A History of Port Moody Ecological Society – Our Early Years 1990-1997

Inspired by reports of once-abundant salmon in Noons Creek as recently as the 1960s, Port Moody residents, Brian and Margaret Waite, sought and received permission from DFO in 1979 to raise salmon in their yard on Maude Road which backed on to Noons Creek.

When the Waites moved to Maple Ridge in 1989, Rick Simpson, who lived across the street in the Noons Creek Housing Co-operative, needed little convincing to take over management of their facility on behalf of the Co-operative. By 1990, Rick had organized creek patrols, a stream cleanup and storm drain marking. He also recruited volunteers including John Gregson, Jim Spurr, Joanne Bartlet, Steve Kent, Reid Jordison and Al Morrison. Ominously, siltation in Noons Creek from construction upstream was already a problem.

In the fall of 1990, at least 47 salmon returned; 3000 eggs were taken and incubated at Mossom Creek Hatchery. New volunteers for this project included Louis Rzen, Tim Lissimore and Cliff Gilfillan working under the direction of DFO community advisor, Gary Taccogna. The subsequent formation of the Port Moody Ecological Society in 1991 was very much due to the dynamic vision and boundless energy of our founding President, Rick Simpson.

According to our constitution, as by Rick and the first volunteers, the purposes of PMES are “ (1) to engage in community-directed education and information dissemination to foster ecological awareness among all ages; (2) to carry out relevant research consistent with the objectives of the Society; (3) to establish and operate a fisheries/ecological center and to engage in relevant community programs; (4) to network with other like-minded organization; (5) to carry out its work in a democratic and open manner to foster citizen participation in all aspects of the Society’s undertakings”.

On December 12, 1990, the inaugural meeting of the Port Moody Ecological Society (PMES) was held and the Society became registered in February 1991. One of the first items of business was to find a new location for the hatchery; a move downstream to its present location was suggested.

President Rick Simpson initiated meetings with Mayor Dave Driscoll and Councillor Ann Hulbert and successfully convinced the City to lease the present-day site on Noons Creek. Rick continued to recruit more Directors throughout 1991. *

1991 – Excavating the Rearing Pond

 * On April 21, as a fore-runner to the Fingerling Festival, Ruth Foster arranged for a thousand juvenile chum salmon from Mossom Creek Hatchery to be released into Noons Creek with the help of school children under the watchful eye of Rogers TV. Fund-raising to support construction of a new hatchery quickly became a major focus of PMES. Members were delighted when Flavelle Cedar, Pacific Coast Terminals and Reichold Ltd. donated a total of $13,000 in July.

Jim Spurr organized a very successful salmon BBQ at Golden Spike Days to raise additional funds. While a backhoe excavated a rearing pond in what was a former brick yard, volunteers worked hard with shovels to dig a connecting channel to the Creek. The clay bottom of the pond was deemed sufficient to hold water without an impermeable membrane.

True to its mandate, even in the first busy year, members also took an interest in environmental issues. PMES submitted comments on a “Risk Analysis of Tanker Traffic Movements within the Port of Vancouver and submitted a brief to the GVRD (now Metro Vancouver) raising concerns about deleterious impacts on salmon that could some from the use of chloramine, a new proposed drinking water disinfectant.

Members were opposed to a proposed 18 storey highrise at 300 Maude Road with inadequate creek setbacks but very supportive of a proposal by the City of Port Moody to daylight Suter Brook where it ran through the City Works yard in a long culvert that had prevented fish passage since the 1970s. (Daylighting of Suter Brook subsequently began in March, 1992)

In November, the PMES Scholarship Committee awarded scholarships of $225 to Chris Tulloch and Louis Rzen, founding members of the Burrard Inlet Marine Enhancement Society (BIMES) and students at SFU.

The first edition of PMES’ new quarterly newsletter, the Creek Crier, was released in December. That fall, only 2 mature coho returned to Noons Creek.

 Tom Howie, John Gregson and Cliff Gilfillan installed a predator net over the new rearing pond. On December 7, 9500 juvenile coho were transferred to the pond from the old Maude Road facilities.

* 1992 – First Fingerling Festival *

At the first AGM on February 17, the 75 people in attendance had an opportunity to view drawings prepared by Ron Simpson for a proposed hatchery building close to Noons Creek. Coho that had over-wintered in the rearing pond were released in April.

On Sunday, May 24, with help from BIMES (which operates the Mossom Creek Hatchery), PMES volunteers hosted the first official Fingerling Festival with 2300 chum released by over 100 children. That year, the Festival also included a Saturday evening dance. Doug Bennie, a new member, kept himself busy with clearing trails on the hatchery grounds and installing bat and bird nest boxes while waiting for hatchery construction to begin. Donations for construction included the Loons Fly Fishing Club ($3000 for trout enhancement) and also the Pacific Salmon Foundation ($10,000). Once again, Jim Spurr and other PMES volunteers raised funds at the 2nd Salmon BBQ at Golden Spike days and also by selling tickets for a chainsaw carving by Pete Ryan and donated by Flavelle Cedar.

In 1992, a total of $15,000 was received in donations while PMES members raised an additional $5000. It was all much needed for hatchery construction. The hatchery plans were approved by DFO and the City. In July, volunteers started construction by preparing the site and laying pipes. In addition, on July 3, volunteers ponded 12,000 coho from the Mossom Hatchery. Electroshocking that fall by our SEP Community Advisory, Mark Johnson, showed 100 salmon had returned to Noons Creek including 25 mature females and 50 jacks. In the fall, public tours were initiated for the rearing pond. These were led hatchery volunteers.

On December 10, concrete was poured for the hatchery foundation. Material was donated by Flavelle Cedar, Rempel Brothers., Allard Sand and Gravel, Lafarge and others. Volunteers present for the pour included Ron Simpson, Doug Bennie, Cliff Gilfillan, John Dunn, Jim Spurr, Rick Simpson and Tony Triggs. An issue upstream was the new Westwood Plateau Golf Course where two fairways were constructed across Noons Creek. This had resulted in the removal of riparian vegetation and increased the potential for pesticides and fertilizers to enter the Creek.

PMES was now holding monthly meetings with guest speakers on topics of interest to members. College Park Elementary became the first school to raise salmon for release into Noons Creek.

* 1993 – The Hatchery Opens*   The quarterly BIEAP (Burrard Inlet Environmental Action Plan) Newsletter featured a full page article on PMES in its spring edition.

On April 27, 12,000 coho fry were released to Burrard Inlet. In June, school programs were initiated as an Environment Week project under the direction of Port Moody’s Environmental Protection Committee led by Councillor Ann Hulbert and Elaine Golds. Local teacher/naturalist, Quirien mulder Ten Kate (“Q”) developed a program which included a hatchery tour and guided walk through part of the Shoreline Park.

 Volunteers from PMES, BIMES and Burke Mountain Naturalists (BMN) were recruited to assist with this successful program which had over 400 school children participating during a two week period.

When a foot bridge was needed over Noons Creek to create a loop trail for the school programs and SEP conference, “The Dukes”, a great team of volunteers from BC Gas, quickly constructed a “temporary” bridge (which is still in place).

On June 12, the hatchery was officially dedicated in a ceremony which included a blessing by Rev. David Spence and poem with drum accompaniment by Donna Otto. Key volunteers during the months of construction included Ron Simpson, Doug Bennie, Jake Klaver, Tom Howie, John Dunn and Cliff Gilfillan. The SEP Conference in June, hosted by BIMES, included tours of the day-lighted Suterbrook.

Issues followed by PMES volunteers that year included the release of chlorinated cooling water from Burrard Thermal and the still unresolved proposed chloramination of drinking water. A student from Douglas College conducted a bird survey of the Noons Creek watershed. Ron Simpson’s drawings were often featured in the Creek Crier.

At the hatchery site, Doug Bennie created a “duck pond” which collected storm water from nearby homes and quickly attracted the attention of mallards. By October, the Heath trays were ready in the incubation room.

On November 4, the first eggs were taken from coho salmon with Doug Bennie, John Dunn, Rick Simpson, Ron Simpson, Cliff Gilfillan and Jake Klaver in attendance. The Scholarship Committee awarded the PMES scholarship of $450 to Tine Anderson, a volunteer with BIMES. By year end, the hatchery had received over 2000 visitors and was deemed a huge success by all.

* 1994 –Chum join Coho at the Hatchery *   During the winter of 1993/4, chum salmon were reared at the Noons Creek Hatchery for the first time with plans to have them ready for release at the Fingerling Festival.

Raising both coho and chum kept hatchery volunteers busy that winter including a new volunteer, Eric Olsen.

In February, students from BCIT conducted an inventory of portions of the Noons Creek watershed under the guidance of another new volunteer, Jutta Haunerland. In April for an Earth Day event, PMES volunteers helped to plant streamside vegetation where Suter Brook had been daylighted.

On May 29, plans to hold the Fingerling Festival in conjunction with the Port Moody Art Association were rained out although the fry and children carrying buckets of them were undeterred by the deluge. Port Moody artist, Tuk Caldwell, created a painting during the Fingerling Festival (which still hangs in the hatchery) and donated a magnificent painting of salmon as a raffle prize.

Golden Spike Days also suffered from heavy rains which led to the cancellation of the PMES salmon BBQ. However, the raffle for Pete Ryan’s chain saw carving raised $1700 for PMES. Volunteers also attended a regular meat draw at the Frog and Nightgown Pub to raise funds.

For the first time, PMES members decided to keep the hatchery open for visitors on the weekends (both days from 10 am – 4 pm) from May to October; a phone/fax was installed at the hatchery.

Water quality testing in local streams was initiated at the hatchery by Jutta Haunerland and Jim Mattson. Fund raising was initiated to obtain the lab equipment they needed and a closet was converted into a small lab which, in later years, spilled over into the storage area.

Natalie Pehar, a BIMES member from Port Coquitlam won the PMES scholarship. Elaine Golds organized the first shoreline cleanup with BIEAP.

The Prairie Whale, a beach sculpture created during the UN Habitat Conference held in Vancouver in 1975, was rescued from the City Words Yard and installed at the hatchery.

Similar to the previous year, Elaine Golds organized school programs for two weeks, this year, around Earth Day in April. Again, volunteers from PMES, BIMES and BMN agreed to be tour leaders. That fall, on behalf of PMES, she submitted a lengthy grant to the provincial “Partners in Science” to obtain funding for school programs with paid instructors. Discussion ensued about the need for an interpretive centre at the hatchery and what form it might take. Eelgrass planting was suggested as a potential project. The GVRD Board was finally convinced to not use chloramine to treat drinking water.

* 1995 – School Programs and Bugs, Bugs, Bugs *   During the winter of 94/95, 14 coho returned and swam up the channel to the rearing pond.

In the fall of 94, 67,000 chum eggs were taken from the Indian River and incubated at the hatchery along with 25,000 coho eggs. In the spring, 12,500 coho smolts were released from the rearing pond to make room for the 14,000 fingerlings waiting in the Capilano troughs. Cutthroat trout were added to the species reared at the hatchery.

Officially, we had 631 in a tank but Doug Bennie discovered a few more very well-fed ones lurking in the rearing pond.

At the Fingerling Festival on Sunday June 11, 20,000 chum were bucketed into the Creek with the help of many children. That year, the Festival included a T shirt contest, cookie decorating and a bug display.

In March, the new PMES School Programs officially kicked off with Jutta Haunerland and Nancy Aichberger hired as instructors. Quirien mulder Ten Kate, also funded by the grant, had developed two programs, Estuary Exploration and Stream Science in consultation with hatchery members. In the fall, Toby Rowe was hired as an additional teacher. The classes were highly successful with almost essentially all available time slots booked. Drawings of various aquatic insects were featured in most editions of the Creek Crier that year accompanied by informative articles submitted from Susan Norie, Nancy Aichberger, Heather Washburn and Jutta Haunerland.

Water quality testing intensified; we were thought to be the only 100% volunteer-operated water quality testing laboratory in Canada (and all of it done in a closet). Jim Mattson was also busy checking out something new called the world-wide-web; he led a group of hatchery volunteers over to the Port Moody Library to see if it might be useful as a tool for PMES.

Dave Bennie joined his father as a new volunteer at the hatchery as did Kirsten Aichberger, Nancy’s daughter. As for issues, the big question was whether to develop new housing in Neighborhoods 3 and 4 or protect the wetlands they contained. (This area much later became Bert Flinn Park after a contentious court case in 1996 halted development).

At Burrard Thermal, BC Hydro developed plans to reduce the use of chlorine to reduce the use of chlorine in its cooling water. At the hatchery, a much-needed storage shed was constructed and a well was dug in a fruitless search for water to augment the worrisome low summer flows in Noons Creek.

That fall, up to 300 coho returned as well as a few chum and a dozen chinook. Heavy rains late in the year damaged spawning beds in the creek and overtopped the footbridge. The City had to be called in to remove a large boulder which came to rest over the water intake and threatened the water supply to the hatchery.

* 1996 Creating the “Spawning” channels *   The year started off with 59,000 chum eggs in the incubator room. Jim Spurr, Teresa Mittendorf plus Dianna and Bob Brown continued, as they had for several years, to raise funds for PMES at a regular meat draw at the Frog and Nightgown Pub.

The City of Port Moody established a sub-committee of the Civic Projects Committee to discuss plans for an interpretive centre at the hatchery. They held a workshop in June with a variety of stakeholders participating including PMES and the local School District.

Elaine submitted a new grant to the Partners in Science Program which allowed the school programs to continue with additional new instructors, Annabel Cope and Heidi Sutherland. Jutta and Nancy offered water quality monitoring programs at the hatchery on Saturday mornings with help from other volunteers.

PMES awarded scholarships to Kirsten Aichberger who was a student in the Malaspina Fish Program and Natalie Martens, a student at Douglas College. PMES Board members also participated as leaders in the new BIEAP Boat Tours of Burrard Inlet for high school students. Work was initiated in the hand-digging of new channels designed for spawning salmon (but which, as it turned out were highly used by juveniles). The hatchery volunteers who put in many hours of back-breaking work to accomplish this included Doug Bennie, Dave Bennie, Cliff Gilfillan, Jake Klaver and Eric Olsen.

By the end of the summer, the first pool and two weirs were in place. Both coho and chum salmon were quick to utilize the new habitat. The digging revealed the natural roaming tendencies of Noons Creek as much of digging revealed the presence of old stream beds. A cold wet spring and fall posed challenges for all the school classes despite the help provided by hatchery volunteers in setting up and taking down tarps.

Eggs taken in the fall included 44,000 coho eggs with 20,000 to be transferred to Mossom as well as an amazing 95,000 chum eggs taken from fish in the Indian River at the north end of Indian Arm. Record cold temperatures and an abundance of snowstorms complicated the care of all these eggs and alevins at the hatchery over the winter.

A Port Moody Interpretive Centre Task Force was established with Jutta Haunerland, Elaine Golds, Ron Simpson, Ann Hulbert, Mark Johnson (DFO) and Dave Neufeld (City of Port Moody). Ron Simpson prepared some draft drawings. The Task Force agreed on the need for a small low-impact building but uncertainties remained regarding funding to cover construction costs and the probable need for a paid staff person on at least a part-time basis. Given the funding challenges, it was decided it was unlikely that such a center could be built in the immediate future. It was also recognized that a more immediate need might be “outdoor classrooms” which would provide cover from the rain but allow school classes to have an outdoor experience next to a salmon stream.

* 1997 A New Interpretive Centre or Outdoor Classrooms? *   In early February, PMES had 76,000 chum and 19,900 coho eggs at the hatchery.

The AGM was held on February in the Port Moody Arts Centre, a new venue. On April 12, 197 cutthroat trout were released in the Noons Creek estuary. Eric Olsen and Larry Cardiss then applied to the province for a licence to take 8 more from Burrard Inlet.

School programs were scheduled for the spring with new instructors, Christine Chapman and Janet Boxwell. A decision was made and work began on the outdoor classrooms with support from the Coquitlam Rotary Club, court-awarded fines for pollution in Burrard Inlet and footings provided by Councillor Joe Trasolini, a local contractor. In addition, Allied Workers funded under the Mifflin Plan provided labour for the work.

At the May 16 Fingerling Festival, 30,000 of the 65,000 chum fry raised at the hatchery were released with the help of children and their buckets. With many other activities associated with the Fingerling Festival, it was taking on a truly carnival atmosphere with face painting, raffles, cookie decorating and tulip bulb sales (kindly donated by the City). Work on expanding the spawning channels continued once approval was given from the City of Port Moody

In terms of issues, there was much discussion around Port Moody’s proposed new watercourse protection bylaw. An initiative was underway to work with neighboring municipalities to develop a common bylaw. This was a critical issue for PMES as upper Noons Creek flows through the Westwood Plateau area of Coquitlam. For the first time, PMES offered summer programs for school children.

An agreement was reached between Wesbild and DFO to examine the value of rebuilding the Cypress Lake dam on the headwaters of Noons Creek.

At the SEP Conference in Victoria, PMES member Ron Simpson received the volunteer of the year award for his years of work with several hatchery groups, most especially with PMES. In June, Elaine Golds received a Minister of Environment Award for her work over several years with PMES and BMN. The City was convinced to create a wetland in the Shoreline Park at the old mill site when the concrete foundations of a building were finally removed. It was hoped this area would be used by tree frogs for breeding each spring.

Stream monitoring was extended to South Schoolhouse and Pigeon Creeks. South Schoolhouse was chosen because Miller Park ravine, where it flowed, was touted as a likely route for a new skytrain line. Jim Mattson developed a website for PMES.

The annual scholarship was awarded to Heidi Lessman from Coquitlam who had just completed a degree from UNBC in Environmental Studies.

In the fall, the School Programs were again offered with a new class in Salmon Cycle which was designed for Grade 4 students who were raising salmon in the classroom. New instructors were Catherine Sherlock and Murray Lashmar.

On October 1st, at one of the regular PMES monthly meetings, the guest speaker was Julie Pavey, the new Director of Environmental Services at the City of Port moody. As they say, the rest is history. *******************************************

 If it takes a village to raise a child, then it must take a metropolis to construct and operate an education-centered community-based hatchery. Over the past 20 years, PMES members have been most grateful for the superlative support from the business community and local industry. The ongoing support from the City of Port Moody and DFO has been a key factor in the success of PMES.

As well, the many accomplishments of PMES would have been impossible without help from dozens of volunteers. In particular, PMES has honoured the exemplary efforts of some of its most dedicated members by appointing them as Honourary Lifetime Members. These include Brian and Margaret Waite, Rick Simpson, Jim Spurr, Ron Simpson, John Dunn, Doug Bennie, Jake Klaver, Cliff Gilfillan, Joanne Bartlett, Jutta Haunerland, Nancy Aichberger, Dave Bennie, Eric Olsen, Brooke Marshall, Mike Bender, John Andrew, Joe Zazzi, Bill Nicol and Dave Caan.

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Draft history notes prepared by Elaine Golds. Please send corrections or additions to egolds@sfu.ca