WOODLANDS COUNTY - Woodlands County has its work cut out for it.
Bruce Nielsen of Woodlands North told councillors during their Oct. 11 Whitecourt council meeting that the municipality will have to replace dozens of culverts or watercourse waterways over the next several years.
The county contracted Woodlands North, a natural resource management and restoration company, to inventory municipally-owned culverts.
Nielsen noted his survey, which is about 44 per cent complete, identified 49 culverts out of 129 requiring remedial work, 33 of which are more severe and will need to be replaced to comply with provincial and federal legislation.
Currently, the county is applying for provincial grant funding to remediate water crossing sites at Range Road 120A and Range Road 134.
"Once you install a culvert, you think it is there forever. It is not. Culverts are a temporary crossing," he said, adding that many county culverts are more than 60 years old and in "terrible condition".
Nor is Woodlands County unique.
Nielsen said roughly 22 per cent of the water crossings in the province are in trouble.
"That is what is driving governments [especially the federal government under the Department of Fisheries and Oceans] and biologists," he said.
Nielsen added water crossings are essential for several reasons, as they help protect fish and environmental habitats, maintain water quality and, from a municipality's perspective, public safety.
In Alberta, there are five Hydrologic Unit Code (HUC) areas, in which Alberta Environment and Parks (AEP) assigns a one to five number to each fish species corresponding to its health, with five being the best.
A hydrologic unit code is a sequence of numbers or letters that identify a hydrological unit or feature, such as a river, river reach, lake, or area like a drainage basin or catchment area, ranging from 240 to 450,000 hectares in size.
However, he said, the bottom line is that "the fish are in trouble" across the province, Nielsen said.
"The bull trout is an endangered species of special concern, while the Arctic grayling, which is a member of the trout family, and the Athabasca rainbow trout are set to join them," he said.
Niesen noted that while all three are in Woodland County waters, the Arctic grayling and Athabasca rainbow trout are especially prominent.
"The Freeman River is one of the province's top grayling rivers and is where they've captured grayling stock forever. It is a destination creek for grayling fishermen," he said. "[Yet] the entire Freeman River goes through that little pipe there,” referring to a slide in his PowerPoint presentation.
Although he was there to speak about the impact roadways have on fish habitat, according to the North Central Native Trout (NCNT) committee, there were other activities that more negatively impacted fish.
"The most significant being fishing," he said. "[Specifically handling of them] as they are pretty sensitive, weekend warriors and their ATV use, which never goes over well in the Whitecourt/Woodlands area, and agriculture."
However, he said it was difficult "to hang your hat on fishermen, ATV, or agriculture"; the government focused on something they could more readily regulate.
Nielsen added that public safety is paramount as much as municipalities are concerned with fish habitat and water quality.
"It is amazing the number of lousy crossings, especially on bush roads, that there are that we just blast over," Nielsen said. "By inventorying and managing the problem, you also manage risk."
He added that in many cases, the regulations require municipalities to replace pipe culverts with open-bottom archways, depending on the creek's and roadway's importance.
About 20 years ago, due to a sale of 1,000-millimetre culverts and the regulations at the time, many culverts municipalities installed needed to be larger.
"We've all seen it. When you put in high velocity through a drinking straw, it kicks it out faster at the other end, causing flooding of roadways," Nielsen said. "That's what we were allowed to do, and at the time, we thought we knew what we were doing."
Barry Kerton, TownandCountryToday.com
