Letter to the Editor: Willful degradation of the Oldman's headwaters

David McIntyre, Letter to the Editor

When autumn gold colors the Oldman's storied shoreline, bull trout begin to move. Traversing the river's serpentine course, they swim upstream as they've done for more than 10,000 years.

Last fall was no exception. More than seventy percent of the river's spawning bull trout eventually entered a single headwater tributary (Hidden Creek), a stream defined by its cold, clear water, its productive (read not sedimented, i.e., not destroyed) spawning beds (redds).

The eggs of the bull trout, deposited in the streambed last October, must overwinter if they're to hatch this coming spring. Bull trout, a prima donna among the salmonids, require the coldest, cleanest water, the most pristine forests. The presence of spawning bull trout defines headwaters virtue—sedimentation and habitat degradation spell the species' demise.


The bull trout (Alberta's provincial fish) is in peril. It's listed as a "species at risk," and lives on just 30 percent of its historic range in the Oldman Watershed. The species, after thriving for millennia, has been almost wiped out during the past century. The same is true of Alberta's native westslope cutthroat trout, now living on just five percent of its former range.

Sedimentation (from logging and roads) of streambeds is seen as the greatest threat to our native trout. Back in 1950 there were fewer than 200 roads crossing streams in the headwaters of the Oldman River west of The Gap. If that number seems high, today's total likely exceeds 3,000, a number that screams out for cumulative effects management of the headwaters landscape.

The province, acutely aware of the bull and cutthroat trout's plight, and the profound significance of Hidden Creek (also home to westslope cutthroat trout), deferred logging this critical watershed … until last fall, when, overnight, Environment and Sustainable Resources' Forestry Division, employing Spray Lake Sawmills, opted to clear-cut part of the watershed and, incongruously, throw into the wind, the rules and regulations that were created to protect critical spawning streams.

And so it came to pass that at the same time the Government of Alberta was conducting community-by-community sessions to reform land use practices in the South Saskatchewan Watershed—at a time when the status of the bull trout was elevated to threatened—the province authored the needless degradation of critical bull trout spawning habitat in the headwaters of the Oldman River.

What happened? In addition to the impact created by the removal of critical forest cover in the Hidden Creek valley, trees were harvested well within the prescribed buffer along the creek (a violation of established rules) and a new road was created. It crosses tributary streams (in contravention of established rules) and, paralleling Hidden Creek, runs close to it (another violation).

Roads are the primary source of streambed-choking sediment—as sediment increases, spawning bull trout disappear from the land.

If rules aren't applied even when an at-risk species' critical spawning habitat is targeted for a new road and clear-cut logging, is there any expectation that stipulated, mandated operating rules are being applied anywhere? Is there any hope that the Hidden Creek watershed can be saved and continue to serve as spawning habitat for bull trout? Is there any hope that the heralded South Saskatchewan Regional Plan can overcome the degradation of today's business-as-usual logging and its primary spin-off outcome, the continued proliferation of roads into Alberta's degraded headwaters landscape?

David McIntyre
ravensview@toughcountry.net