A new dam aimed at preserving water levels on the drought-affected Cowichan River won't be ready for over two years, according to provincial officials on Friday.
The timeline update was given as Premier David Eby, Cowichan Tribes, and local leaders met at Lake Cowichan to share more information about a $14 million provincial funding commitment announced in the 2024 budget.
Environment Minister Nathan Cullen mentioned that the province is still addressing legal and governance issues related to the project. He also stated that the actual construction phase will take about two years once those matters are resolved.
Raising the dam has been a top priority for the locals for years, but it has become more urgent due to increasingly hot and dry summers, Eby explained on Friday.
“Last year we saw a catastrophe on the river, where it was essentially kept alive only through giant pumps, feeding water into the river and a massive fish kill that I know was heartbreaking,” he said. The provincial funding supplements the $4 million already provided through the provincial federal B.C. Salmon Restoration and Innovation Fund and $24 million through the federal Disaster Mitigation and Adaptation Fund.
The 74-year-old dam at Cowichan Lake is a structure like a dam that allows the region to hold water back in preparation for dryer conditions. It currently has a 97-centimeter capacity, and the project will raise that level by another 70 centimeters.
With increasingly thin mountain snowpack and now-annual drought conditions on Vancouver Island, officials say the old dam no longer has the capacity to ensure the Cowichan River flows at sufficient levels during the driest summer months.
“Salmon have been trucked upstream as there is not enough water for them to swim,” said Cowichan Tribes Chief Cindy Daniels. “Last year, tens of thousands of trout and salmon died because there was not enough water to keep them alive.”
The announcement comes as B.C. prepares for the possibility of another summer of drought.
An unusually warm and dry winter has left snowpack on B.C. mountains about 34 percent below the seasonal average province-wide.
A plan to build a new dam on the Cowichan River is now fully funded, but completion is still more than two years away, provincial officials said on Friday.
