New research, as part of the Slave Watershed Environmental Effects Program, is looking at ice on the river. - NNSL file photo |
Scientist looks into Slave River flow
Search on for effects from B.C. dam and climate change
Paul Bickford
Northern News Services
Published Monday, May 26, 2014
THEBACHA/FORT SMITH
A researcher is looking at the ice dynamics of the Slave River as part of the two-year Slave Watershed Environmental Effects Program .
Karl-Erich Lindenschmidt, an associate professor at the University of Saskatchewan, is leading the ice monitoring, and updated Fort Smith and Fort Resolution on the progress at recent public meetings.
Lindenschmidt, who is in the university's School of Environment and Sustainability, explained how the monitoring is looking for effects from the Bennett Dam on the Peace River in British Columbia.
"Generally, since the dam was constructed, the winter flows are higher," he said at a May 14 meeting in Fort Smith. "Dams modulate your flows over the years, so flows are higher in the winter than pre-dam days and are lower in the summer. So that will have an impact on the ice formation."
However, Lindenschmidt noted the dam is a long way upstream, and that makes it hard to correlate the hydro project with river flows in the NWT, particularly since a lot of tributaries enter the system.
"So it's difficult, but we're still working on it," he said. "I don't want to say anything conclusive, yet."
Lindenschmidt noted that BC Hydro, which operates the Bennett Dam, assumes a lot of the possible impacts are attenuated further downstream or are masked by influences like tributaries and the Peace-Athabasca Delta.
That to a certain degree is true, he said. "But there will be some impact. What we're trying to do here through this project is determine how much contribution that is to the changes seen down here."
Lindenschmidt is looking at whether changes in discharge from the dam could affect over-ice flooding on the Slave River and even the formation of air pockets.
The professor said that, at workshops last summer, people raised concerns about overflow and hazardous air pockets in the ice, which could break under the weight of snowmobiles.
"So I spent a lot of time this winter collecting data," he said, noting that included surveys of snow depth and ice types.
There was also an aerial survey on May 1 before breakup while the ice cover was still intact and the snow had melted off, Lindenschmidt said.
"So it was a good time to see the kind of features along the ice cover."
In addition, three time-lapse cameras in the Fort Smith area and three more in the Delta watch the river.
The project also has access to satellite imagery, said Lindenschmidt. "It's very remote here and satellite imagery is just a great help to monitor on such a vast scale."
Satellite images can be quite expensive, about $5,000 each, he noted. "I did get some funding from the Canadian Space Agency where they funded 20 images for free."
Plus, he has ice measurements and meteorological data from Environment Canada dating back to the 1930s.
Lindenschmidt said the study will also look for effects of climate change on the ice of the Slave River.
"What we'd like to do is look at a reference river that's not regulated or has less regulation," he said, mentioning the Hay River or the Liard River as possibilities to see how their flows have changed over the decades and if that is similar to the Slave River.
"If they're the same, you may attribute that to climate change," he explained. "If they're not the same and the change here is greater, there will probably be a climate change signal in there. It's our job to see how much additional contribution there might be from the dam, or the other way around."
Lindenschmidt also noted two PhD students will create computer models of the Slave River in the next two to three years.
"With that model, we would be able to run scenarios with and without the dam, and then really be able to tease out how much of the changes in the flows are due to climate change," he noted.
Fort Smith's Clayton Burke, one of 10 residents at the meeting, asked Lindenschmidt about BC Hydro's proposed Site C dam - which would be the third on the Peace River in northeastern B.C. - and its possible impact downstream.
"It's just like you pinching off an artery in your neck or leg, and saying it's not going to bother anything. Well, it is going to," Burke said, adding existing studies were done long before Site C was proposed.
"I have more the impression that a lot of these studies stop at Peace Point," Lindenschmidt responded. "We're not going to stop there. We're going to extend the model down to Fort Resolution. I think that's a very important step forward."
The research program, which involves five scientists from the University of Saskatchewan, is also looking for impacts from climate change, pesticides from farming, hydrological changes and industrial pollution. Two others scientists spoke at the May 14 public meeting - one on fish health and the other on organisms in the sediment.
