The grassy back garden of the Tall Timbers home is bathed in autumn sunlight. A dozen people have gathered here, their feet clad in walking boots.

The sun warm on their backs, they venture towards a woodland slope for the first stop on a tour of Langley streams.Their feet crunching on the first fallen leaves, they find a path — a rough, narrow well-trampled track that zigzags in an almost vertiginous descent to the Salmon River 80 feet below. The air down there is much cooler.

Thirteen years ago, the river was deep enough to create swimming holes for the homeowner’s children. In the summer of those days, the water was chest high. In some places today it scarcely reaches ankle height, and rocks are clearly visible.

The shallow water illustrates how the river is dependent on the aquifer below to sustain it when there isn’t enough rainfall.

In a deeply shaded part of the river water from springs is tumbling out of the river bank.

This is rainwater which, in the wet season, saturates the sand and gravel of the Salmon River Uplands where the Tall Timbers neighbourhood is located. This constant supply of water is what keeps the river cool enough for fish.

But despite this idyllic setting, the Salmon River faces threats which, its stewards say, must be addressed.

They say that consecutive summers of hot, dry weather, years of diminished rainfall, and unimpeded drawing of water from the Hopington Aquifer, are causing great concern for the health of the Salmon, one of B.C.’s most important and prolific salmon-bearing rivers.

• Deadly warmth

At this point of the stream, the river valley is lush, perfect for keeping the stream cool for salmon. The temperature of the water flowing from the bank is nine degrees. The Fraser River, into which the Salmon flows at Fort Langley, can easily warm to 19 degrees in the summer, and if the temperature of its tributaries reaches 12 degrees or higher, the water can turn deadly for fish in a matter of hours.

Keeping the river at around nine degrees is ideal for juvenile coho to mature from fry to five- or six-inch smolts before they migrate to the ocean the following spring. In fact, coho live in the stream for one year, but even a few hours in water that is too warm will kill them.

And if the river is low, the level of its tributaries will fall correspondingly. Coho prefer smaller streams like Pond Creek, rather than bigger rivers, so if the tributaries go dry, there will not be enough habitat for fish to rear in, let alone survive: It is estimated that for every metre that goes dry, one fish dies.

They can go elsewhere, but the competition for food can be fierce. Sometimes, the little fish become dinner for the bigger ones.

This section of the Salmon River was the first stop on a stream tour which drew students, residents, Township Mayor Rick Green and Councillors Bev Dornan and Kim Richter, Doug McFee of the Salmon River Enhancement Society, Matt Foy, a biologist with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, and Jim Clark, a long-time Langley well driller.

The tour’s next stop was Tall Timbers Golf Course at 56 Avenue and 232 Street. Like all stops on the tour, the course lies above the Hopington Aquifer. Thousands of residents, as well as numerous farms and businesses, draw their water from this massive underground reservoir.

It is under threat from several sources.

• Falling water,

rising concerns

Water levels in the Hopington aquifer have been falling for decades, and now there is evidence that this decline is beginning to affect the stream flows in summer. Around the golf course, water from artesian agriculture wells drains uselessly into ditches and away from the centre of the aquifer where streams and users can access it.

Because of its rich soil, berry farms have thrived here for decades. Technology to reduce water consumption and use it in such a way that it is not lost to evaporation, has long existed, but farmers have resisted because of the expense. As a result, agriculture accounts for approximately 85 per cent of water drawn from the aquifer.

Clark confirmed that well drillers are tapping into the aquifer over an area north of Highway 1 that is much wider than the Township’s aquifer maps indicate. Water is being extracted at an alarming rate, with some wells drawing 1,000 gallons per minute, Clark said.

Williams Park, at 68 Avenue and 238 Street, is an oasis that sits over the aquifer. It is in the park that the smaller Coghlan Creek meets the Salmon River.

McFee pointed out the low flow into the larger stream. Coghlan has a better flow, even though it drains a smaller part of the watershed because it is fed by more springs that are situated near the park.

At a presentation centre in Williams Park, Foy explained that it is the middle reaches of the river that are the healthiest, but now there are early signs that some of the smaller tributaries are shrinking and the flow in others is decreasing in the summer months.

• No more studies

The next stop presented a perfect example: Pond Creek, which runs under Saddlehorn Crescent west of 248 Street. Here, even as the sun had dipped beneath the horizon, it was possible to see that Pond Creek had been reduced to stagnant water.

Happily, when the fall rains come, Pond Creek returns as a good spawning area, though less so as a rearing habitat.

There was nothing casual about coffee at the Co-Op where the tour ended. The location is significant, because behind the store lies an observation well which confirms that the Hopington aquifer has been dropping at a rate of one foot per year.

There was a consensus among the stewards of the Salmon River that there is no time to waste.

“We don’t want another 10 years of study,” McFee said.

“We’ve got to start actually capping artesian wells and dealing with some of the other problems. In addition to capping wells, we need to improve irrigation practices to save water. We need to find ways to infiltrate more rainwater into the aquifer,” he added.

“A pilot project would be a start.”

The group heard that stemming the loss of water from artesian wells by 1,000 gallons a minute, would solve half the problem.

“Stopping the flow of wasted water from 50 of the biggest would make a huge difference,” Green said.

If estimates are correct that the loss of water amounts to 2,500 gallons per minute, the accumulated loss in one year is 1.3 billion gallons. Saving 1,000 gallons per minute from artesian wells would equate to 500,000 gallons per year.  The problems are not insurmountable and, the group agreed, require the combined will of the Township, provincial government, residents and farmers to resolve.

“We don’t have a lot of time before the dropping water table causes irreparable harm to the river,” McFee warned.

“We can’t just look to the province for regulations. We need to step up with innovative programs such as incentives to farmers and land owners to cap their artesian wells and reduce water use from other wells,” he added.

Green was enthusiastic and eager for the Township to act.

“The problem is, where are the uncapped wells?” Green asked. “The big issue is, one step at a time, but what is the first step?”

The group’s consensus was to:

• cap artesian wells;

• give farmers financial incentives to improve their irrigation practices to save water (and money in the long run), and

• seek ways to infiltrate more rainwater into the aquifer, especially in the south and west where this process is slowed by layers of clay.

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