Salmon River Floodplain

Move to higher ground

The Salmon River Floodplain

Summary

 The Salmon River floodplain is an important historic area.  The appendix documents some of this history including the portage route via the Salmon River and the Nikomekl that was the most important transportation route for the aboriginal people of the lower Fraser.

There is an important opportunity for a win-win situation in the floodplain.  The Township is considering taxpayer funding to improve drainage in ditches and other waterways in the floodplain on private property off the main channel of the Salmon River .  The opportunity is there for the Township to acquire, in return, a limited amount of land along the river for a conservation area and a trails network.  This could be an important step in a wider goal of a coordinated parks and trails network in the Langley area. 

Background: Trails and Heritage

With increased efforts recently to complete the Trans Canada Trail before the 2010 Olympics a trails network in the floodplain would be an important community asset as it would provide a side route for hikers on the Trans Canada Trail.  There is also the potential for the Township to acquire some of the most flood prone lands (this has been suggested and is apparently being actively pursued) as a wetland park. 

The floodplain trails network with associated parks could be a major step (there are also trails planned in the nearby Yorkson area which would connect with Walnut Grove) towards developing a coordinated parks and trails network in Langley to compliment the Trans Canada Trail and the Fort historic site.  A longer term goal would be to recreate in some way the portage route (Tsalkwakyan) with its immense historical value going back long before the coming of Europeans to B.C.  The area could become attractive for eco-tourism and heritage tourism with signage documenting the ecological, recreational and heritage values of the floodplain.  Indeed the trails network might be a suitable project to initiate as part of the B.C. 150 year anniversary celebration. 

We would recommend that Langley initiate an inventory of Township owned lands to determine which properties might be protected for inclusion in this coordinated parks and trails network.  We hope that discussing the short term opportunity in the floodplain and the longer term opportunity for a heritage parks and trials network will generate discussion within the heritage committee and the Township which will enable these ideas to eventually be a reality.    

Appendix

Historical

The Salmon River has an important place in the history of British Columbia .  John Cherrington, in his book "The Fraser Valley: A History" states that for the Sto:lo of the Fraser Valley "...the most important communication route to the outside world was the Salmon River .  The aboriginals paddled down the Salmon, portaged over to the Nicomekl River , and then floated down to Mud Bay to greet their Nooksack cousins and engage in trade." 

The river and portage were known as the Tsalkwakyan.  The portage is said to have been approximately 8,000 yards over marshy areas near what is now Glover Road in the Milner area of Langley .   This same route was used by the Songhee, Semiahmoo and the Saanich in yearly migrations in the other direction to share in the rich harvest of salmon.  The village near the junction of the Salmon and the Fraser (or near present day Fort Langley) became a centre for trade and was one of the few permanent village sites in the Lower Fraser region.  The local Kwantlen tribe became rich and powerful.

The Tsalkwakyan also plays a large part in the early history of the fur brigades.  Simon Fraser is said to have stopped briefly at a large aboriginal village near Fort Langley (possibly on McMillan Island ).  Then in November, 1824, a party of 39 led by Chief Factor James McMillan made their way from Fort George on the Columbia, north to Mud Bay and then via the Nicomekl and the Tsalkwaykan to the Salmon River floodplain and the Fraser.  When McMillan returned in 1827 to establish a permanent base, he naturally returned to near the junction of the Salmon and the Fraser to establish Fort Langley (originally at Derby Reach then later moved to the present site).

As the name would suggest, the early settlers soon found the Salmon River and surrounding waterways an abundant source of salmon.   By 1829 the fort had established a trade in salmon with the aboriginals and in the 1830's a thriving trade in fish curing was established, with salmon dried and packed in barrels (hardwood for the barrels was obtained across the Fraser from the area now known as the Stave River) for shipment to Hawaii.  The area south of Fort Langley (Milner prairie) was developed for farming with the produce being floated down the Salmon River on barges.

Ecological

Unfortunately, extensive fish harvesting eventually led to the extinction of the Salmon River 's pink and chum salmon stocks.   The Salmon River remains, however, the most productive stream for its size in the Lower Fraser Valley for coho and for cutthroat trout.  Steelhead and at least 12 other fish species, including the rare and endangered Salish Sucker, make their home in the Salmon.   Even the chum have made their way back into the river with counts as high as 800 per year in the last decade. 

The Department of Fisheries has declared the Salmon an index river for coho thus preventing reintroduction of pink or stocking of coho or other species.   Historically, the wild coho stocks of the Salmon River Watershed have shown much higher survival over their life cycle than stocks in other streams.  Returning numbers have varied widely in recent years from as low as 1,000 up to 5,000 which can be compared with highs of 8,000 to 10,000 in the 1980's.  The lower Salmon River and associated Fort Langley floodplains have also been an important migratory wetland for wildfowl. 

The Salmon River Watershed was selected by Howard Parish as early as 1980 for special study in regard to Salmonid Enhancement.   He identified the Salmon as being one of the few remaining productive systems in the Lower Fraser Valley but as being on the "leading edge" of urban development and thus in danger of significant habitat degradation.  The Watershed has been extensively studied by Westwater Research of UBC in regard to water quality and its effect on fish populations.  In addition, the Salmon River was selected by the Fraser Basin Management Project (a coordinated effort by many levels of government to promote sustainability) in 1993 as one of its six special demonstration projects with the development of a watershed Management plan completed a few years later. 

Recreational

The floodplain portion of the Salmon River continues to be an important recreational area for bird watching, for fishing and for canoeing and boating.  Larry Pynn of the Vancouver Sun floated down the Salmon River from Trinity Western University to the mouth of the river approximately 10 years ago and recommended this historic paddle as being one of the best in the Lower Mainland.  He was especially impressed that the Salmon River has escaped major drainage projects and thus is one of the very few rivers in the Lower Mainland which retains its natural meanders and oxbows.    

After years of repeatedly rebuilding houses, some communities are now opting to move homeowners to higher ground------------------

Back when he lived with one ear permanently tuned to the weather forecast, Carl Moose used to joke that he never needed to redecorate his house. Every two years, Mother Nature did it for him.

Five times in 10 years, the creek near Moose's Tulsa, Oklahoma, ranch house breached its banks, surged across his yard and spilled into his living room. Five times, Moose stacked his furniture on sawhorses and left home in the bass boat he kept for such occasions.

So frequent were the floods that Moose knew the drill by heart, from where to send the kids to how to fill out the stacks of federal flood- insurance forms. Over time, the payments for flood repairs piled up, too, eventually topping $150,000 for a house valued at half that amount. "It was throwing good money after bad," says Moose. "You knew you'd only get flooded again with the next bad rain."

The cycle was finally snapped a few years ago after a sixth devastating flood forced Tulsa to take drastic action. Instead of rebuilding Moose's neighborhood the city bulldozed it, buying up the land and converting it into a greenway. Today, Moose is living high and dry in a new home, wild deer are frolicking where the old house stood, and Tulsa officials are wondering why it took so long to make the switch.

Tulsa, once known as the most flooded city in America, was one of the first to recognize a truth that is rapidly dawning on other flood-prone communities across the country: Sometimes the best insurance against flood damage is simply getting out of Nature's way. Drawing from the bitter lessons of decades of often futile flood-fighting efforts, these cities are stifling the impulse to repair flood-damaged houses and are focusing instead on depopulating riverbanks, buying out properties in floodplains where possible and moving people and businesses to higher ground.

"The tendency was to look at what was ruined and replace it--but that's not always the best thing to do," says Ann Patton, Tulsa's community affairs manager. "Sometimes you have to take a deep breath and say, `We're not building it back.'"

The wisdom of this approach was underscored by a major study conducted last year by the National Wildlife Federation, which concluded that aggressively promoting buyouts not only saves money in the long run but creates ecological and recreational benefits, too. Restoring floodplains to their natural function helps limit the damage from future floods, while protecting water quality and creating prime space for recreation and wildlife, the study says.

But old habits are dying slowly in other communities. The report, titled Higher Ground, tracks a torrent of federal insurance dollars being poured into repeatedly repairing homes and infrastructure in neighborhoods that inevitably flood again. In an analysis of 18 years of claims paid by the federal National Flood Insurance Program, the report's lead author David Conrad, an NWF water-resource specialist, identified 32,000 insured properties in 300 cities that had been flooded and repaired at least twice, sometimes apparently in violation of the local, state or federal government's guidelines. The buildings represented only 1 percent of the nation's insured properties, yet they received 20 percent of the program's $6.4 billion in loss payments.

Like Carl Moose's Tulsa home, nearly 5,600 properties were worth less than the money spent to fix them, Conrad says. The all-time spending champion was a house in Houston that flooded 16 times and sucked up $807,000 in repairs--seven times more than its market value.

Equally startling, Conrad says, is the size of the federal government's investment in preparing for floods and cleaning up the aftermath: $140 billion over the past 25 years, more than the annual gross domestic product of Austria. Ironically, he notes, "the government's generous flood-insurance terms and elaborate flood-control structures helped create the current problem by encouraging development in flood-prone areas."

The numbers are a testament to the error of treating rivers and floodplains as forces to be conquered, observes NWF President Mark Van Putten. "All too often we've seen rivers straight-jacketed into concrete chutes and floodplains transformed into suburbs," he says. "Unfortunately, Nature's reminders that we are not her master too often produce more flood victims, more damaged property and more costly disaster relief."

The tide may finally be shifting, however. Following the lead of Tulsa and other cities, the federal government is now pledging to increase its own efforts to encourage buyouts of flooded properties and restrict access to insurance for people who live in vulnerable areas.

Last summer, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers broke with decades of flood-fighting tradition by announcing plans to promote buyouts and wetlands restoration. The Corps' $325 million "Challenge 21" proposal advocates an environmental alternative to the standard approach of containing nature with concrete and steel.

In November, James L. Witt, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), announced a strategy to save $1 billion in flood payments over 10 years through accelerated buyouts of properties with multiple disaster claims. "It's time to quit wasting money and rebuilding in high-risk areas," Witt says. "If someone is going to build and live in a high-risk area, they ought to pay the price."

Cities are changing course, too, drawn as much by the ancillary benefits of natural floodplain management as by the savings in insurance premiums. Under law, floodplain properties that are bought with FEMA money must be reserved for natural uses and may not be redeveloped. David Passey, a spokesman for FEMA's southern regional office in Denton, Texas, says communities are now discovering new possibilities for creating wildlife habitats or needed recreational opportunities. "You can achieve a lot of things," says Passey. "You can tie the newly opened space into an existing park or maybe create a new one."

Tulsa, with nearly 20 years of experience in restoring flood plains, has tried all the variations. Since the 1970s the city has purchased and cleared more than 1,000 properties from floodplains, using a combination of local and FEMA funds. The biggest single group purchase- -about 300 buildings--came in the wake of the 1984 flood that killed 4 people and damaged 6,800 homes. Among the homes eventually purchased was Carl Moose's, who fled his house for the sixth and final time that year.

Most of the purchased properties are, like Moose's, now open space. Others were incorporated into a river park system that attracts not only urban visitors but migrating birds. "Ducks and geese have adopted us here, which is very pleasant," says Patton. "More and more we are recognizing the benefits of wetlands and natural areas, which increase the diversity of wildlife."

One former Tulsan who relishes the change is Moose, who sometimes drives through his old neighborhood on his way to his new address, a house in the suburbs, with a backyard swimming pool, perched safely on a hill far from any water body of signficant size. On a recent visit he stopped to snap some pictures and reflect on the progress that has been made in both worlds.

"The wind might blow us away at the new place, but we won't get flooded again," he says. "And I can tell you, it's much nicer to swim in a pool than in your living room."

Until the mid-1980s, Tulsa, Oklahoma, had the dubious distinction of being America's most flooded city. Some homes had been flooded and rebuilt as many as five times in six years. But after a foot of rain fell on Memorial Day 1984, causing the most devastating flood in the city's history and $180 million in losses, Tulsa residents decided to get serious about floodplain management.

More than 900 buildings have been bought and relocated or rebuilt on higher ground by the city of Tulsa. The floodplain is now devoted to wildlife habitat, parks and 50 miles of biking, walking and jogging paths. As a result, recent floods have caused virtually no damage.

Tulsa is cited as "an outstanding example of how a community can use modern floodplain management to assist its citizens and the environment" in a new NWF report, "Higher Ground." The report assesses the national program for voluntary buyouts of flood-prone properties that NWF helped persuade Congress to expand in the wake of the 1993 Midwest floods.

Other methods have failed to stem flood losses, the report notes. Although the Army Corps of Engineers has spent more than $25 billion on flood-control projects in the past 25 years, the annual cost of floods has escalated steadily to a current level of more than $4 billion a year. And though the flood-insurance program requires properties suffering major damage to be moved or elevated, many in fact are rebuilt in place and continue to suffer flood damage, NWF's analysis shows.

"Many communities are not fully aware of all the resources now available to assist with voluntary buyouts," says David Conrad, NWF's "Higher Ground" project director. "We hope this report will be a truly useful tool at the local level to encourage consideration of this option."