PreliminaryPreliminary ReviewReview ofof FisheriesFisheries ConservationConservation GainsGains withinwithin BCBC Hydro’sHydro’s WaterWater UseUse PlanningPlanning ProcessProcess 160 140 120 100 80 60 40 20 0 Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun July Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Consvr Q 30 30 46 46 46 30 20 20304046 46 Present Q 21.9 31.8 32.0 28.9 24.2 14.3 11.1 5.6 8.5 15.8 35.2 36.5 Nat Q 113 106 91 105 130 11465 28 48116 144 141 atershed Prepared for: Watershed Watch Salmon Society Watch Prepared by: Quadra Planning Consultants Ltd., and Regional Consulting Ltd. & Linda Nolan (LL) Funded by: The Bullitt Foundation May 2004 SALMONW SOCIETY year), and though the full benefits of the labor- and cash-intensive PREFACE ($25 million by government alone) process won’t be known for years, Watershed Watch believes it is time to report on the 24 water THE SUCCESSFUL MANAGEMENT OF BRITISH COLUMBIA’S use plans that have been completed or are near completion. freshwater resources requires overcoming a wide range of obsta- Since Watershed Watch supports legitimate processes that cles. In their superb yet sobering examination of adaptive improve our measuring and management of water, Watershed capacity and challenges to policy within three dozen manage- Watch has been extremely active in the past four years, participat- ment agencies, systems ecologists Buzz Holling and Lance ing in the Coquitlam-Buntzen water use planning consultative Gunderson have identified a remarkably predictable “manage- committee, the Coquitlam fish technical committee, the First ment pathology.” With few exceptions, management agencies, in Nations water use planning committee, the fisheries advisory their drive for efficiency, and to preserve (initially) successful team on water use planning, the green hydro working group, and policies and development, become progressively more myopic numerous other academic, technical, and informal meetings. and rigid. This occurs, so say Holling and Gunderson, as a con- sequence of efforts to constrain the ‘adaptive cycle’ in both the In 70-some meetings, Watershed Watch advocated for fish and ecosystem and in the management agency. the public interest, provided and received technical advice, made presentations, asked questions, learned a whole new suite of In cases of extreme and growing rigidity, all systems become acronyms, and took a lot of notes. It looked for and found evi- “accidents waiting to happen.” A triggering event—perhaps a dence of innovation, capacity building, community buy-in, cross- flood or fire or pest outbreak for an ecosystem, or a critic or cultural learning—within all WUP participants. It also saw audit or failed policy for an agency—can now provoke crisis and progress in restoring fish flows and public values—at least, in cer- transformation within the ecosystem or agency. At this point, tain WUPs—along with pockets of rigidity, and dubious tradeoffs. accumulated resources can be “released from their bound, sequestered, and controlled state, connections are broken, and Watershed Watch’s involvement in WUPs, however, is mainly feedback regulatory controls weaken,” thus setting the stage for as a catalyst, not an analyst. Despite attending so many meet- adaptive reorganization. ings, Watershed Watch has experienced first hand only a small part of the entire WUP process. Its closeness to the process and The ‘release phase’ in the lives of such systems is also its push for fish values might also be seen by some as a chal- known as “creative destruction.” It is called creative destruc- lenge to objective reporting. tion, as opposed to a collapse, because resources from the previ- ous system—people, skills, nutrients, capital, seeds, ideas that Watershed Watch thus commissioned Quadra Planning were suppressed—now become available for reorganization pur- Consultants to prepare the main part of the following report— poses. Novel ideas, experimentation, learning, and inventions which, it should be noted, is the first independent assessment of are also more likely to be encouraged and incorporated than the largest water restoration project ever undertaken in BC. The under previously rigid conditions. As a consequence, solutions report focuses on the fish conservation gains that stem from the to policy challenges are more likely. water use planning initiative. Quadra also examined how suc- cessfully the water use plans incorporate First Nations’ tradi- In light of this surprisingly predictable scenario, it should tional ecological knowledge. come as no surprise that the BC Hydro Corporation has under- gone it own periods of high rigidity, creative destruction, and In addition, Watershed Watch hired environmental lawyer reorganization. The following report examines one such period Linda Nowlan to determine whether the WUP process satisfies in Hydro’s recent history. Its focus, however, is not so much on the expectations set out in NAFTA’s “factual report” dated June the overly rigid Hydro policies of the early to mid-‘90s, in 2000, and whether the WUPs do or do not meet two con- which water was viewed as a resource to be used almost exclu- tentions: that water use plans are “a step in the right direction sively for the propagation of power—not fish. Nor does it detail towards achieving greater protection of fish and fish habitat the two main triggering events—a review of Hydro’s water stor- from the harmful impacts of hydroelectric operations,” and that age licences, and a complaint to NAFTA about Canada’s mis- “the WUP process holds promise as an enforcement strategy.” treatment of fish—that precipitated creative destruction by Nowlan’s contribution begins on page 47. prompting the government of the day to reorganize how BC Watershed Watch thanks The Bullitt Foundation for funding Hydro does business, relative to fish, and other non-power val- this report; members of the First Nations Water Use Planning ues. Instead, this report describes some lessons and outcomes Committee, particularly Fred Fortier, Bill Green and Marilyn from the large-scale reorganization phase we know as the Mura for insightful contributions; and the Vancouver, Henry. P. “provincial water use planning (WUP)” process. Kendall, David and Lucile Packard, and Tides Canada founda- Though the government sponsored provincial water use planning tions for making it possible for Watershed Watch to attend so process (WUP) is not yet complete (it’s now in its fifth and final many meetings on water and fish. Craig Orr, Executive Director, Watershed Watch, May 2004 References: Final Factual Record for Submission SEM-97-001 (BC Aboriginal Fisheries Commission et al.), Commission for Environmental Cooperation, 11 June 2000. Glavin, T.G. 2002. BC Water: Missing and Presumed Drained.The Georgia Straight. 36 (1810): 21-26. Gunderson, L.H. and C.S. Holling (eds.) Panarchy: Understanding transformations in human and natural systems. Island Press, 2002. TABLE OF CONTENTS PART 1 Prepared by Quadra Planning Table 7: Responses to Entrainment . 21 Consultants Ltd. & Regional Consulting Ltd. Table 8: Responses to Effects on Diverted Streams . 22 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY . 2 Table 9: Responses to Reservoir Drawdown Effects . 23 1. INTRODUCTION . 4 Table 10: Summary of Fish Objectives and 2. APPROACH AND METHODOLOGY . 6 Performance Measures . 27 3. FISH CONSERVATION ISSUES . 8 Table 11: Stave WUP Weighting Criteria for Performance Measures Index Values . 33 3.1 Cheakamus . 8 Table 12: Features of the Water Use Trade-offs Process . 35 3.2 Coquitlam/Buntzen . 8 Table 13: Coquitlam Preliminary Analysis: 3.3 Alouette . 9 Estimated Effects on (Original) Performance 3.4 Stave . 9 Measures over Current Operations . 38 3.5 Ash . 10 Table 14: Coquitlam Final Analysis: Estimated 3.6 Bridge River . 11 Effects on Key Performance Measures . 39 3.7 Shuswap . 11 Table 15: Summary Effects of Preferred 4. WUP FISHERIES OUTCOMES TO DATE . 12 Alternative(s) on Power and Fish . 40 4.1 Reduced flows . 14 Table 16: First Nations Inputs and Responses 4.2 Rapid Flow Fluctuation . 17 in Water Use Planning . 42 4.3 Inadequate Flushing Flows . 19 PART 2 Prepared by Linda Nowlan 4.4 Altered Water Quality . 20 4.5 Entrainment . 21 BACKGROUND . 47 4.6 Flow Diversion . 22 1.1 The CEC Citizens Submission Process . 47 4.7 Reservoir Drawdown . 23 1.2 Substance of SEM-97-001 . 48 4.8 Interview Comments . 24 1.3 Process Used to Develop the Factual 5. EFFECTIVENESS OF OBJECTIVES Record in the BC Hydro case . 48 AND PERFORMANCE MEASURES . 27 1.4 Findings of the Expert Group . 49 5.1 Representativeness . 30 1.5 Substance of the Final Factual Record . 49 5.2 Reliability . 32 2. Is the WUP process as outlined by the Watershed 5.3 Responsiveness . 34 Watch review adequately addressing the concerns of the Submitters, Experts Group, and Final Factual 6. ANALYSIS OF TRADE-OFFS Record in the CEC BC Hydro Case? . 50 AFFECTING FISH CONSERVATION . 35 2.1 Procedural Adequacy of WUP . 50 6.1 Fish Conservation Benefits . 38 2.2 Substantive Adequacy of WUP . 53 6.2 Trade-off Efficiencies . 39 2.3 More Time Needed to Assess How WUP 6.3 Fisheries Non-consensus/Partial Agreements . 40 Works in Practice . 54 7. FIRST NATIONS FISHERIES CONCERNS . 41 3. Conclusions . 55 7.1 WUP Outcomes for First Nations . 41 Appendix 1 . 56 7.2 Fisheries Monitoring Programs . 42 References . 57 8. CONCLUSIONS . 44 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: LIST OF TABLES The authors wish to thank Watershed Watch Salmon Society Table 1: BC Hydro Draft Water Use Plans . 5 and the First Nations Water Use Planning Committee for their Table 2: Summary Conclusions of WUP support, particularly Craig Orr who supervised the project. Consultative Committees . 13 Various Federal and Provincial government staff and First Nations Table 3: Responses to Flow Issues . 15 participants in WUP kindly provided responses to our questions Table 4: Responses to Flow Fluctuations and we appreciate their efforts in contributing to the report.