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Section 2. Profile Continued

2.2 River Characteristics

The SRW is a community watershed with a variety of anthropogenic stakeholder interests. In addition to the human value interests, the lower SRW provides habitat to anadromous salmon and the upper SRW provides habitat to resident freshwater species.

2.2.1 General Stream Characteristics

The SRW includes the upper and lower SRW. The primary tributaries that are accessible to anadromous fish include De Mamiel Creek and Charters River. The lower SRW, which is slow and meandering with riffle and pool sequences and gravel deposits for spawning, is prime habitat for salmonids. The main tributaries are listed in Table 5, which is based on "Prioritization of Significant Watersheds Draining to Sooke Bay, Sooke Inlet, Sooke Harbour, and Sooke Basin" (Ship, 1999).

2.2.2 Sooke Lake Watershed

The Sooke Lake Reservoir is the largest watershed in the Greater Victoria Area. The drainage area is 7070 hectares and the catchment area is 6990 hectares (Acres, 1999). The surface area of the original lake was 372 hectares, which was increased to 436 hectares with the construction of the first dam in 1915. A second dam was constructed in 1970, which increased the surface area of the reservoir to 610 hectares with a storage capacity of 52,300,000 cubic meters. The current storage capacity will be further increased with the approval and construction of a new dam.

2.2.3 Discharge

The Sooke River is characterized as a "high energy" system that has a wide range between high and low flow periods. Historic flow information is available from five Water Survey Canada hydrometric stations located on the Sooke River system. A synopsis is contained in "Sooke Water Allocation Plan" (Jackson & Blecic, 1996). There are concerns about minimum flow requirements for fish.

Station 08HA059 is located on the Sooke River downstream from the Sooke Potholes and operated from 1989 to 1994. The average flows ranged from a minimum 0.401 m³/second in July to 23.5 m³/second in December, which are illustrated in Figure 6. The monthly averages are summarized in Table 6 (Jackson & Blecic, 1996). The Mean Annual Discharge is 9.460 m³/second.

Station 08HA025 was located at the mouth of De Mamiel Creek and operated from 1969 to 1974. The average flow in the summer period ranged from 0.006 m³/second in August to 0.915 m³/second in April (Jackson & Blecic, 1996) as illustrated in Table 7.

2.3 Water Use

Licensed water withdrawals are monitored and regulated by MELP under the water license program. The primary licensee is the Capital Regional District for storage in the Sooke Lake to meet domestic drinking water needs. The types of water licences for Sooke River are summarized in Table 8 based on information to 1996 from the Sooke Water Allocation Plan by Jackson and Blecic.

The Capital Regional District is the highest consumer, with the single waterworks licence allocated to supply the domestic needs of the city of Victoria. The improvements to the Sooke Lake dam will increase holding capacity of the reservoir and likely the quantity allocated for withdrawal in the licence. The four irrigation withdrawals are primarily for small rural hobby farms with livestock. The nine domestic licences are for individual residents and average 500 GD each, representing only a minor consumption. Two licences on De Mamiel Creek have almost 450 dam³/year allocated for conservation purposes whereas there are no holders of conservation licences for the Sooke River.

2.4 Land Use

The SRW is a multi-stakeholder community watershed with a variety of uses including timber harvest, commercial and residential development, and, parks.

The northeast section of the lower SRW, at the Potholes site, is approved for the development of a major destination resort called Deertrail. The northwest section of the lower SRW is actively harvested by Timber West. The southern section of the lower SRW is a residential and agriculture.

The land use map in Figure 7 is based on the Sooke Local Area Plan, which is currently under revision.

Email Judith Burke at Waterose Environmental Services

• Water Quality Tests Offered by Waterose

• Twelve Month Baseline Water Quality Study for Salmonids in the lower Sooke River Watershed (Victoria Times Colonist Enviro News)

• Twelve Month Baseline Water Quality Study for Salmonids in the lower Sooke River Watershed (Sooke Mirror)

• Water Quality Project on Musqueam Salmon Stream in Urban Vancouver

• Analysis of Coliforms and Nutrients in surface waters flowing into Esquimalt Lagoon

• Water Quality Monitoring on Ayum Creek, a wild salmon and trout bearing stream, for Society for the Protection of Ayum Creek and Fisheries and Oceans, Canada

• Testing the Waters Story in Sooke News Mirror, March 28, 2001 about the Automated Water Quality Monitoring Project

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