This is a story about where you live. It could be a feel-good story. After all, we live in one of the most beautiful fjord inlets in the world. The name, Howe Sound, doesn’t begin to reflect the beauty here; Wowe Sound would be a more appropriate name for this recreational paradise that attracts climbers, hikers, skiers, kayakers, boaters, fishermen, bird watchers, tourists, eagles, otters, bears, dolphins, salmon and whales.
Your home didn’t always look like this. For most of its sweet life, Howe Sound was a river valley. During the Ice Age, about 15,000 years ago, glaciers streamed southward down the valley, gouging and shaping it, deepening and widening it. Over time it bloomed with an abundance of plant and sea life. The Squamish people began to dwell along the shores around 10,000 years ago. The Sound was their highway, their grocery store, their way of life.
The story changed dramatically with the arrival of industrialization. Tons of toxic chemicals and metals were allowed to poison the waters. The cumulative impact of pollution from pulp mills, and an abandoned copper mine left the waters of Howe Sound largely lifeless. In the 1980’s the flourishing commercial prawn fishery closed; then the crab fishery. Salmon no longer returned to the smaller streams, and the herring vanished. Howe Sound was pronounced a dead zone.
Things slowly began to improve in 1988 when Howe Sound Pulp and Paper began a $1.3-billion renewal process at Port Mellon to turn an environmental disaster into one of the cleanest pulp mills in the world. Then, in 2005, the provincial government signed an agreement with EPCOR to build a water-treatment plant at the old Britannia mine site to filter out the heavy metals. The amount of copper removed yearly is equivalent to preventing 30 million copper pennies from entering Howe Sound.
In 2006, the Squamish Streamkeepers noticed that herring eggs laid on the creosote-covered wood pilings at the docks never hatched. They began wrapping the pilings with protective cloth, which led to a return of this important forage fish. You can thank the Streamkeeper volunteers every time you lean over the side of the ferry to watch pods of dolphins and orcas as they pursue the herring. Crabs and prawns are again being caught throughout the Sound, and last September, the Squamish River had so many salmon that for the first time in 50 years commercial fishing was allowed.
It’s easy to become insular when you live on an island. But what happens in the Sound affects all of us. About 20 years ago, Bob Turner, who had recently moved to Bowen, got caught up by something called bioregionalism – “people getting to know home place and taking responsibility for that place and staying put. You need to stay put,” he told me. “to get knowledge of the place, to love the place which leads to the caring.” Bob, a scientist with Natural Resources Canada, chaired the Howe Sound Environmental Science Network and brought together the scientific community to assess the environmental health of Howe Sound, which he calls “a one of a kind ecological and recreational treasure.”
Today, Howe Sound is experiencing a rebirth. But this environmental success story is being threatened by plans to re-industrialize the Sound: a proposed LNG facility in Squamish across the water from the Sea to Sky Gondola; an incinerator proposed for Port Mellon; and a gravel mine at the mouth of McNabb Creek - an important salmon spawning stream.
I asked Bob what one could do to protect our home. Step one, he says, “is to become knowledgeable about our bioregion.” On March 9, I attended the talk by chemist, Eoin Finn, who presented his extensive research on the deleterious effects of the LNG project on Bowen Island. I learned that most jobs in the Sound are related to tourism – over 1.4 billion dollars annually in the Squamish/Whistler area alone – which would be threatened by 17,000 tons of warm chlorinated water dumped every hour into the Sound, and the presence of huge tankers in our narrow inlet. Then I joined the newly created Concerned Citizens Bowen (www.ccbowen.ca). They strongly oppose the LNG proposal and have templates for letters to send to the powers that be. Deadline March 23.
I also plan to take the Howe Sound Geo Tour, put together by Bob and his colleagues. “Explore the geology and landscape along highway 99 with your own geologist-in-your-pocket. ”You can download a pdf and take the tour: http://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2010/nrcan/M4-83-7-2010-eng.pdf. Anyone interested in organizing a bus tour?
We are all part of the Howe Sound Story. We have a say in the next chapter.
In the next column we will move to Step Two - entering into engagement and partnerships to realize the hope of Howe Sound.
