Sturgeon Bank: an ironic environmental situation

Editor:

At first read “Nature Notes: Pilot project helping restore estuary marsh habitat” (Optimist, July 24) appears an encouraging story of habitat conservation in the Fraser River estuary and delta The Sturgeon Bank Sediment Enhancement Pilot Project appears to be an ad hoc project to see how sediment dredged from the Fraser River and sprayed onto the Bank might help restore areas of receded tidal marsh and combat sea-level rise

There is an impressive list of partners backed by an undisclosed amount of multi-year federal and provincial funding. Associated spinoff benefits are predicted for wildlife, including juvenile salmon, and waterfowl.

If deemed successful, the broader intent is to apply the sediment spraying technique broadly across the Fraser Delta given that the Fraser’s natural sediment deposits have been greatly altered by a century of human intervention.

The terrible irony overshadowing the story here is that the adjacent bank to Sturgeon Bank is Roberts Bank, the hugely more naturally productive and last remaining bank largely unaltered by human intervention.

As we know, the recently approved Roberts Bank Terminal 2 (RBT2) project is predicted by federal scientists to destroy the productivity of the bank by removing fatty acid rich intertidal biofilm resulting in a cascading failure of the estuarine ecosystem, up to and including commercial crab and salmon species plus migratory shorebirds. Moreover, the same federal scientists tell us that there is no feasible means to mitigate the environmental damage

So, here we have an encouraging story of a concerted attempt to revamp Sturgeon Bank and other failed areas of the delta after a century of adverse human impacts while ignoring the fact that the last remaining jewel in the estuarine crown - and a critical stop for migratory birds on the Pacific Flyway - is sanctioned for destruction. To add salt to the wound, some of the same players engaged in the Sturgeon Bank project - the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority (VFPA) - are also engaged in RBT2.

Roger Emsley