Alberta Aquatic Rehabilitation & Rejuvenation Program

AARRP

Confidential - DraftWorking Paper and Introduction of the

North Saskatchewan River System - Endangered Sturgeon Spawning Enhancement

Project.AKA

“ESSEP”

Endangered Sturgeon Spawning Enhancement Project. AKA “ESSEP”

The conclusions of this proposal are based on the following:

1. - IS THERE HOPE FOR THE STURGEON RIVER?By Derek Richmond (P. Eng.); The August 20, 1913 issue of the St. Albert Star2. - Sturgeon Fish Study: Owen Watkins; Alberta Sustainable Resource Development (SRD)-19913. - Fish & Habitats– White Sturgeon (Acipenser transmontanus) in British Columbia; BC Government

Problem: Fish extinction with no solutions.

We have an economical Solution!

What do we know:The Sturgeon River basin, once abundant with wildlife and plentiful with plants, has undergone more transformation in the last one hundred years than in all its time since its formation after the last ice age, 8,000 years ago.

Fact:Two years after the Riel Rebellion of 1870, the first bridge west of the Great Lakes was constructed across the Sturgeon River at St. Albert. The building of the bridge opened opportunities for transportation and development and changed the way of life in and around the Sturgeon River forever.

Death of the Waterway:In 1878 - About six years after the bridge at St. Albert was constructed, turbine and sawmill machinery were hauled in from the United States and installed at the site where a three-meter high and thirty-meter long dam was constructed.

Death of the Waterway:The Sturgeon had valuable assets that figured prominently in the development of the area. Its water powered a gristmill and lumber mill at the site of a dam constructed about thirty kilometers downstream of St. Albert.

Sad Truth:Competing water demands from agriculture, irrigation for golf courses and sod farms, oil and gas use and gravel operations mean that the river is often reduced to little more than a muddy trickle; barely adequate for a dwindling fish population. More than 600 approved water withdrawals take place in the basin. Less than half (50%) of this water is returned to the river.

Sad Truth:Between Lac Isle and Lac Ste. Anne, cattle have destroyed riparian vegetation and river-banks and have been banned from some areas where fecal coliform counts became excessive. Unimposing as it might be, the Sturgeon has endured the abuse of unprecedented development and growth. It fought to survive the discharge of human sewage effluent. Now sewage is conveyed to a central waste treatment plant but other hardships continue to assail the Sturgeon.

Sad Truth:The river has endured further injury from storm outfalls that have deposited sediment barriers to fish migration. Shopping carts are an eyesore amongst the migrating waterfowl and busy beaver Where once grew wild riparian flowers, dense vegetation from invading species and aquatic weeds, fed by fertilizer runoff now dominate.

Sad Truth: Big Lake Today

Sad Truth: Sturgeon River

Sad Truth: Sturgeon River

Sturgeon River Historical Record:

"It can rain for a week now and the river doesn't come up. Why is that," asks Mary (Born 1919). On the Sturgeon on the north side of Big Lake, it was common in Mary's generation to pull out 20 pound sturgeon fish from deep pools north of Big Lake. Sturgeon haven't been caught or sighted for more than 25 years and those fish that do remain are northern pike and stickleback.

Sturgeon River Facts:While the history and watershed of the Sturgeon are unique, its plight is not. Countless rivers and water-courses in North America have disappeared or degraded as a result of progress and its ensuing development.

Sturgeon River Facts:The Sturgeon River is a small cousin of the North Saskatchewan. It is only 259 km long and drains a watershed of a little more than 3,600 square kilometers - about five and a half times the size of the present City of Edmonton.

Sturgeon River Facts:Hoople Lake, the Sturgeon's headwaters start the rivers course that traverses Lake Isle, Lac St. Anne, Devil's Lake (Cree: Matchayaw Lake) and Big L-tke on its way to con-fluence with the North Saskatchewan River, just down-stream of Ft. Saskatchewan.

The Sturgeon River System:

Fish Facts:

Fish Facts:Most of the skeleton is made up largely of cartilage rather than bone, and the overall appearance is quite prehistoric, which makes sense since sturgeon have remained virtually unchanged since they first appeared in the fossil record 175 million years ago.

Fish Facts:One trait that makes the white sturgeon so unusual is its incredibly long lifespan. Some individuals are over 100 years old. Given their long life, they tend to grow slowly and are not ready to spawn until the females are over 18 years of age and males are at least 14 years of age, white sturgeon are capable of spawning many times throughout their life.

Fish Facts:White sturgeon depend on a number of environmental cues in the spring to spawn - these include water temperature, day length, strength of water current and riverbed material. The male and female release sperm and eggs together in the water current - called broadcast spawning.

Spawning Environment

Fish Fact:A female may release between 100,000 to 3 million eggs but only a small number may actually get fertilized. Once they are fertilized, the eggs become sticky and attach to the river bottom as soon as they come into contact with it. The young embryos mature into larvae in 8-15 days and then spend another 20-30 days nestled in the river bed until they metamorphose into free- swimming young sturgeon.

Fish Facts:Sturgeon generally do not move more than a few km during the summer feeding season. Before spawning or when traveling to over-wintering locations, sturgeon can migrate over 100 km. Adult fish tend to occur in deeper, faster waters of large river main steams, where they spend most of their time on or near the bottom of the riverbed.

Fish Facts:Juveniles prefer slow moving sloughs and backwaters. Spawning habitat is usually in turbulent fast water, but locations can range from shallow murky side channels with pebbly and sandy bottoms to deeper, less murky main channels with larger boulders and cobble.

Fish Facts:The body shape and mouth structure of white sturgeon is ideally suited to bottom feeding. Although sturgeon have poor eyesight, they use their highly sensitive barbels to locate prey. Rather than using teeth, sturgeon have a extendible mouth which they can use like a vacuum cleaner to suck up prey.

Fish Facts:Small sturgeon feed on chironomids, as well insect larvae, molluscs and other small invertebrates. Larger sturgeon switch to a fish-based diet although chironomids can still make up a significant part of the diet. White sturgeon are known to and also feed on eulachon, sculpins and stickleback.

Fish Facts:Many of the threats to white sturgeon are specific to the river system in which they live. These threats include over-fishing, dams and flow regulation, water diversions and diking for flood control and irrigation all have reduced water quality.

Fish Facts:Introduced species including predators and competitors, reduced water quality associated with various land-use practices (e.g. forestry) and loss of habitat from dredging, gravel mining and other industries have damaged the breeding grounds for the Sturgeon.

Fish Facts:These fish are listed as endangered species, because they are so long lived and slow to mature that they must be watched more closely than other species.

Sturgeon Fish Facts:The research project started in 1991, Owen Watkins received a report of someone catching a river sturgeon and then he begun to tag them. It was just the past few years where the researchers began to use his tagging data that has been collected over the last 20 years.

Sturgeon Fish Facts:The project is a collaboration between the Watkins and SRD, it is funded through SRD and through Environment Canada's Habitat Stewardship Program, with the purpose of discovering not only why the population of the sturgeon is so low, but also what can be done to maintain or increase the population in the river.

Sturgeon Fish Facts:The researchers hope to gain a better understanding of where these fish spawn, where they are in the winter, where they forge in the summer, what the population is doing.

Sturgeon Fish Facts:Watkins states that knowing the state of these fish is beneficial to the community because what has happened to them over time is a good indicator of river health.

Sturgeon Fish Facts:"We're going back and fourth between the two bridges looking for these fish," says Watkins. He says they mark the fish in a location that is known and they find them in various places, such as near the Tomahawk bridge and even as far east as North Battleford, SK. (Onion Lake Bridge)

Sturgeon Migration Territory:

Sturgeon Fish Facts:Watkin states, that in Wisconsin they manage lake sturgeon at approximately 150 per river kilometre, so in Alberta estimates of the population is in the low thousands.

Sturgeon Fish Fact: Where did the spawning environments go?

Sturgeon Population Decline Theories:

1. The population is slowly recovering from the low oxygen levels that existed prior to the 1960s, before Edmonton treated their sewage.

Sturgeon Population Decline Theories:

2. The Sturgeon use the river only seasonally to spawn and forage and then leave. (Where do they go in the Winter?)

Sturgeon Population Decline Theories:

3. The “catch and release” regulation/policy is ineffective and the population is being over fished, due to an associated mortality factor during the process.

Sturgeon Fish Facts:Lake sturgeon fish in particular, have been part of the eco system for 200 million years. In Alberta's North Saskatchewan River they are considered endangered species with an approximate population of 1,700.

8 Breeding Females

Sturgeon Fish Facts:"There is a possibility of losing the species completely," says Watkins. "Right now five per cent of those 1,700 fish are mature, and if we assume a population of 50/50 male to female, in any given year, there are only about eight (8) female fish who are spawning."

Sturgeon Fish Facts:Female sturgeon can take more than 25 years to mature, with a potential life span of 154 years, and though the sturgeon population should be showing a wide variety of age in the river that the oldest fish his research team was able to find was 64 years old.

Fact:The City of St. Albert have measured Big Lake and the Sturgeon river. The Sturgeon river is measured at 1.0 ppm, Storm water at 2.0 – 4.0 ppm and states that Oxygen levels for a healthy fish population requires 6.0 – 10 ppm.

Fact: St. Albert’s Fish Kill Problem

Simple Truth:We know that the Sturgeon at one time were plentiful before the settler’s moved in at the time of the birth of our Province. Starting in the Mid 1800’s, we see the commercial explosion as well as a change in damming the flow of the river. This no doubt affected the Sturgeon and their spawning habits.

Simple Truth:If we go back to 1850 as a starting point, we know that the following has happened:1. 2 dams and agricultural and Irrigation use

have reduced flow +50%. 2. Human waste directly dumped into the river

during 1945 – 19603. Overfishing and loss of undisturbed

spawning grounds

Simple Truth:1. 1945 saw the end of the Sturgeon being

caught in Big Lake.2. 1950 – 1960 Human Waste processing

dumping into river created toxic environment.

3. Fertilizer, urban lawn care, river proximity and lack of sheltered riverbank have created environmental conditions which make spawning impossible.

People have been looking for solutions to our “Water Quality” Issues

During 1950 - 1960 the City of St. Albert was dumping raw sewage into the river; it killed the river. There are surviving fish landlocked in Lake Isle and Lac St. Anne. Based on the evidence, at that time and the age of the fish any non-mature female would have left the Sturgeon basin and started new spawning sites downstream of the City of Edmonton and Devon, where the water quality was better.

2 Pronged Solution for Sturgeon Survival:

2 Pronged Solution for Sturgeon Survival

Solution 1: The oldest known Sturgeon in Alberta would be 68 years of age. She was born in 1947. The maturation of her as spawning female would put her first spawning age in 1965. This Sturgeon would have relocated its spawning location from the Sturgeon River and relocated to this location when raw sewage was being dumped into the Sturgeon River.

Solution 1: Protected Environment – The West/South Portion – Tomahawk Bridge – area is high cliffs and

flood plains which are on Private land with no trespassing - denied access.

Solution 1: Sturgeon are spawning in the pools and the fast moving deep cut channels running

through sand bars

Solution 1: Aerate and Circulate water in Spawning Environment

Solution 1: “The Living Aquarium”

Solution 1: Enrich the Spawning Environment with dissolved

oxygen and addition circulation.

Solution 1: ensure success of spawning by improving water quality and better

environment for spawning.

Solution 1:Placement of the Vortex Generator in the main channel near the bridge to use the current infrastructure and power.

Solution 1:After main diffusion of dissolved oxygen is applied the current will carry the Oxygen enriched water down stream to the spawning environments.

Solution 1:We have 8 spawning female Sturgeon, who are laying eggs in this area.

Solution 1: “The Living Aquarium”

Solution 1 & 2: Dissolved Oxygen Enrichment

Solution 1 & 2:

This “Water Rejuvenation Device” (WRD) moves 700 m3/h (3080 usgpm) 3-6 m vertically and 100 m horizontally. Over a 24 hour period it moves 16,800 M3.

As with the Oloid circulation is far reaching and aerating effective.

Solution 2: The Sturgeon River System

Solution 2: Improve water quality of Lake Isle and Lac St. Anne

Solution 2: Lake Isle

Solution 2: Lac St. Anne

Lac St. Anne

Lac St. Anne

It takes a fraction of the cost to rejuvenate and rehabilitate the water for the

purposes in protecting our Aquatic life from extinction.

Oloid success: Sitzenberg–Reidling, Austria. Aquaculture – Carp Fish Production from 2005-2009 increased from 6300 Kg/Yr. – 9000 Kg/Yr.

Finally we have an economic Solution

Conclusions:Communities are awakening to the urgency of the rivers' demise. These initiatives will not come cheaply or easily. They will have to compete against development and economics. However, understanding its true economic value means appreciating an asset worthy of protection that adds value to the quality of life, provides opportunities for ecotourism and recreation revenue and provides a legacy for the future.

Contact Information:

AARRPAlberta Aquatic Rejuvenation & Rehabilitation Program.Robert Losie - 587.873.8053rrlosie@shaw.ca