S TANDARD TERRACE
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VOL. 27 NO. 14
www.terracestandard.com
Wednesday, July 29, 2015
Warm blob hurts fisheries hope
By JOSH MASSEY
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■ Headline fish ■■■ Community CUTLINE here, cutline here, cutlineofgoes here, cut- last DAVID GRIFFINGOES and Arthur Mercergoes unload a catch Nass sockeye cutline goes here. Cutline goes here,tocutline goesof the week.line Thegoes fishhere, are divided up and distributed for free members here, cutline goes here, cutline goes Nisga’a Nation in Terrace. Each family gets a couple of fish.
It’s considered by many to be the tastiest salmon, but unfortunately the typically plentiful sockeye has had another rough year and an alert for the possible complete closure of this year’s fishery was issued late last week. The Skeena Fisheries Commission said in a release that the sockeye return is on pace for fewer than one million fish, when over three million were expected. Low returns could force the complete shutdown of the fisheries similar to the unprecedented stoppage in the summer of 2013, the commission warns. According to head biologist at the Gitanyow Fisheries Mark Cleveland, the low count is due to poor ocean survival rates. “The ocean is kind of a big black box where we don’t understand the dynamics of how fish get affected,” he said. “I don’t know if you have heard of that warm blob that’s been in the upper hemisphere off the coast of B.C. and Alaska, but it’s quite likely that climate change and an extreme El Nino year may have affected their survival.” Fisheries experts have also noted that sockeye in both the Nass and the Skeena are on the small side this year. “It looks like most of the 5’s are failing,” said Cleveland of the Skeena run. “In other words, we were expecting two thirds of the run of Skeena sockeye to be five year olds, but they are showing up in really poor numbers so the run is made up mainly of four-year-olds.” As of last week only one restriction had been put in
place and that was to limit the daily catch of sockeye for recreational anglers from two to one fish, but Cleveland said the ban could be expanded this week with even fisheries section 35, the First Nations food fishery, threatened. “It’s not likely to be so poor that we would have to shut down section 35 fisheries, but it is a possibility,” he said. “So we wanted to put people on notice.” He added that the First Nations fisheries would be the last ones to be completely closed and said that 2013 was the first time the Department of Fisheries and Oceans had to shut down the
First Nations sockeye fisheries. Cleveland still had hope that the dismal sockeye return so far is just a bad start and that this week the numbers will have surged, but he wasn’t betting on it. “It’s been late in some of the Alaskan approach waters, so people are just really hoping that the run is still two weeks late, and that’s why it’s looking so small,” he said. Overall salmon numbers in the Nass started well this month. As is the case in the Skeena, warming water temperatures are a concern for all salmon species.
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WorkSafe report details fatality By MARGARET SPEIRS FAILURE TO use fall protection equipment, a lack of supervision and risk assessment are factors in the death of a contract worker on the Northwest Transmission Line north of Terrace last year, according to a WorkSafe BC Incident Investigation Report. While the cause of death was the worker not securing a safety lanyard that would have prevented a fall, consistent supervision “should have ensured that workers tied off.” The two companies involved in the project, Valard and McGregor Construction 2000 Ltd., also knew that the crane operator didn’t have the required certification in B.C., said the report. Michael Todd Thornewell, 45, died of massive head trauma after falling 22m (75 ft) from a work platform, about 50 km north of Terrace on March 15, 2014, said the coroner’s report released earlier this year. Thornewell, who had been working for McGregor under contract to Valard which built the transmission line, was a power line technician working on a new transmission tower that day, said the coroner’s report. The WorkSafe BC report states its purpose “is to identify and communicate the findings of this incident investigation to support future preventive actions by industry and WorkSafe BC” and “Any regulatory compliance activities arising from this incident will be documented separately.” The day of the accident, 12 workers on three crews were at the site.
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City freeman
High speed?
National Veldman
Fifth person to be honoured with title named \COMMUNITY A10
Residents living outside city not getting internet speeds they expected \NEWS A5
Centennial student chosen to be on Team Canada for volleyball \SPORTS A27