The. expectéd surge in

~Tetutning Skeena stocks of -

steelhead trout as a result

~The prized sport fish come up.

_- the Skeena at. the same. time
-commercially-valued sockeye
salmon. begin their run, and.

"every, year large. numbers of

. .. steelhead — between 15,000 and
:, 25,000, says Ministry of En-

: “Vitonment , Skeena region.
fisheries. head Bob Hooton —.

“are ‘taken“as ‘all iticidental catch

by gillnet fishermen working the
mouth of the Skeena River.
| The United Fishermen and
. Allied Workers’ Union strike
this year occurred during the

peak period of the steelhead and

- sockeye run, but Hooton says
’ the ministry’s test count of steel-
head that make it past Tyee
-<upriver from Prince Rupert is
‘still ‘only half of last year’s run.
'. The commercial fleet was
operating at full capacity last
* year, with between 600 and 700
: gillnetters, compared to less
than 200 during the strike.

- “Ji’s pretty bleak,’? Hooton

a said. “This is about the worst in
‘the last decade, and it’s very

: Herman Creek — continued from page 6

“workers loading gravel from the
“Lakelse. River at Herman’s
‘Creek and promptly shut them
-down, along with a warning; °
“under provisions of the Fisheries
Act.

~ Lloyd Johnstone, a Lakelse
resident, has in the past been
lobbying to have this, gravel sill
lowered -and the Herman's

‘Creek outlet moved down-

stream.

'- He says that all he wants to do

4s lower it a foot or two so that
_may get too deep and not move

‘ as it should and the productivity

he can protect the lakeshore
properties from flooding.

- However, had residences been
located above the floodzone,

this problem wouldn’t exist.

Also, Lakelse Lake can rise

_two meters in a major flood, and
- | doubt that lowering the gravel
fan a foot would do anything

but destroy an enormous
amount of fish habitat.
Assuming nature can . be

- modified to accommodate past

human oversights, the question

_ ‘then becomes — how? How do

we protect the residents, defend
the fish habitat and distribute
the gravels so essential for fish

*- spawning?

I have a potential solution,

borrowed and patterned on
, Rature.

When there are. heavy water

discharges, an opportunity is~
‘provided for rivers to naturally

scour additional new channels,

_ An artificial channel option

seems feasible on the Herman's

Creek side with just a bit of

engineering and consideration

for the special nature of this site.
A flood by-pass back-channel

_ could be constructed to handle

extremely high flows, would be

dry during normal and low
~ flows, and still allow Herman’s
- Creek to flow through it except
~° gt flood’ stages, when it would.
join the: flow through the: -by-

Bass. he
Tt: can be constructed with

Coticrete atid wood gates, rip rap

close to the worst year ever.’

“Although: the steelhead run
usually hits maximum strength

: in late July and the first week of
‘August, Hooton says there is

still hope that the return may

‘recover somewhat. ‘‘One week
of fair returns could change the
-long term picture,”? he ‘Te-

marked.
Unlike salmon, steelhead re-
turn to the ocean after spawning

in rivers and are. able to spawn -
‘geveraltimés’ duting their “life

cycle. Hooton says fishery

biologist are-unable to account

for the weak run this year, but

he says the problem isn’t con-

fined to the Skeena — the runs
are low in all B.C, rivers.
~."¥ou have to look to the
ocean environment,’’ he says.
Little is known of the steel-
head’s life outside its inland
spawning run.

. When asked about the impact

of the notorious driftnet fishery:

in the open ocean on steelhead,
Hooton said: ‘Our best esti-
mates from available hard data
are that driftnet fleets take an
incidental catch of about 3,000
B.C. steelhead (annually). Ten

banks, and gravel for a base.
The banks can be treed with
alders natural to the area, and it
can be constructed so that peo-
ple can use it for a trail and

Viewpoint for-this magnificent .

piece of nature.

---The only problem I can see
with this is that floods have the
natural function of scouring old

sediment buildup from packed

river beds, and of distributing
gravels farther downstream.
Thus, the Herman’s Creek sil]

of the by-passed section may go
down from packed sediments

’ the same as controlled flow

spawning: channels does over
time.
To offset gravel accumulation

if this problem arises, additional

works may be required to
stabilize Herman’s Creek.

It may not arise however, ©

since Herman's Creek may by
now be stabilizing from logging
naturally,

However, this problem isn’t
insurmountable.

Occasional flood scour seems
to be important for recharging
the productivity of streams, and
we don’t know why completely.

I think it is probably related to:

the removal of accumulations of

“fine sands and sediments, which

are known to impact negatively

on egg-to-fry survival and fry

emergence.

If the research boys say, ‘no
problem’, or see a way around
‘it, then this project should go

. ahead.

The only thing easy ‘about this

Herman's Creek business is to.

conclude that this issue is com-
plex, politically volatile, and im-
portant, and any action should

only occur after thorough study _

of the situation.

It just might cost society less
in the long run to require people
td move their residences back

from the shore to higher ground.

i SRA a tet ELE RD  b, « ak Finances
Dies kee gw Pee Ot he

Ss teeinead weak despite stri ke

_ percent of that would be Skeena
‘Detailed records of cthead ;
runs were kept beginning in the
earl 1960's,

of a 14-day strike by.com- © 4
. Mercial fishermen hasn’t —

7 ‘materialized.

steelhead; about 300 fish.”” An

_ insignificant figure, he noted,

compared to numbers taken by
gillnetters..
Unionized commercial fisher-

men hit the fishing grounds off |

Pririce Rupert again the evening
of Aug. 3 for a two-day opening
after the UFAWU recommended
acceptance of a tentative con-
tract with fish processing com-
panies. Hooton fears that with a
Tun that’s already exceptionally
weak, the effect of the gillnet in-

cidental catch on steelhead could:

be devastating. “‘The next few
days will be an interesting
period, in a morbid sort of a
sense,’’ he said.

~The fishermen’s strike hasn’t
resulted in an unusually large
escapement of sockeye up the
Skeena either, but according to
a Department of Fisheries and
Oceans officer in Prince Rupert,
the run of pink salmon this year
is gigantic.

Rob Wilson said Friday that
the sockeye escapement up the
river was just about on the
DFO’s target numbers, even had
the commercial fleet been fully
active during the peak of the
tun. He said it’s too early to tell
if the numbers indicate an ab-
normally weak run, noting that
sockeye were ‘‘fished hard’’ at
the beginning of the season,
prior to the strike.

He added there are ‘“‘indica-
tions of strength (in sockeye
numbers) to the north” in the
ocean areas off Port Simpson
and the southern Alaska pan-
handle.

During the Aug.3 and 4 open-
ing, gillnetters were getting ‘‘a
reasonable catch’? of sockeye,
Wilson said, but most of the
overall catch is now pink sal-
mon... lot’s of them.

“We counted 1.4 million up
the river as of Aug. 3. That’s
our target-for the entire year.
They’re going by at a rate of

135,000 a day,” Wilson said.-

“There will have to be some
aggressive fishing.”

Last week, was the beginning
of the pink run, and it's ex-
pected to strengthen this week.

Wilson said between 300 and
400 gillnetters worked last week-
end’s opening off Rupert; about
90 seiners and fewer than 20
gillnetters fished the Region 6
‘waters off the Nass River
estuary.

‘Computalk

by Rainer Glannelia

Often I get asked the question, ‘How can I be assured that the

computer I buy won't be obsolete within a few months of buying —

it?’. As I’ve mentioned in a previous column, my usual response.
(stightly flippant) is: ‘At the rate things change in the computer

. business, the computer you buy will probably already be ‘ob-

solete’ by the time you buy it if it isn’t already ‘obsolete’ by the

time you even first hear about it’. Usually I go'on and point out.
to the questioner that obsolescence is really a red herring since as
long as the machine he or she buys gets the job done for his or —

: her business, it really isn’t. relevant that the machine may not be
‘the ‘latest and greatest’ on the market.

The rapid rate of change in computer technology ¥ was recently
driven home to me during a ‘conversation with a colleague of | -
mine who has a job at UBC that requires him to test some of the
‘latest and greatest’ machines before they even hit the market. In
the past few months he’s been sent to California for advance *
field trials of the NeXT computer (no, that isn’t a typo, that’s

how they write it) which was first unveiled in October 1988. -

colleague, who usually is critical of all machines that he tests,

‘said that, one — he liked it, and two -— he was even impressed. _

He then sent me a pile of literature on the machine along with his
impressions of the hands-on trials he attended.

[’ll spare you the fine technical details of the machine and just
touch upon the highlights. On the hardware side, it has a number
of high-powered: processors including special processors to speed
up data transfer between disks and other input/output devices.
More importantly, it has the first generally available read/write
laser disk which lets the user store and read up to 256 Megabytes
(that’s 256 million characters or approximately 124,000 text pages
of data) on one compact disk. Remember, this is a removeable
disk not much bigger than today’s 3.5 inch floppy that has 300
times the capacity, In addition it has a choice of either a 330
Megabyte or 660 Megabyte hard drive. :

It has very high quality graphics and CD-quality sound accom-
panied by a sound synthesis library that allows for easy inclusion
of sound and music in programs in addition to such things as
voice mail and sound recognition. (Yes this will be a test bed for
a computer that you can talk to).

Another major feature of NeXT is a ‘bundled’ (included at no
extra cost), variety of software admittedly aimed at the univer-
sity and academic market. This software includes a ‘Digital’
Library’ (which contains items such as the Webster illustrated

dictionary, the complete works of Shakespeare, etc.); a program .

called Mathematica which can handle complex equations up to
the second or third year university level and also includes a kit
for developing computer-run mathematics lessons; an electronic
mail application that handles both text and voice mail; and a host
of other ‘goodies’.

‘The price for all the above? The most commonly announced
figure is $6,500 US for the whole package with the laser printer
costing $2,000 extra. For some, the next question might be,

‘where can I get one?’ The answer currently is either ‘you can’t,
or you can with great difficulty’. The NeXT is presently being
sold only to universities and members of the academic and
research community. For example, in B.C. the first couple of
dozen NeXTs were received by SFU and UBC in the late spring.
The machine was originally designed specifically for the academic
market and will likely not be commercially available for some
time.

One may ask ‘Why write about a machine that’s not generally
available?’ Stay tuned for NeXT week's installment when I'll
discuss the implications of the NeXT on the future of small
business computers.

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