From the Watershed Board

Cowichan Watershed Board, February 25, 2013,  Duncan, BC

Water Quality Survey and Targets: Questions and Answers

In the summer of 2012 the Cowichan Watershed Board and its partners (see section on participants below) initiated a comprehensive water quality survey of the Cowichan and Lower Koksilah Rivers as well as some of the tributaries flowing into Cowichan Bay and the Bay itself.  The information below outlines the reasons for the survey, the related watershed targets, the approach to the survey, preliminary survey results, next steps and how the survey was funded.

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News Release, CVRD and Cowichan Tribes, August 15 2012

A collaborative initiative involving the Cowichan Valley Regional District (CVRD), Cowichan Tribes, BC Ministry of Environment, federal agencies, and a variety of local conservation groups and stakeholders was announced today by CVRD Chair Rob Hutchins and Cowichan Tribes Chief Harvey Alphonse. The $200,000 Cowichan Watershed Partnership Project is intended to initiate the restoration and protection of water quality in the Cowichan Watershed. People who are familiar with the watershed recognize that while there are positive practices happening in the watershed, there are a number of serious negative water quality indicators to address, including:

By Rodger Hunter, Cowichan Watershed Board, February 5, 2011
Photos by Les Harris

Did you know that we have a lamprey that lives in Cowichan and Mesachie lakes and nowhere else and it is considered to be critically imperilled?!! Due to some blundering in the fish naming ‘bureaucrazy’, our lamprey’s official name was shortened from the Vancouver Island lamprey to the Vancouver lamprey but Dr. Dick Beamish of DFO’s Nanaimo Biological Station is hoping that soon it will officially renamed the Cowichan lamprey. Dick is the scientist who originally identified the Cowichan lamprey as a separate species in the 1980’s.

By Rodger Hunter, Co-ordinator, Cowichan Watershed Board
January 29, 2011

As we ate the haggis and sipped a wee bit of whisky to celebrate Robbie Burns’ day last week conversation drifted to Scots, Loch Ness, the Loch Ness monster (Nessie) and then our own giant sea serpents.

By Rodger Hunter, Cowichan Watershed Board, December 19, 2010

With the rainy season squarely upon us maybe it an appropriate time to review some facts the essence of life.

Let’s start with the big picture and move from global to local.

So how much water is there on the planet?

Earth isn’t called the Blue planet for nothing. The United Nations Environment Program reports the there are 1.4 billion cubic kilometres of water on Earth.

Rodger Hunter, Cowichan Watershed Board, October 20, 2010

Sounds like corn, ballpoints and rings but they are the names for male, female and young trumpeter swans. The celebration is for the return of these majestic, graceful waterbirds to their Cowichan wintering grounds.

By Rodger Hunter, Co-ordinator, Cowichan Watershed Board, October 19, 2010

The weather has turned in the watershed. On Thanksgiving weekend there is some serious rain. Things got very busy at the Department of Fisheries and Ocean’s counting fence that spans the Cowichan River below Allenby Road and above the Island Corridor railway bridge.

Rodger Hunter, Cowichan Valley Citizen, September 24, 2010

In 2005 the United Nations declared 2005 to 2015 to be the Water for Life Decade.

Among other things, the Water for Life initiative is intended to encourage better stewardship of the world's water resources. As part of that initiative the UN designated the fourth Sunday in September as World Rivers Day.