Introduction

The health and viability of freshwater fish populations can depend on access to tributary and off channel areas which provide refuge during high flows, opportunities for foraging, overwintering habitat, spawning habitat and summer rearing habitat (Bramblett et al. 2002; Swales and Levings 1989; Diebel et al. 2015). Culverts can present barriers to fish migration due to low water depth, increased water velocity, turbulence, a vertical drop at the culvert outlet and/or maintenance issues (Slaney, Zaldokas, and Watershed Restoration Program (B.C.) 1997; Cote et al. 2005). As road crossing structures are commonly upgraded or removed there are numerous opportunities to restore connectivity by ensuring that fish passage considerations are incorporated into repair, replacement, relocation and deactivation designs.

The Society for Ecosystem Restoration in Northern BC (SERNbc) is working together with the McLeod Lake Indian Band, the Peace Region Fish and Wildlife Compensation Program (FWCP), the Provincial Fish Passage Technical Working Group (FPTWG), road/rail tenure holders and other FWCP stakeholders/partners to prioritize, plan and fund the restoration of fish passage at Parsnip River watershed road crossing structure barriers.

This project builds on Society for Ecosystem Restoration Northern BC (SERNbc) work in 2019 - 2020 which can be referenced here (Irvine 2020). In 2019, following a literature review, analysis of fish habitat modelling data, the Provincial Stream Crossing Inventory System (PSCIS) and a community scoping exercise within the McLeod Lake Indian Band habitat confirmation assessments were conducted throughout the Parsnip River watershed. At 17 sites where habitat confirmation assessments were conducted, crossings were rated for fish passage remediation priority. During the habitat confirmations a total of approximately 15 km of stream was assessed with 10 crossings rated as high priorities for rehabilitation, three crossings rated as moderate priorities and four crossings rated as low priorities.

In 2021/2022, through this collaborative project, and leveraging numerous other connectivity restoration initiatives underway throughout the province, we engaged numerous project partners and were able to source funding to catalyze fish passage restoration activities at multiple sites identified as high priorities in 2019/2020.

Through the ongoing development of open source analysis and data presentation tools (including pdf and web-hosted mapping tools) we are identifying new restoration opportunities, clarifying restoration benefits, communicating with the broader community and planning on the ground works. Partner engagement, planning, field assessments and reporting planned for 2022/2023 will continue to include relationship building with road/rail/forest tenure holders, build awareness for connectivity issues in the wider community, assess opportunities, build capacity for ecosystem restoration and provide the data necessary to implement and monitor restoration actions.

This document can be considered a living document. Version numbers are logged for each release with modifications, enhancements and other changes tracked here with issues and proposed/planned enhancements tracked here.