LangleyAdvance Your community newspaper since 1931
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
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Art showcased
Fraser Valley Taiwanese Association director Sandy Shih held up a pair of Taiwanese puppets during the third annual Arts, Culture and Heritage Open House, held outdoors Saturday afternoon at Douglas Park. The day offered music, dancing, and entertainment on the Douglas Park Spirit Square stage, and gave local artisans an opportunity to sell their hand crafted goods to the public. One of the aims of the event was to showcase arts, culture, and heritage within Langley.
Environment
Forum focused on Fort floodplain Michelle Carduner
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Community members talked about the future of the Salmon River last week.
Many residents gathered at the public meeting about the future of Fort Langley.
Matthew Claxton/Langley Advance
by Matthew Claxton mclaxton@langleyadvance.com
“Today, the Salmon River offers too much and too little water,” said historian Jane Watt, as she and three others talked about the floodplain that surrounds Fort Langley Thursday night. The water causes flooding concerns for local farmers, but moves through too quickly and drops too fast to be ideal for the salmon that gave the river its name, according to several speakers. The forum at the Fort Langley Community Hall was organized by the Fort’s Community Association and the Salmon River Enhancement Society, to stir up discussion of drainage, flooding, and the environment on the Salmon River’s floodplain. Watt put the history of the floodplain in context before Dr. Martin Rosenau of BCIT talked about development and its impacts on fish bearing streams, Kevin Larsen talked about the Township’s role, and Brian Anderson of Aldor Acres spoke for farmers. The floodplain surrounds the
village of Fort Langley, which sits on elevated land surrounded by flat areas and the meanders of the river before it joins with the Fraser just west of town. Watt noted that going back to the early days of settlement, managing water was part of land improvement for farmers. Major changes to the floodplain around Fort Langley didn’t start until after the 1894 flood, which was so devastating it almost reached up to the point now occupied by the Fort Langley Community Hall. After that, diking, dredging, and railway embankments began to alter the flow of water in the area, including in the Salmon River floodplain.
The first pumping station was built on the river in 1949. Rosenau talked about the profound effects changes in the last century have had, and can have, on a river system. The old pump station, replaced in 1997, routinely chopped up smolt salmon when it was running, he said. Development and agriculture can both damage a stream like the Salmon River, said Rosenau, from increased water runoff, to silt, to manure. Given growth, Rosenau doesn’t hold out much hope for the ecosystem, but said there are solutions. “Some of those solutions are perhaps not very easy solutions,” he said.
Anderson was there to stand up for the farmers in the floodplain, who have often clashed with environmentalists in the past. The farmers have called for increased use of the pump station to control water levels, among other things. “The farming community has changed a lot,” said Anderson. He noted it was nice to be on the same side as environmentalists in recent opposition raised to development in the uplands areas that drain into the floodplain. “We know it’s going to cause us some issues,” Anderson said. He said the community has to come together to manage growth. Larsen noted that the federal Fisheries Ministry has final authority over many aspects of how streams are modified in the floodplain, not the Township. For example, the pump station can only be used during the spring freshet, when water levels are at their highest, he said. Doug McFee of the Salmon River Enhancement Society, said he wants to see more discussion about the floodplain given plans for upstream developments such as the Wall property near Trinity Western University. Discussions about the environment and water use have to involve the community, McPhee said. About 100 people attended the forum.