We narrowly escaping a city plan to dredge the Alouette during spawning season.
The City of Maple Ridge made two big mistakes last November: it planned to dredge the North Alouette River for flood control when salmon were spawning, and failed to give the public time to question the digging.
I discovered the plan on Saturday, Nov. 29, in the online story in the Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows News. The 224th bridge would be closed, Monday, Dec. 1, to enable “dredging operations.”
RELATED – 224 Street in Maple Ridge closed Monday at 132 Avenue
Salmon were spawning; eggs were in the gravel. The ‘safe window’ for work in a salmon stream is before Aug. 31, or the next spring when the fry are free-swimming.
Dredging in December is a Fisheries Act violation (hazardous alteration, disturbance or destruction of habitat – HADD). Did DFO approve? Why?
By the time city hall opened, the damage would be done.
On the bridge that Sunday, I made a Facebook video instead.
“Something bad is going to happen here,” I warned. “Maple Ridge will dredge the streambed tomorrow.”
Thousands of viewers responded.
ARMS historian Geoff Clayton commented, “The city’s shown incompetence by shifting a summer dredging job to the spawning season.”
Fisheries expert, Dr. Marvin Rosenau messaged DFO’s manager, Shawn Sequin. He replied DFO “was unaware the work plan had not yet been completed… We share your concerns regarding the increased risks of impacts to spawning salmon that the works impose.”
Sunday night, Mayor Dan Ruimy phoned me to explain. “We missed the safe window for work in salmon streams, but we had DFO approval.”
When my request to see all DFO communication was denied, I filed a freedom of information request for it. It would reveal months of city procrastination.
On Sept 24, 2025 – having missed the safe window – the city requested an urgent review, “as the gravel and sediment adjacent to the bridge has reached a point where water levels are anticipated to overwhelm the reduced channel, increasing the risk of flooding to surrounding homes and properties.”
It now promised works would be completed between Oct. 6 and Oct. 31.
Then on Oct. 2, DFO biologist Courtney Tiechko replied with, “please notify me at least 10 days before starting your project,” adding, “It’s your duty to notify DFO if you have caused the death of fish…”
But dredging didn’t happen in October either. Now, the city asked to do it Dec. 1.
At the bridge on Monday morning, I found the work crew packing up.
“It’s just been cancelled,” one told me and executive members of ARMS. “Don’t know why.” ARMS office manager Greta Borrick Cunningham was relieved.
“The city didn’t notified us,” she said. “I learned about it after reading your Facebook page.”
Did public push-back change the city’s plan?
Maybe.
On Dec. 1, DFO’s Tiechko, again wrote the city: “We have been made aware that there are further delays of these works and they have not been completed as proposed… The delayed timing of these works has increased the risks to spawners and incubating eggs.”
She adds – in bold print – “The City has a Duty to Notify the DFO if it was about to cause a HADD.”
Flooding is an annual problem on the North Alouette (NA).
“In 2007,” recalled Clayton, “a committee of property owners, ARMS, and council reps asked Northwest Hydraulics Ltd. to make suggestions.”
NWH concluded, “The (undersized) bridge over the NA is one of the key choke points of the river… Install large culverts to direct water around the bridge.”
“The suggestions sat well with the committee,” recalled Clayton, “but died in a city hall file cabinet.”
Flooding will threaten property and infrastructure this year. In the FOI report, the city admits dredging the previous year had “minimal success.”
So, what is the plan moving forward? The public deserves to know.
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– Jack Emberly is a retired teacher, local author and environmentalist