Okeover Inlet Water Quality 2001 - 2003 Interim Data Report
The Desolation Sound area including Okeover and Lancelot Inlets, is a unique marine ecosystem. The area has high valued fish and wildlife habitat and supports multiple resource uses such as mariculture, forestry, pleasure boating, kayaking, fishing and residential / commercial development.
Currently no land use or official community plan exists for the Okeover Inlet area, however, a Malaspina Okeover Coastal Plan has just been completed by the Ministry of Sustainable Resource Management (MSRM) for coastal and foreshore areas. In addition, the Regional District of Powell River (RDPR) and the Sliammon First Nations have partnered with community stakeholders and other levels of government to form the Okeover Round Table. The main goals of the Okeover Round Table are to protect, maintain and improve fresh and marine water quality in the Okeover, Malaspina, Lancelot and Theodosia Inlets and upland areas.
The Ministry of Environment's role within the Round Table is to support stewardship activities and to monitor and report on water quality. MoE also has a mandate to set site-specific water quality objectives for certain water uses and plans to set Water Quality Objectives for Okeover Inlet in the near future. These objectives would provide local decision makers with local water quality target levels.
One of the Round Table stewardship projects was water quality monitoring of marine and fresh waters in the Okeover Inlet area watershed in 2001, 2002 and 2003. Water quality information is intended to guide future efforts to prevent contamination of Okeover Inlet area waters. This report summarizes the data collected from 2001 to 2003.
In general, Okeover Inlet marine water quality is good. The marine water quality data suggest occasional elevated bacteriological indicator levels occur in Freke Anchorage, near the government wharf and, at times, in Grace Harbour. These data are consistent with the Federal shellfish harvesting closure areas for Okeover Inlet. Additional data on bacterial loadings from freshwater creeks and drainages would help quantify where the largest sources of contamination to Okeover Inlet are occurring and, therefore, help target preventative solutions to further degradation. Many other jurisdictions, however, have abundant information on the effects of land use / development and how to avoid impacts to water quality. Therefore, effective preventative measures could be initiated immediately to protect the integrity of Okeover Inlet water quality.
Research in other jurisdictions has shown the importance of limited impervious surface area and maintaining intact vegetation for mitigating microbial contamination of coastal waters. Shellfish growing areas can be degraded at very low levels of upland development, especially if there is high connectivity between pollution sources and receiving waters through surface water channeling and ditching to reduce rainfall retention times. Therefore the best preventative step would be land use planning by local governments (Regional District of Powell River and the Sliammon Nation). Other efforts that can be effective at reducing contaminants into waterways are raising awareness through local landowner contact or distributing information to visitors such as the clean boating guide.
The environmental effects of increased upland development are irreversible. Degraded water quality is extremely difficult to reverse as experienced in various Puget Sound locations and in Baynes Sound, B.C., where a significant effort and expense was expended to mitigate degraded shellfish growing waters.
Conclusions
- Sampling in 2001, 2002 and 2003 indicates that Okeover Inlet marine water quality is
generally good. The areas with some elevated bacteriological indicator levels
are Freke Anchorage, near the government wharf and, at times, Grace Harbour.
- Fresh water samples collected at various drainages flowing into the Okeover watershed show the presence of microbiological indicators in Malaspina Road ditch and the drainage into Freke Anchorage. Freshwater quality information can be used to better enable local decision makers to forecast impacts to shellfish harvesting.
Recommendations
That the community and the Okeover Round Table work together on preventative solutions to minimize discharges from non-point sources of pollution into marine and fresh waters of Okeover Inlet in order to maintain good water quality. Some specific recommended actions items are:
Short-term:
- Landowner contact to encourage best management practices for septic systems and other land use activities.
- More obvious and larger signage prohibiting sewage discharges from boats.
- Continue to distribute clean boating guide to visiting boaters.
- Obtain "no discharge" status for the entire Malaspina Inlet under the Pleasure and Non-pleasure Craft Pollution Prevention Regulations.
- Enforcement of the Pleasure and Non-pleasure Craft Pollution Prevention Regulations is needed to properly address the potential impacts of vessels to marine water quality.
Long-term:
- Land use planning in the entire Okeover Inlet watershed as recommended in the Malaspina Okeover Coastal Plan, needs to be initiated. Solid and liquid waste plans need to be included in any land use planning process.
- Delineation of riparian zones around freshwater drainages into Malaspina / Okeover Inlets and sensitive marine foreshore areas should be designated to protect the integrity and function of freshwater discharges to marine water in Okeover Inlet.
The complete report is available here (PDF/569 KB/22 pages).
UPDATED: april 2005
|
