The City of Surrey has an extensive creek and ditch network that forms a large part of its drainage infrastructure. It also provides significant fisheries habitat, supporting sizeable populations of salmon and trout, as well as some at risk species. The maintenance of these channels is required to maintain drainage capacity. At the same time, the maintenance must be conducted in such a way that habitat values are protected.
Dillon was retained by the City of Surrey to provide environmental support for this project. Initially, a field program was developed to allow for the rapid completion of site assessments (over 100 in any given year). Assessed values included channel morphology, substrate, and streamside vegetation extent and composition.
The data assessed was used to compile a series of Applications or Notifications under British Columbia’s Water Sustainability Act to acquire permitting to allow maintenance to proceed. The submissions included a series of mitigation measures to be applied during maintenance to minimize impacts to the greatest extent possible. In some cases, where a serious harm to fish habitat was possible, Dillon submitted Requests for Project Review to Fisheries and Oceans Canada under the Fisheries Act.
Once permits were acquired, work proceeded with Dillon providing environmental monitoring and fish salvage services for compliance with mitigation requirements.
Dillon also provided emergency response services for this project for flooding related to beaver dams, blocked culverts and collapsed banks. Spill response was also a component of the emergency services.