2010 ECE Update:

As the least vocal member of this blog site, I hereby introduce myself with somewhat of an update as to what the Endangered Creeks Expedition (ECE) has been up to.

The core of us ECE paddlers can admit to feeling sorta out of the loop as of late in regard to the run-of-the-river power agenda that continues to plague the province of BC. Any new or related stories have received little or no media coverage since the BC Liberals yet again took the election last year. Frustrating as this was, it more or less dampened our spirits and stern stalled much of the opposition. This does not in anyway mean that we as the ECE have pulled out completely.

On Dec 26. 2009, representatives of provincial paddling organizations (member clubs etc) were approached by Canoe-Kayak Canada to provide lists of ALL the waterways being paddled by their members for an upcoming meeting with Transport Canada (TC).This was all part of the implementation plans for the new (watered down) Navigable Waters Protection Act.

As you are likely aware by now, the Government of Canada changed the legislation in early 2009 to streamline the process for approvals of construction over our rivers and streams. This includes the future construction of roads, hydro-power projects, pipelines, transmission lines, fences and/or other man-made structures that affect a paddler's ability to navigate rivers, creeks and waterways throughout Canada. Providing a comprehensive list of paddling routes became our way of letting the government know what we wanted to be consulted on as well as displaying the extent to which our rivers and streams are paddled recreationally.

Jump back to early 2009:
Predicting that TC was going to one day slam us paddlers with this sort of request, in early 2009, Spencer Cox (Kayakwest) along with several BC/AB paddling club reps and reputed creek boaters hurriedly developed and launched the site Canada Whitewater River Use Log so that regional paddlers could compile their trip data online for outfits like TC to use. Thinking we had beat TC to the punch, we were told that the countless entries already logged on the site we reregarded as inadequate data for this meeting between Canoe-Kayak Canada and TC in Dec. 09 because we failed to include GPS coordinates locating the names of put-in and take-out locations. Thus the work of re-listing all our compiled data with GPS points began in the week proceeding the X-Mas 09 holiday!!! What timing eh? And the brutal part was that we had to have our data in prior to Jan 4th, 2010 - What a way to spend the holidays...

As a core member of the ECE and president of our regional paddling club Borderline Boaters - West Kootenays, I took the responsibility of rallying some peeps to chart everything that we could think of in our region and beyond. While it was by no means an exhaustive list of all that we paddle (or have paddled) in the East/West Kootenays, it was all that Mikkel, my girlfriend Jessica and myself could come up with on such short notice. In the end, countless other volunteers across the country had helped to produce a rather lengthy spreadsheet file that Canoe-Kayak Canada eventually presented to Transport Canada.

In regards to the ECE being in the Media, Mikkel's feature ECE film received top honors at both the 2009 Vancouver International Mountain Film Fest and the 2009 National Paddling Film Festival in Kentucky. At the same time I had assembled Symbiosis - an ECE inspired film portraying samples of the lush scenery and some of the stories behind special local creeks our group was exploring at the time. It too won an award for best documentary at the 2009 National Paddling Film Festival in Kentucky as well as traveling with the Vancouver International Mtn. Film "best of the fest" road show in 2009. IMO, the film was never really finished at the time of its release. I have already begun to film more content and will continue to do so this season as our ECE group has a few missions yet to complete in the West Kootenays.

So that about sums it up for the ECE in 2010. As a core group of area paddlers, we will continue to explore, paddle and document new routes here in our region of Southern BC as new run-of-the-river projects continue to be announced throughout the province.

The massive Glacier/Howser project proposed for our region that the ECE was rather vocal a few years ago has hit a few snags and continues to be put on hold... no recent word on this at press time. The same predicament has landed on the province's largest of proposed IPPs at Bute inlet. General Electric and their partners Plutonic Power have decided to postpone their bid to gain control of 17 rivers in the Bute Inlet area. This puts the Environmental Assessment Process into a holding pattern for at least 12 months.

The govt of BC continues to publicly advocate for clean green renewable energy projects that include run of the river hydropower... meanwhile we have one of the lowest snowkpacks in recent history this year. Hard to say what sort of season this might become?

Carl Jacks