‘There’s so much habitat that literally has no water in it': local environmental steward

Squamish fishing guide Clint Goyette stands on the bone-dry gravel of the creek bed, shaking his head. 

He points to how dry it is under a nearby wooden pedestrian walking bridge that goes over the spawning channel, which sits between the Squamish Valley Golf Course (SVGC) and the Mamquam River. 

“The whole length of this is spawning habitat, rearing habitat, and right now there is no water in it,” said Goyette, who sits on the Squamish-Lillooet Sport Fish Advisory Board. 

Coho smolts, chum fry and even pinks use the channel.

Steelhead, chinook and cutthroat have been seen in it as well, according to locals.

“This is something that can be fixed. It doesn’t have to be this way. This channel itself, which is dry as a bone — this should have water in it right now. It is just a fish killer at this time of year. There’s so much habitat that literally has no water in it,” Goyette said. 

When Goyette, Squamish Steamkeepers and others see the fish in the channel struggling as the water goes down, they jump in, literally, to move the fish in buckets to areas with deeper water. 

While this year is more severe than most, the channels are drying every summer, Goyette added.

The small depressions with a little water in them are a problem for the fish because they heat up and the fish run out of oxygen.   

“They don’t live. They need the water,” Goyette said. “It is awful to see and you think, ‘I could literally spend a week, or two, or three, just getting these fish back into somewhere safe. You take 10 steps, there’s another spot, take 10 more steps, there’s another spot. It’s just killing fish over and over every year.” 

While touring The Chief through the Mamquam River Trails, Goyette noticed that a pond where volunteers had recently transported struggling fish had also become shallow.

A fry could be seen near the shore, its mouth above water, gasping for breath. 

“You save them from one spot and you dump them in what you thought was safe and the heatwave continues. Now we have created another problem... but you can only carry a five-gallon bucket of water so far,” he said. 

Goyette ties the drop in the water at least in part to the nearby golf course, which draws its water from the aquifer. 

Every summer the channels lose water, but this summer, Goyette said, the channel dried right up, due to how hot it has been.

Each of the conservationists The Chief spoke to stressed they were not pointing fingers at the golf course, or any other single entity but simply pointing out a serious problem that needs to be fixed. 

Similarly, no one interviewed argued that the golf course should stop drawing water. Each asked for a coming together of different agencies and interests to find a solution that could work for the golf course and fish. 

“Heads need to get together and address the issue,” Goyette said. “It is just one of the many fish issues in the area. We are doing everything we can to help salmon across the B.C. coast. We are trying to help them. This is a definite in-your-face [thing].”

Local conservationist, angler and fellow member of the Sport Fishing Advisory Board (SFAB) Steve Rochetta has been salvaging fish in the channel for over 30 years. 

“It has never gone this dry, this fast,” he said, noting the exception of one other year before the channel was rebuilt. 

Rochetta said that the spawning channel was built as a chum channel in about 1985 and then modified in the late 80s or early 90s because it was drying up. It was rebuilt and dug down.

Artificial spawning channels are built adjacent to salmon rivers like the Mamquam, directing a controlled flow of water over extensive gravel spawning beds, according to wildbcsalmon.ca.

Where the golf course is now was all Mashiter Creek channels at one time, Rochetta noted. 

“Those ponds were built as partly a compensation for the golf course going in and the Mashiter being straightened into the Mamquam,” he said. “Mashiter Creek used to run through the golf course and a bunch of channels and come out south of where Highway 99 is now, in the old map.”

He added that the channel in question is very important for the Mamquam River system. 

“The importance of that channel is that it produces the equivalency of a hatchery. It produces 25,000 to 50,000 coho smolts; it produces one million-plus chum fry; when it is watered, the pinks go in there, even though pinks don’t really like groundwater channels,” he said. 

“When it is watered, we have that too. We have had steelhead in there over the years. We have had chinook in there... and we have had young steelhead and chinook move in there in winter because it is a warmer situation over winter — and we have had cutthroat in there. Not to mention the frogs and the pacific water shrews and all the other things that use it.” 

Rochetta is also an ecosystem biologist with the Squamish office of the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resources.

He points to the importance of the fish that utilize the channel in the overall ecosystem. 

“The more salmon we can have produced, the more chance we have got of recovering grizzly bears in that [the channel] produces pink when it is flowing, and chum and those are two of the most important runs for grizzly bear recovery,” he said. “When you get a bunch of fish — especially chum and pinks produced in the Squamish system, then [grizzlies] stray all over the place.” 

He said he had seen grizzly tracks along the Mamquam River next to the channel. 

“It is hard to express how important that channel is to the Mamquam system. It produces the bulk of the fish that the Mamquam produces. So when it goes dry, it is a big deal. 

“The key notes are how important it is, and we have got a problem we need to fix,” he said.

How much water can the golf course draw?

The Squamish Valley Golf Course received two provincial water licenses: one issued in 1968, and the last issued in 1983 which allows110 acre-feet per year to be diverted, from April to September. 

One acre-foot converts to enough water to cover an acre of land, about the size of a football field, one foot deep.

Conservationists The Chief spoke to for this story questioned why that substantial amount of water is allowed.

The Ministry of Forests told The Chief in an emailed statement that the Squamish Valley Golf Club's water licence is not being reviewed, “as shutting or restricting the license would not change the physical width of the floodplain.”

“The Mamquam River is currently flowing at...summer low flows, and due to the width of the river, side channels would likewise have low flows or low water levels,” the statement reads. 

“This low flow condition would continue until the fall rains occur in September or October, and there are high flow events.”

Golf club's perspective

Scott Wengi, general manager of the SVGC said the organization is conservative and cautious with the water it has access to.

“We recognize it to be a vital resource and as our summers become longer and warmer we are acutely aware of its importance and potential scarcity,” he said. 

He noted that while the club has a water license that allows it to draw in excess of 110 acre-feet per year, the club doesn’t come close to using even half of that permitted amount. 

“Even this year, with the heat and lack of rain, we will come nowhere near to using the amount for which we are licensed,” he said. 

Wengi noted that it is often incorrectly assumed that the golf course uses city water — it doesn’t — or that it diverts water directly from the Mamquam River. It does not, but instead draws from the aquifer.

“The club has five bodies of water on the property, with four of these being rain-fed lakes/ponds that are lined to prevent water seeping out. The fifth "pond" is our reservoir from which we source the water for irrigation purposes. This irrigation pond has been in that location for decades,” he said. “The reservoir is rainfed as well as fed naturally by way of an unconfined aquifer, which is most certainly impacted by the flow of water on the Mamquam River. It is from this reservoir that we draw water for the course as well as provide it to the Rotary/Squamish Climate Action Network community gardens adjacent to the highway.”

The club generally does not place a significant demand on that reservoir during the spring or fall as rainfall is usually more than plentiful, Wengi said. 

During the drier months — most typically later June, July and August — Wengi said water application is done in a measured manner to best impact the areas most needed: the greens, tees, and fairways. 

He added that a $400,000 irrigation upgrade to the course in 2012 replaced many old sprinkler units with software-controlled heads that can control the directions of sprinkler heads to provide the most efficient coverage needed. 

Watering is done at night and if there are occasional extreme heat circumstances, some handheld watering may be done during the day. 

“We keep a well-maintained and serviced pump house and... our water application and amounts used are controlled and measurable via the irrigation software that we utilize.”

Wengi said this year’s lack of rain impacted the club and that it would seem similarly evident that the lack of rain, early and quick snowmelt and subsequent low water levels in the Mamquam are having a significant effect on the spawning channels alongside the river.

“The club has a positive working history with the Fisheries Dept and the Squamish Streamkeepers and we would love for it to remain that way. If the fisheries department believes there are ways in which we could team up and SVGC could provide assistance in improving the spawning channels, we would happily be involved,” he said. 

'Show us the data'

Chessy Knight, president of the Squamish River Watershed Society (SRWS) and its executive director Edith Tobe both say there are solutions to the dry channel, but first, a study is needed to understand clearly what is going on. 

“It is really important at this point to hire a river hydrologist who can really look at the natural features, who really understands climate change and who understands the golf course operations and can kind of come up with a formula,” Tobe said.

The Watershed Society would be happy to be involved, but Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) would have to lead the work, Tobe said. 

“I think DFO should be responsible for these channels and for the corrections of these channels, and that is where they can partner with our group, or other groups to get the funding, but they should be responsible,” Tobe said. 

Knight said until the data comes back, the jury is still out on what is really going on. 

“I want the science,” she said. 

“The way we maybe did things in the past, if we want to keep fish, we may have to make some adjustments, and those adjustments may not even have to be that big. We don’t know yet,” she said.”

Knight added that with climate change, these types of environmental impacts will worsen, and a collaborative approach to addressing them is the best way forward. 

The channels are like a canary in the coal mine, she said. 

DFO perspective

Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) told The Chief in an emailed statement that very high temperatures and low precipitation have resulted in serious drought and water scarcity concerns in many watersheds throughout southern B.C. and the central Interior.

“Based on near-term forecasts, the current situation is unlikely to change without significant precipitation amounts or seasonal cooling,” the statement said. 

The DFO is aware of drought-related impacts to fish and fish habitat in the Squamish area and elsewhere in B.C., the statement continued. 

“In the Squamish area, DFO’s Salmonid Enhancement Program, Resource Restoration Unit and Community Involvement Program (SEP-RRU/CIP), has been actively supporting the Squamish Streamkeepers to salvage stranded salmon fry in the Mamquam River and other local streams.”

The DFO does not encourage the public to move fish without contacting federal and provincial fisheries staff, as it may not always be the best solution. 

“For example, capture and movement of stranded fish also causes stress and there may not be more suitable habitat available nearby in which captured fish may be released,” the statement reads. 

The DFO told The Chief that the South Coast Basin has been at Drought Level 4 since the week of Jul. 28. (see British Columbia Drought Information Portal). 

This means that negative impacts are expected and to be addressed through “a combination of communications, voluntary conservation measures, local water restrictions and, potentially, regulatory action under the B.C. Water Sustainability Act. Regulatory actions may be appropriate and supported by DFO in cases where licensed or unlicensed water use is a significant contributor to low flows and where curtailing water withdrawals could avoid death of fish or harm to fish habitat.”

The DFO added that in the case of the Mamquam River, the low flow conditions are particularly difficult to manage because “the large channel size means small reductions in water use may yield little additional benefit to fish or fish habitat, even at the scale of larger individual users, such as the golf course. In this situation, voluntary conservation measures or restrictions would generally be applied across multiple users or sectors. DFO understands that the province of B.C. is currently considering action at this scale in the South Coast Region.”