Member of Parliament John Weston was in Squamish Friday to announce federal funding for two projects aimed at revitalizing salmon spawning in Squamish waterways.
The Squamish River Watershed society will receive up to $34,087 for the Tiampo Coho Restoration Project on Tiampo Channel, a groundwater-fed channel on the south side of the Mamquam River at the top end of Centennial Way.
The channel has been drying up in recent years, stranding juvenile salmon during the late summer months, according to Edith Tobe, executive director of the Squamish Watershed Society.
“This project involved deepening the middle pond area to provide refugia (survival) habitat year-round for juvenile salmon and providing a gravel-lined channel for adult Coho, chum and pink salmon to utilize for spawning during the annual late fall and winter months,” Tobe told The Squamish Chief by email.
The Tiampo project was completed in early October and helped to create more than 4,000 square metres of overwinter habitat for over 20,000 Coho fry, according to a media release.
An additional $148,708 of federal funds will go toward finishing the Cheakamus Phase 2 on the notch channel, located just before the Cheakamus Centre, on Paradise Valley Road, and to begin a connector channel to Phase 3 for the Lewis Channel.
The Cheakamus Phase 2 project is an extension of previous restoration work in the Dave Marshall Salmon Reserve, adjacent to the Cheakamus River, and involved diverting water from the Cheakamus River through a series of channels through the Cheakamus Centre down through Squamish Nation Moody’s Channel, according to the release.
This project also wrapped up in early October and created about 7,600 square metres of rearing habitat for Coho salmon and approximately 800 square metres of spawning habitat for Coho, chum and pink salmon.
The third phase of the Cheakamus restoration work will allow water to be diverted from Phase 2 and across Paradise Valley Road to re-water Evans Creek , a stream out of Levette Lake, on the west side of the road.
This third phase is set to begin in early January and is expected to be completed by about March.
“We are excited to have funds to work on these two community projects and look forward to years of strong salmon returns,” Tobe said.
The two projects are a part of a plan hatched by the Squamish River Watershed Society, the Cheakamus Centre and the Squamish First Nations.
