Steven Hill
shill@squamishchief.com
The waters of the Mamquam River have been reunited, thanks to a new culvert installed by the Squamish River Watershed Society Feb. 11.
Prior to 1921, the Mamquam River entered directly into Howe Sound through what is now the Mamquam Blind Channel. But, development forced those water courses to be changed. A project to reconnect the Mamquam waters has been in the works for some time, according to SRWS member Edith Tobe.
"Basically in the mid-1990s, council of the day was discussing the opportunities for reconnecting the Blind Channel through what they were calling a 're-watering strategy'," said Tobe. "That led to the hiring of an environmental coordinator in 1998, who was to explore that opportunity, and they developed Rose Park at that time as part of the revitalization of the Mamquam Blind Channel.
"They did some dredging on the west side of Hwy 99 behind the high school to help the water flow," she said. "As part of that project, and working with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), the Watershed Society explored the opportunities with the District of Squamish (DOS) to actually tap into Mamquam River water, direct it through Loggers Lane and again open up those channels to migrating fish."
Tobe said her society had lots of support for the project.
"The DOS was very supportive," she said. "Every council since the mid-90s has wanted to see this happen."But it wasn't until last year that the project began to come to fruition.
"After several meetings and engineering design discussions with their engineering department last year, the DOS gave its support and the Watershed Society applied for funding," she said. "We received $87,000 from the Pacific Salmon Commission, which jump-started the entire project.
"Because other funding agencies realized the benefit of this project, in the course of two months we went from $87,000 to $240,000 with support from Ministry of Transportation, Pacific Salmon Foundation and Canadian Hydro Developers Corporation," she said. "We were able to do more work than we had initially planned for, and we put in all of the Brennan Channel extension, which connected the Mamquam River to the flood dike to Centennial Way. We were able to put the Loggers Lane connector on the south side up to the flood dike, but we were just lacking in putting that connector culvert in, which we had hoped to do in the fall, but the weather wasn't cooperative. We also wanted to do it in January, but again the weather wasn't cooperative."
Finally, two weeks ago the weather cleared, enabling the society to get to work.
"Weather conditions finally came through, and we put in the culvert," she said. "It is a steel pipe, which was donated by Terasen Gas. Now it will connect the Mamquam River waters directing them into Loggers Lane Creek. It was a big job."
But the job is far from over yet.
"Now we will be concentrating on the Loggers Lane end of things and working southbound towards Finch Drive and putting a connector in there," she said.
More plans are also in the works to put in connectors at Wilson and Britannia Sloughs, but for now Tobe said she is pleased to see the Mamquam waters reunited again.
