2007 news releases

April 13, 2007
BC Hydro publicizing its good deeds
by Colleen Dane
Comox Valley Record

People walking the trails from the Comox dam will know who to thank for restoration and conservation work done in the area thanks to a series of new signs revealed this week by BC Hydro and their Bridge Coastal Restoration Program (BCRP).

“We’re up to 20 programs so far, and up to $1 million spent on the Puntledge,” said Andrew MacDonald, BCRP program manager, about the work they’ve supported financially in the area.

Around 10 people were on hand to see the first sign — built out of recycled hydro polls — revealed at the picnic area beside Hydro’s diversion dam where Comox Lake runs into the river. Many of them represented local groups that have received funding from the restoration program (a partnership between Hydro, and the provincial and federal governments).

Scott Silvestri, fisheries technician with the Greater Georgia Basin Steelhead Recovery Plan, said the program helps them do projects that address the impacts of the dam, which has been there since 1912.

“It’s to address some of the limiting factors of the system and some of the footprint issues of the generation,” said Silvestri, whose group has worked on five sites in the area, working on spawning gravel increases in particular.

The signs are designed to tell people about some of the projects that have happened in the area, starting with an overview at the entrance to the trail system and then a series of smaller signs at more specific sites of projects. The Puntledge is the first system where signs like these have been installed.