The barge is in place, a bucket crane has begun scooping and, after years of discussion, dredging has begun in the Mamquam Blind Channel.
The District of Squamish has a four-day fisheries window to remove 4,000 cubic metres from the waterway. It's a tight timeline, municipal spokesperson Christina Moore admitted, but so far everything is on schedule.
After one day all is going well, she said on Tuesday (April 16).
The plan is to create a 16-metre-wide channel, allowing for safe navigation for small boats. It's a measure to accommodate water traffic until the entire channel can be dredged, Moore said.
It's a small first step in the boarder picture, but a necessary one, she said.
Before the work began, one could practically walk across the channel at low tide, the municipality's projects engineer Greig Garland told council last month.
Dredging in the Mamquam Channel has been a point of contention for years, with municipal studies indicating up to 100,000 cubic metres needs to be removed from the waterway's floor. In 2008, municipal staff estimated the project would cost $900,000.
District staff worked with local stakeholders and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) to figure out when the dredging could occur without interfering with fish stocks. The herring spawn has passed, Squamish Streamkeepers co-chair Jack Cooley said, adding the chum salmon spawn should have left the channel by now.
We figured this would be a good time to start, he said.
Although municipal officials worked closely with Streamkeepers, DFO has the ultimate say on approval of such projects, Cooley said. Getting information and working with federal department has been tricky, he said.
There is no DFO person responsible for habitat in the Squamish office, he said, citing recent cuts to federal fisheries habitat staff.
View a video of the dredging
