning habitat and site conditions in the river could be more carefully evaluated. The key issues considered were site access and crew safety, equipment installation and the ability to complete environmental monitoring tasks during low tides. The two incubation areas selected are located on the right side of the river and were utilized in a previous incubation study in 2003 by DFO (L. Miller and Northcoast Environmental - unpublished data – see Section 1.2.2 and Site #2 in Figure 4). Area 1 is located in an area between the right bank and a bedrock outcropping while Area 2 is located just downstream of the outcrop (Figure 10). Eyed Chinook eggs will be transported from the selected Hatchery facility to the Falls River site on the day of installation. Once at the site, eggs will be loaded into Jordan-Scotty incubation cassettes with 100 eyed eggs filling cells in the bottom-half of each cassette. Although the cassettes are Cambria Gordon and Metlakata Fisheries 27
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