Gravel is the glue that holds our cities' roads, sidewalks, buildings, bridges, and home foundations together. It's part of a $300-milllion-a-year industry in B.C., and the average person's dependence on it far exceeds his knowledge of it. But is this silent partner to the city harming more than it's helping? The government purports gravel removal to be essential for flood protection, but local scientists and activists insist most of the excavation is unnecessary.
Video footage of a gravel excavation site along the Fraser River. These rocky planes are the remains of a former fish habitat.
Dr. Marvin Rosenau, BCIT instructor and former provincial biologist, expounds on the environmental backlash from gravel removal in the Fraser River.
Despite gravel removal companies operating under a mandate of "flood protection", environmentalists and ecologists are skeptical of their motives and critical of their lack of concern for this salmon-producing habitat. Activists are asking that the gravel removal be carried out responsibly in order to protect this ecologically rich spawning environment.
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John Werring, Salmon Conservation Biologist from the David Suzuki Foundation, highlights the overwhelming evidence that gravel removal is not being carried out as flood protection, but has been repositioned as such to extract gravel for supply purposes.
Otto Langer, former DFO senior manager and biologist, discusses the politics of gravel removal from the Fraser River. Gravel bars that are valuable spawning grounds and essential to the life cycle of sturgeon and salmon are being desolated.