Prince George, B.C. – The Nechako watershed is roughly the size of Switzerland and the Nechako Watershed Roundtable has been developed to try and ensure the watershed remains  healthy  for generations to come.

(at right,  the  Nechako watershed outlined in red)

The NWR  has a core leadership committee made up of  representatives from  local governments, First Nations, and other government agencies  to  identify and  address some of the challenges facing the watershed.   Those challenges include the  mountain pine beetle epidemic,  climate change,  and the spruce beetle.

Under the  wing of the Fraser Basin Council,  the Nechako Watershed Roundtable  (NWR) has no regulatory or legislative authority, it can only act in an advisory capacity.

The current work of the NWR is the development of a strategy,  but before they can do that,  there is a lot of  data to collect and share  as not all members of the  NWR  know all the information that has been developed over the years on  this  subject.

Fraser Basin Council Assistant Regional Manager Theresa Fresco  says  the strategy has three main aims:

1. to profile the key watershed issues and concerns
2. identify priority actions to address those concerns
3. identify commitments from various organizations to  implement the  actions.

“We have completed  quite an amount of work to date” says Fresco,   who adds  that  work includes establishing a technical  advisory committee which can assist the Roundtable on technical  issues.

A key piece of the  NWR’s work will be to find funding to  support the implementation of  their action plan.

Rio Tinto Alcan is not part of the Core Leadership committee  but has a community liaison representative  at the broader roundtable and is part of the technical advisory committee.”They have a lot of access to information and data that are important to the process” says Fresco  “They have been  quite transparent in that regard, providing us with that information.”

Fresco says  community consultations have identified concerns  about flooding and erosion “So essentially  what the strategy is meant to do is create a bit of a map of what those  issues and  concerns are , as well as to explore  what are the current regulations that   exist, what are the current targets that   Rio Tinto has to meet in terms of flows because they do  have that  regulated and a lot of people don’t know what that target is.   So once we have a better sense of   that  baseline information, we can start to look at what are some actions  we can take moving forward?  Is that the role of the Roundtable or is that something  that is in the Province’s hands for example.”

Fresco says  the NWR hopes to roll out its strategy by mid October.