 Good evening, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us tonight. Over the next two hours, we'll hear about the process being led by the Columbia River Treaty Local Governments Committee to integrate social and economic objectives into a modernized Columbia River Treaty. Welcome to the session. This event is being recorded and will be available after for you to share or rewatch. Many of you, I recognize many names who have joined, we can see the participants list here so it's great to see a lot of familiar faces and some new ones. My name is Brooke McMurchey and I am part of the province of BC's Columbia River Treaty team, and I'm pleased to be your host for the event. I'm grateful to be joining you tonight from the territory of the Laguangan speaking peoples, known today as the Esquimalt and Songhees First Nations. Also known as Victoria British Columbia. I also acknowledge with deep respect the territories of the Tanaha, the Schwetmik, the Silks, and the Snikes peoples and neighboring tribes whose territories span the Columbia River Basin. By my count here, there's just over 100 people who've joined this webinar and if you feel like it, feel free to put your name in the chat and let us know where you're joining from. Before we get going tonight I'd like to take a few minutes to walk through how the evening is going to flow. So in a few minutes I will welcome Linda Warley who is the chair of the Columbia River Treaty Local Governments Committee, and she'll start us off with a few opening words. Here an overview of the Columbia River Treaty Local Governments Committee's work to integrate social and economic objectives into a modernized treaty. And part of that overview is going to involve some highlights about the Columbia River Treaty itself, as well as high level summary of Columbia River hydro operations. We're then going to dive into presentations about the interests and performance measures for that have been identified so far for the Kimbasket Reservoir, the Arrow Lakes Reservoir and the lower Columbia. We'll have a little bit of a break between the presentations on Kimbasket and Arrow Lakes interests. And there will be time for questions throughout after each presentation and then again before we adjourn at eight o'clock Pacific time or at the two hour mark. So just a lot of you have probably been part of sessions like this before, but to reiterate to ask questions if questions come to mind please enter them in the question and answer or the Q&A box that's part of your zoom window. We will not be monitoring the chat for questions so please don't put your questions or comments in the chat but instead use the Q&A box. And if you would like to ask your question verbally, you can raise your hand again by using the raise hand function in the zoom window, or if you're phoning in on your phone, you can press star nine to raise your hand. And when it's your turn to speak you'll receive a prompt to unmute yourself. If you're on the phone, you'll be asked to press star six. And if you're on the computer it'll be a little window asking you to unmute yourself. Once you're unmuted you can ask a question and then you'll be muted again once once you're done. So two ways either typing in your questions or asking them verbally. We're going to do our best to answer as many questions as we can tonight. And those that we can't answer that are related to the work tonight will be included in the summary report that will come out after these sessions are done. Now, many of you likely know that Canada and the United States met for another round of negotiations to modernize the Columbia River Treaty last week. That is not going to be part of tonight's session where tonight session does not include an update on those negotiations. But we encourage you if you would like to know the latest to go to the province of BC's Columbia River Treaty website to see an update. Minister Katrina Conroy who's the minister BC minister responsible for the Columbia River Treaty actually issued a statement today on the most recent round so you can find her statement on the BC province of BC's website. And I believe we're going to put that into the chat at some point. It'll also be displayed on our slides at the break. So, without further ado, I think I'd like to pass it over at this point to Linda Warley who again is the chair of the Columbia River Treaty Local Governments Committee to start us off for the evening. Linda, come on over. Thank you Brooke. And hello everyone I'd like to say that we're kind of I'm speaking to you from the anti territories of the Columbia Basin indigenous nations peoples. And in great cool to be here. I'd like just to do a little, a little opening introduction about the Columbia River Treaty Local Government Committee. The committee's been working together since 2011 to ensure the voices of the basin residents and local governments are heard in decisions about the future of the Columbia River Treaty. I would like to thank the members past and present of this committee for the years of work they have dedicated toward the future health of the basin that has led to this important scope of work. It's been a long journey to take us to this point. I'm grateful to the province for their support of the committee, including this work, and to Columbia Basin Trust for their ongoing support on our work for the Columbia Basin peoples and the health of the basin. We appreciate your finding the time to attend today, and to listen to the presentations and learn about the immense scope of work presented today that's being done on behalf of the health of the basin in the Columbia system, and all living entities within it. Thank you to socioeconomic integration team who's worked diligently to bring this information to you today. And we look forward to your input on this draft work at the end of this meeting. Thank you. Thanks very much Linda. I'd now like to welcome our first presenters, Cindy Pierce who's the executive director of the local governments committee and the lead on the socio economic integration work. I'm going to start with Cindy Mcdonald who is a modeling advisor and and principle for McDonald hydrology consultants limited. So the two of them are going to start us off with some contextual information for the evening. And I welcome them both to the stage Cindy and Ryan. Thank you very much Brooke. Thank you to Morgan as well who's in the background from the VC team making all the technology work. And also thank you broadly to the province for their support for this work and the continued opportunity to work together. I also want to thank the team, the socioeconomic integration team for their diligent and thorough work on this. It's been a long haul and we're happy to bring you our draft work that we have here. We've introduced Ryan and Lauren with thought with or it from soccer innovates that soccer college is our lead researcher and she's taking care of all the PowerPoint clicking as well as doing some of the presentation and every divorce met this our engagement coordinator and we'll be working with a Q&A box to make sure we bring forward all the questions in a timely manner. There's also been the wizard behind our website and our survey so I want to deeply thank the team. I want to thank all you participants for being here tonight it's great to see the participants list there's lots of familiar names and maybe we'll get to see faces at one point before before things end here. For those. For some of you there are maybe two topics that are on your mind that I wanted to address here before we get started because this is this session is focused on the socioeconomic work that we the team has been doing, and we wanted to let you know there are other places that you can get information about the treaty. The first one is round 15 of the negotiations. I mentioned that there was a round last week, and there isn't. Excuse me that there isn't an update included in this webinar but you can get more information by going on the CRT engage site just Google CRT engage. I also asked questions of the BC team by sending an email to Columbia River treaty at gov dot BC dot CA, and, and Morgan will kindly put those links into the chat box for you so you can get to those if you want to. I know there's lots of interest in in the negotiations. The next topic, more locally is the low water levels in the arrow reservoir and in the lower Columbia River below the arrow, the higher down. Oh, you can tell how old I am below the Yukini side down. We know that is as a high interest it's not the focus of this presentation. BC hydro is your source of information on that one. And there is an email address. It's a phone number you can call to get information about water levels. We encourage you to register or to ask to be added to the mailing list for the updates that come out weekly about water levels in the reservoirs around the basin. BC hydro kind provides that information, and it would be really great to get on that list to get those updates they're very very helpful. I would also mention that when you go to the CRT engage website for the BC team, you can subscribe to the newsletter and also register to receive updates. Those are two really good ways to stay up to date about what's happening around the treaty. With regards to the arrow reservoir levels and the lower Columbia low levels. The local government's committee did indicate that this was a concern in their 2021 recommendations to the government's involved in the negotiations. And we've been used using this current event to update the data we have around what interests are impacted by low water levels. We continue to encourage the Canadian negotiating team to seek solutions to this, either domestically or through the treaty if that's appropriate. It is an ongoing concern hopefully there is a way to avoid these very very low water levels in the future. So that allows me to address the two topics that I know are really critical now you're going to see me waving one of my arms here it's because the other arm is in a sling, I apologize. I'm not building more animated because of that. It also means that we won't be answering the questions in the chat box. Lauren is busy working the PowerPoint, and I'm busy with one one hand. So, we'll, we will, we'll try to answer all the questions during the session and the ones we can't get to we will, we will put answers in the summary report, as we've indicated. Now, so learn do you want to bring up the PowerPoint please share your PowerPoint. And if you could click through, please. To the background. Thank you. So we want to start off by providing some background about the treaty, and then about the work that we've been doing. And we know some of you are new to this, and the whole issue, the whole treaty situation is kind of what is it. So we want to start with a couple of slides about what is, you know what is the treaty, who's who in the zoo kind of, and then we'll go into the work that we've been doing. The CRT, as I'll call it, Columbia River Treaty is a Canada US transboundary water agreement that was ratified in 1964. The objectives of this current tree, existing tree or power generation and flood management. The treaty required Canada to build three dams, the Duncan King, Hugh King beside and Micah dams and we're going to talk more about where those are. The US to build the Libby dam in Montana. And that dam creates a reservoir that floods into Canada, the Cucinosa reservoir, and it also impacts downstream flows on the Kootenai River. These dams inundated 110,000 hectares of ecosystems, they displaced over 2300 people in approximately 30 small communities, and they impacted economic activities. We're not on the slide but as well, there was no consultation with local folks before the treaty was ratified. And that's a large part of the reason that the local government's committee was created, and that we are doing the work that we're doing now to ensure that the interests of basin residents are included in this treaty. And thank you to the BC team for being mindful of that. The treaty provides benefits to BC through a one-time prepayment of 60 years of assured flood risk management, and 30 years of half of the incremental US downstream power potential. That's called the Canadian entitlement. So BC received 30 years of the payment of half of the expected increase in power in the US. And that happened when the treaty was ratified. Currently, there is annually BC has delivered power since 1995 for the Canadian entitlement. And so that's an ongoing delivery of that power and that power can be either used in BC or sold to generate revenue for the public general funds. The status of the treaty right now is that the treaty is evergreen and it continues with the exception that in 2024, the flood risk management approach shifts to a more ad hoc or called upon approach. In 2014, both in BC and the US Pacific Northwest, there were treaty reviews to decide whether or not to terminate the treaty or to adjust it or keep it as it is. And the decision was to modernize the treaty, not to not to terminate it. And we provided you a link to the BC decision related to that, that choice. Canada US negotiations began in 2018. Canada leads the Canadian negotiating team with the full participation of BC and the regional indigenous nations that to Naha, Soaks, Okanagan and Sheikwet, and you, as we said earlier, you can get updates on the BC CRT website and we encourage you again to sign up for the newsletter. Next slide please. So, why are we doing this work in the context of CRT negotiations today. There's a group called the Columbia River Treaty negotiations advisory team, and they include representatives from all five governments involved in the treaty negotiations, and they do the background work to support the negotiating team. And the advisory team needs to understand how US proposals for treaty changes will impact basin interest. And they need to understand how the treaty can be modernized to increase the flexibility for how Canadian treaty dams are operated to improve conditions for BC basin residents. And those are the two reasons why we're doing this work. Next slide please. So, who is the, what is the Columbia River Treaty Local Governments Committee, the CRT LGC. As Linda mentioned, this group was formed in 2011 to ensure the voices of Columbia basin local governments and residents are heard and decisions related to the future of the treaty. There's 10 elected officials to each appointed from the four regional districts in the area, and one each from the village of Vale Mount, and the Association of Crutin Boundary Local Governments, the, the organization that represents all of the local governments in this area. In 2014 and then updated in 2021, the local governments committee provided recommendations to the governments involved in the negotiations and I provided you a link to those recommendations. The committee has ongoing contact with the negotiating team with the BC CRT team and the CRT Indigenous Nations representatives, and the committee liaises with the BC CRT team to resolve local concerns. Some of the issues in communities related to the reservoir operations and dam operations are related to the treaty, but others are topics that can be resolved locally. And as well this committee needs the CRT integration work, which is what we're going to talk about tonight. We provided a link for the CRT LGC website, and also the member list so if you want to know who the closest representative is on committee you can, you can go and look that out. Thank you. Next slide please. Next slide please. So, what are the CRT basin, CRT related basin interests. So these are interests that are impacted by river flow levels or reservoir elevations that are impacted by operations under the Columbia River Next. Quick. There are kind of four categories. The first category is indigenous cultural values, and these indigenous cultural values are coming from the three regional indigenous nations. They are bringing that information to this, the modeling process we're going to talk about tonight and to the negotiations generally. The second category is ecosystem function, which is a very high interest for indigenous nations and they lead the work around ecosystem function. But it's also a very, this is a very high interest for basin, non indigenous communities as well and that's reflected in the local governments committee recommendations. In 2022, there was an info session on ecosystem function interests for the CRT, and we've linked that the CRT engage website location of that for that info session. And so the ecosystem function spans aquatic riparian and wetland ecosystems. The fourth category is the social economic category which is CRT LGC leads and that includes things like flooding navigation tourism and recreation health, things like dust, agriculture and erosion. And the last category, not last but not least because we need to keep our lights on is power generation and BC hydro leads the work around the power generation information. So that's the span of the CRT related basin interests that are included in this modeling process we're going to talk about next slide please. I'm going to turn it over now to Ryan is our modeling advisor to take you through a few slides around the CRT modeling process. So you can understand how we're using the information that we're reviewing with you tonight. Yeah, you can just step through this slide. Just keep going sequentially so Cindy already mentioned that you know, really when we're talking about the Columbia base and we're talking about water levels and flows and volumes and reservoirs so in order to represent these key features of the base and we need to models. So we're using a river management model to this work and what this river management model us enables us to do is look at alternative operations of the system that ultimately allow us to evaluate how operations may affect the things that matter. So the indigenous cultural values ecosystem functions, you know in this case this evening socioeconomic values and power generation. And what we've done through this work is we've linked essentially goals and objectives and performance measures within this river management model. And the piece that we'll talk about a little bit later today is the performance measure piece, but ultimately what happens is we change reservoir levels or stream flow or volumes in the reservoirs and those then affect the performance measures that we're looking at. We can then use that information to ultimately inform that negotiation advisor team that Cindy just talked about. So it's an integrated modeling system that really is using or we're using it to really look at alternative hydro system operation scenarios, and looking at then at the performance measures that we want to evaluate. Next slide learn. So we think about performance measures really. And learn you can just step through this, this guy as well. So really what we're thinking about is are the types of things that we care about in the basin. So, as a really simple example we could be looking at, you know, the kin basket reservoir so this first piece of, you know, where do we want to be measuring things so can basket reservoir, and we may be wanting to look at recreation and tourism. We'd start out with the question of why would we want to look at that. And ultimately that would be doing something like maximizing the benefits or the quality of the recreation tourism values. In this case we've already answered our question of where which is can basket reservoir. Given that we're looking at say reservoir levels we may we also want to look at when does that matter. So in this case it's made first October 30. And then we want to look at some other piece of the system which ultimately in this case is level. And we're looking at levels between in this case 202434 and 2473 feet. And the performance measure ultimately so we're measuring something that relates to the value that that we're interested in. We can then take that information and we can summarize it in a forum that Lauren and folks will walk through later that allows us to measure. Are we doing better or are we doing worse relative to the thing that we care about. In this case, more days would be better. So, just to give you a broad overview of what the types of performance measures might be. And really what we're thinking about is, you know, the area in the basin that we want to look at, when do we care about that thing, and what exactly are we going to measure about it. Next slide Lauren. So the types of performance measures that we've looked at in this piece of work. We've got sort of summarized into sort of two broad categories one is this combined performance measures, which are essentially for initial scenario evaluation so. We're doing a bunch of scenario work to look at a wide range of different types of operations. And we want to get a fairly high level screening of what sort of how they're performing relative to these socioeconomic values. If we look at a snare that's doing fairly well and we say okay this thing, you know is doing what we think it might be doing. We can then dive into things called sub performance measures. And these are really looking at specific interests in specific areas of the basin. And we're really trying to dig into the details around how is the performance measure actually working. One example, the combined performance measure for say this again that can basket snare can basket example is that large scale days of year when water levels are between two elevations. And then if we want to dive into that in more detail. We've also got in the tools that we're using. We've got sub measures that relate to higher water debris. General shoreline preference motorized voting preference, and all of these could be looked at as well. So there's a lot of information, and there's a lot of information to then summarize to help inform the negotiation advisory team. So, yeah, there's a lot of work going on here but just so as Lauren walks through this you guys kind of understand that there's sort of two of these broad categories that we're looking at. Thank you, Ryan. Very much. So the process that we've used to start off by collecting sort of information from past processes and information around community interests, and we got the community interests from 2014 summary of dam issues. That was done. That was generated by the local governments committee and CBT in partnership and then we updated it with the results from all of these community meetings that have gone on since. We also looked at all of the past processes that BC hydro has done the water use plans for Duncan in the Columbia River. We also looked at the city storage agreement review process that was done in 2013. Pardon me 2010. And then we also looked at the CRT technical studies that were CRT review technical studies that were done in in 2013 to support the BC decision around the next steps on the treaty. We looked at all that information and we secondly designed the engagement. How are we going to engage base and residents and a local governments committee members local governments and a group called the Columbia base and regional advisory committee. Now this group is a group that was created in 2014. Its responsibilities are to provide advice on the treaty and to provide advice on regional hydro operations. And that group includes about 25 individuals who members of the public who've come forward with their names forward in an expression through an expression of interest. And they are chosen to represent the broad geography and scale of interest in the basin, as well as appointees from the local governments and the first nations and representatives from the hydro operators in the basin. And so we went through a process of designing, when do we want to get input, how do we want to get input as we went through the process. We, the next step was the initial PM review we brought a draft list of performance measures to the local governments committee and the Columbia base and regional advisory committee they gave us some feedback based on their local knowledge. And we also identified some new studies, though, especially water use plan studies and other studies from communities, communities, etc that were relevant. We, that then resulted in a revised set of performance measures and those are the performance measures we're bringing you now. And could you do a click learn please. We're in the final stages of the process. We're seeking community feedback. We've had the draft performance measures we're going to go through with you tonight have been reviewed again by the local governments committee and Seabrock, and we now bring them to the public to see how close to the mark we are we're expecting some really feedback from you. And then those will we will the team will make recommendations to the local governments committee and they will then make recommendations to the negotiations advisory team about what performance measures should go into that into them into the modeling process. And then the and the, then the performance measures will be used in a confidential scenario modeling to support the negotiations and as we know the work related to the negotiations is is confidential. The process we've been following and we're near the end of it. So here's a sneak peek at the list of current draft socio economic measures that we're working with for the Columbia section, the reservoirs are down the side and the interests across the top. And next click learn please. And then we have the Cootney section and we're not going to focus on the Cootney tonight that Cootney is the topic of the webinar on Thursday night. Same time, different link, you need to register if you haven't already. So going back to the to the Columbia measures I just want to point out a couple of things before we get into the details. Lauren, if you could click please. You'll notice for those of you from can basket there isn't a health or dust performance measure. And that's because the city of the village of Vermont has been doing some studies around the health issues related to dust in their community. And they currently didn't support, or don't have enough information to verify that dust from the reservoir which does happen. There are dust storms is actually having a health impact. So we have we have that one on hold. Next click, please learn. You'll notice there's no access in Lake Revelstoke, and Lake Revelstoke is the reservoir between the revelstoke down just outside just north of the community, where I live, and just about up to the Micah down. And we in reviewing all of the information that we could find there were no community interest raised related to reservoir levels are we no concerns raised related to reservoir levels. And so we don't have any performance measures for Lake Revelstoke. Next click please. We also don't have a performance measure currently for navigation in the lower Columbia River we understand there may be some issues around log towing, but we don't have data that we can actually use to prepare performance measure there so we want to flag those gaps for what you might see as gaps. Before we get started here. Next slide please. So in summary, the process that we're working with is the Columbia Basin Regional Advisory Committee, we've got the chat box over top. Local governments, agencies and the public are providing input to the local governments committee to consider for their recommendations. Next click please. That information is coming to us as a project team and our job is to complete background research to make recommendations on the performance measure, and we hope we've hosted some engagement activities, such as meetings with particular interest groups, like the degree management committee to understand their concerns and how they might fit into performance measures, as well as it's hosting these webinars. Our work will go to the local governments committee and they will make decisions on providing recommendations on performance measures and scenarios for basin interests and that will go last click please to the negotiations advisory team to use in the modeling scenarios to support the negotiations. So that's the process that we're working in that's the background. So let's turn over. Turn now to some questions. If you have any. Oh, we go back one slide learn please. One more click. Very important click at the bottom I'm tempted. Thank you. You can make it flashing if you like. I'm tempted to put this one in a red exclamation box. This is not a one time only process. We're going based on new information, new verified information. This is, you know, this is a continuation of the work to some degree that's been done by BC hydro through their scenario work a refinement and hopefully improvement, reflecting current interest, and it will go on over time as in the modernized treaty is is implemented. Okay, now we can go to questions. Thank you very much Cindy so welcome to Avery who's going to read out some of the questions that have entered into the chat. And I do see hands raised so we'll we'll get to that as well but let's start out with the question answer box go ahead Avery. Thanks so much for the first question is just around why BC hydro is involved but not for us. And BC hydro is responsible for the three CRT dams in in Canada in British Columbia for this is not. And so consequently for this is not engaged in the CRT negotiations. Excellent thanks Indy. The next question is around salmon habitat protection and that part of the treaty. What the treaty is related to salmon, the part of the treaty, the treaty influences water flows and reservoir levels. And so, so for those two elements of salmon habitat. Yes, salmon is definitely part of the treaty. And I know that the other challenge for salmon in the upper Columbia basin is a fish passage, this fish passage through the dams, and that really is more related to the ownership the dam ownership, but on both sides of the border. There is work on going on salmon recovery. Thank you so much. Brooke, do we want to go to one of the hands up questions now before we move on to her. So let's do that and just if people are curious to know more about efforts to around salmon, there's a website where that captures a lot of the work happening called Columbia River salmon dot ca. You can go there and read all about a lot of great work that's happening to support salmon on the Columbia River. Okay, there's somebody named Chris who has his hand up I'm going to allow you to talk Chris so you'll receive a prompt to unmute yourself. And once you do that, I invite you to ask your question. Yeah, I'm Chris Hamburg from town of Golden. Hello Chris welcome. Yeah, thanks. One question I have is related more to caribou and caribou habitat. Has that been any point of discussion regarding treaty because with the flooding of the kin basket and the rebel slope down. It's destroyed an awful lot of the lower land caribou habitat. Brooke, do you want me to talk about one. Yes, thank you. So, um, I showed you earlier those four color boxes, and there's a was a green box that was for ecosystem function. And so, caribou habitat, for example, would be an ecosystem function interest, and it would be handled through the ecosystem function process that is being led by the indigenous nations. And I would encourage you to go to that information session to that link that we have provided there, because there is work being done on we have potentially re establishing forest vegetation along the upper elevations of the reservoirs. Some of you may have heard of the stable arrow concept. And that might have benefits for caribou habitat. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks very much, Chris. Okay, back to the questions in the q amp a box. The next one is, is arrow to be a hydro reservoir as opposed to a storage reservoir. Not if I'm not certain what is meant by a hydro reservoir if that means a hydro generation reservoir. There is a small dam on the arrow reservoir, the arrow lakes generating station it's a tiny little tiny little one, but there is a small dam on the reservoir now on the, that uses flows from the reservoir now. But the dam, the main construct the Hukini side down is not electrified it does not generate power. The arrow reservoir is principally for regulating the flows into the United States under the tree. That's a great question you can watch and see if we get another one. Thanks. So the next question is to complete a performance measure around navigation and log towing what information do you require from stakeholders and who do we provide this to. We'd love to hear from the log towing is by Mercer, and we'd love to hear from the Mercer contact, particularly around what specific days when log towing is interrupted. The scale of interruption occurs, we've had great conversations with the inter for forest managers, who handle the log towing in arrow reservoir, and perhaps contacting them and finding out the information they provided would help. Lauren is now the keeper of that that performance measure and perhaps using the info at crt.ca link. So we can get together and run this one to ground. Can I just chime in and say that we have been in conversations with Mercer and we do have some information from Mercer what we're waiting on now is store flow data to link that up so that we can make a decision on the performance measure so that that's in process but thank you for the offer and we'll be back in touch with more info. Thank you, Lauren. So the next question is there a stable reservoir level planned for arrow. So the process that Ryan described, Ryan, do you want to tackle this one. Sure, I can. Yeah, thank you. So the process that I described really does look at a range of different types of operational scenarios. We have evaluated different types of scenarios for arrow. So anything is planned at this point but they're those types of scenarios are types of things that we're looking at so. Yeah, those are, those are the things that the local governments committee and others can can bring forward and as well as other interest in the basin and we can look at them in the in the modeling work that we're looking at so hopefully that answers that. Thank you Ryan, there is an important word in this and that's planned. This is a planning process. It's not an operations design process. I think that we will go immediately from performance measures changes in BC Hydro operations and that's not how it works. This is the planning process to expand understanding of impacts, and it'll take some time for that to have impacts on on operations. I might want to jump in really quick and remind folks I see some questions being entered into the chat box, and really please enter your questions into the q amp a box, because they'll be missed if they're in the chat so reminder folks and on to you every, I think we have time for a couple more questions before moving on to the next. Thanks Brooke so the next question is why erosion wasn't included for arrow lakes reservoir. Lauren is the erosion specialist on this one Lauren, would you like to tackle this one please. Yeah, we're going to go over that and can we hold tight on that for just a few minutes and I'll go right on my slide. Thank you. Thank you. So, the next question is why the sonics are not included as an indigenous partner. The, the, the sonics peoples are in the process of sorting out the consultation and engaging process that they wish to have the provinces working with them on that with regards to the CRT there has not been an explicit request to be engaged. That is, I understand what the status is. I might also jump in and let folks know that the descendants of the sonics are being consulted through the United States process. So they are their voices are being heard through the process. So more full some answer would be more appropriate to go through the, the province of BC so we'll we'll hold tight on that question for this session. Thank you. Thank you, Brett. All right time for maybe a couple more questions. So the next question is around Columbia River so there is a number of agriculture operations that are adjacent or in close proximity to the Columbia River from canal flats through to the stretch between Golden and Donald's. I see there are no indications in the chart that there has been information of concern related to agriculture in these areas. Can we explain why that is these areas aren't impacted by reservoir levels or river flows that are impacted by the Columbia River tree. And that's the box that this work is is existing in to inform the CRT negotiations. Thanks. So the next question is the arrow is primarily used for flood control but is there an interest in upgrading for hydro generation beyond the hydroelectric install in 2001. That would be outside of our scope. And I can say not to my knowledge but outside of our scope. I will also let folks know that things that are out of scope, you know, we'll take away and see if there's a way to answer some of these questions but yeah we'll stick to the topic at hand which are the social and economic interests for the BC basin related to the Columbia River treaty. Thank you. And maybe we've got time for one more question before we jump back into presentations. I think that in that's it now for related questions and there's a couple double questions in there that I see. Wonderful. Thanks very much every and Cindy. And again, more time for questions throughout, but for now let's move into the next presentation which Cindy I believe is an overview of Columbia River hydro operations, just to give folks a sense of, of how things flow pun intended. And I want to reiterate the purpose of this, this session is Berkeley down at the beginning. We want to introduce the performance measures to you answer some questions, and maybe get some feedback from you around the particular performance measures we're not expecting this is the only time that the only place you're going to be able to provide input so so don't get anxious we really invite you to provide feedback through the online form. And we will be posting the link again at the end of the webinar and it's on the on the website. That is linked to all of this work. So, we're focused now on the Columbia system over you and Lauren if you could kindly use your pointer to trace the Columbia River because it's a bit of a of a beast. It starts down at canal flats at Columbia Lake flows north through the beautiful wetlands and then up into the bottom end of the can basket reservoir. It's going north hits Micah Dam, and can you the canoe river comes in from the north, and then it takes the big Ben and turns south goes through Lake Revelstoke. And into the arrow reservoir. Where it was past past Revelstoke and then down to the cusp and keeps flowing south. It's the, the Hukinley side dam. And then goes past castle guard into the lower Columbia River trail and then to the border. So it's a it's a sinuous big, big river. So this is the system we're focused on today. Next click, please. So reservoir levels are basically the result of inflows to the reservoir, less whatever the dam outflows are. And on the Kootenai system on the Columbia system, pardon me, that the dam outflows are related to the Columbia River which has include storage to reduce flood risks. It, the Columbia River treaty relates to us power generation, and then to nonpower use of both in in Canada and US. There is another agreement called the non treaty storage agreement that affects the flows and the reservoir levels as well. And domestic power generation affects the reservoir levels, particularly in can basket and and like like Revelstoke. As well. In the early 2000s BC hydro under took a process called water use planning, and some requirements came out of the water use plans that affects the level of flows, you can think about it as a bathtub I'm thinking of changing this injection to a bathtub, where we have dam we have inflows and outflows and the reservoir level is basically what the net of that is within the reservoir. So the, the outcome of this is an annual cycle of water fluctuations. Please. And we know we don't want to do too many graphics here but this is one we will be using to summarize the performance measures and this is for a kin basket reservoir measured at Micah dam. And it's from 1974 to 2019 roughly when the dam was was functional to when we have the most recent information. And the reservoir levels are on the Y axis the up and down axes and the months are across the bottom. The blue line is the average reservoir elevation during the period that was that where the sample was taken 74 to 2019. The purple ranges around the blue line are the most common range of reservoir levels the 90th and 10% of so the, the 90% and 10% of the flows at the reservoir levels fall within that range. And then the gray plot on the outside includes all of the reservoir levels over that period of time. And the grade ones are the least frequent. So the, the result of the inflows minus the dam outflows generate this kind of a pattern within the reservoirs in the basin not all of them have the same kind of a pattern but we wanted to give you an example of what the pattern the reservoirs look like in the basin. Next slide please. So let's focus in on kin basket and kin basket is the reservoir that is behind the Micah dam, and it is starts north of golden on the Columbia river. And it goes all the way up to the village of they'll month. This reservoir is is what I've been, I've heard call the system workhorse is 216 kilometers long. All of the inflows are natural. There's no regulated flows from upstream. The outflows are generated are managed through the Micah dam, which is a CRT down. And the flows from Revelstoke go down into the Revelstoke, those flows from Micah go down into Revelstoke dam and those two downs together are very large BC hydro power producers depending on how you measure it's between 30 and 45% of the provinces power in a year. It has the largest storage area as well 12 million acre feet of active storage and a million acre one million acre feet is a foot of water across a million acres of land. It's not small, quite substantial. And as a result, with that scale of storage. As that diagram should I showed earlier illustrates the annual water level fluctuates by up to 55 feet or 47 meters. It's big. This is the big one in the system. Next slide please. The goals, socioeconomic goals for the can basket reservoir or navigation to minimize the disrupt disruptions to commercial navigation and transportation. And those occur principally in the very south of the reservoir for forestry, and in the central area of the reservoir for both forestry and tourism opportunities. The, the second goal is recreation and tourism to maximize the community benefits from the quality and diversity of recreation and tourism and again those are principally at the south end of the reservoir. There's a number of voting sites, and also at the Vailmont Marina near the north end of the reservoir. Just just south of Vailmont there. And then thirdly, we do have a goal for erosion. I don't think that it is a concern, but we, we haven't yet struck the wording around a goal and Lauren will provide more information about that. I want to show you a picture of what 155 feet of water level fluctuation looks like this is the picture courtesy of Stuart rude and to set in July of 2020. The Vailmont Marina at the north end of the reservoir. And then here's a picture. Please. In June of 2022, when the reservoir was drawn down about 23 meters and put this in scale I asked a few people to walk down to the very end of the boat ramp which you can see here in the picture. And you can see those people down there the little dots. Those are individuals in this in the scale and the reservoir looks like this from January, February into June, July ish. And it's 45 kilometers of mud flats with a little Columbia River, a cool river flowing through it. It's a very big context. Next slide please. Over to Lauren. Thank you very much. Okay, so let's dig into what the performance measures are so for each. So when we start each reservoir or river segment we're going to start with one of these graphs and Cindy else already kind of described what all the colors and lines mean we've plotted the range of our recommended performance measures on each of these graphs. That's what these boxes and lines are about. So for Ken basket we have two performance measures to show you one is focused on recreation and tourism and the other is navigation. And the navigation performance measure has four components so that's these lines here they're each representing a different site. So you can see that for recreation and tourism which is this solid box here based on what we've read from past reports and heard from the community. Recreational activities are most accessible and most enjoyable at the higher end of the range of elevation. And that the community would prefer that those levels are achieved earlier in the year than is is typical through the historic operational regime and so that's why we're seeing this kind of tail out into the white end here. So for navigation the Wood River site, which is this dotted line you can see through here that it's generally okay and all but the most extreme years this kind of 10th percentile down here. And the same goes for the Brown Creek and Harvey Creek site here. I think it's shifting, but I could be pronouncing that wrong, I'm sorry. The shifting Creek site would prefer that water levels are higher in the spring and early summer than they typically have been in the past and we can see that when this line is above the average. So let's get into the details of those measures. The navigation measure is based on the needs of commercial and industrial users who use the reservoir typically for barging. There's four operations that were aware of those three forestry companies and one to heli scheme company. Each has a site that they use and a season when they need access. So the elevations that permit that access are the elevations that we've used to define the performance measure and these have all been reviewed with industry representatives. For recreation and tourism, we've recommended a two part approach to the performance measure and I think Ryan went over this a little bit earlier. We have an overarching performance measure that broadly encapsulates the needs and preferences of a variety of recreational user types across the entire reservoir. And that's an elevation between 2434 and 2473 feet. So in elevation, we set that because that's when the Vailmont arena boat ramp operates best and the maximum is a is a couple feet below full pool, which is 2375 in in Kimbasket. And that couple of feet of space allows some room for shoreline use it also avoids the worst of floating debris which can emerge at high water and that and that's problematic for a variety of recreational activities. And so recognizing that recreation is a complex topic with many aspects to consider all sorts of different types of recreation. We've created a list of some measures that define specific seasons and specific elevation preferences for individual sites, activities or issues that we know of around the reservoir. So this is the most detailed information we have for activities that we have information about. And it's not a comprehensive list we know that there's definitely activities that we don't have accounted for here. I won't, I won't read all these out please go through the background information have a look and provide your feedback. But I just wanted to point out one which is the Vailmont hot springs this is a bit of an outlier that falls outside of the overarching performance measure that we had that we had recommended. And that's because it needs very low water to be accessible. Okay, so erosion and thank you for the question on this we wanted to flag that we've been thinking about erosion. And we know that's an issue that's important to the community. We know certain areas around the reservoir are experiencing erosion and we know specifically about the Vailmont arena and then some private properties and resource roads along the economy resource the southern under the region of the reservoir. But erosion is complex. There are many factors that influence erosion, and they're not all related to reservoir levels if we think about slope aspects wind wave action all sorts of issues affect erosion. So our team is getting together with other Columbia research Columbia River Treaty research teams those teams that Cindy mentioned at the beginning the indigenous cultural values ecosystem measures erosion effects all of those. So we're getting together as a big group to discuss how how best to consider erosion and the CRT modeling process but we haven't made a decision yet. But it is on the radar. So that's it for the kin basket. Performance measures and I think we have a bit more time for questions here before we head into a break. We do thanks very much Lauren. And I know there were some questions that were asked just before Lauren's presentation that had to do with hydro operations more broadly and just to reiterate, we don't have the right folks at this session to answer those questions so questions about hydro operations or kind of bigger picture thinking, unfortunately can't be answered at this session, but but hang on to them and maybe directing towards the hydro operators themselves. Do every do we have other questions that we can ask Lauren at this time. At this time there's no questions directly related to Lauren's presentation. I know I also reiterate you'll hear this a lot, but you all are getting a huge amount of information in a short period of time here. All of the information about the performance measures that you're hearing about tonight are detailed on the Columbia River Treaty local governments committees website. And we're going to share a link with you at the break, and I'm sure one has already been shared in the chat. If you hear things that you're like okay that sounds interesting I want to know more about it. Go to their website and read through the materials on on the work that's been done to come up with these performance measures and the measures themselves. Also, you'll hear more about this too but there's also a feedback survey where you can provide your input on each specific performance measure, and that's also on the LGC website so you'll get, you'll get lots of information or lots of ways to provide your feedback, lots of ways to learn more about what you're hearing tonight. I just wanted to acknowledge this is a lot of dense information in a short period of time so it might take a bit to process. All right. Any questions or do we want to maybe take our break a little early. What are we thinking. I think the question did just come in that I can put corn so it's around. If you have any information about plans to revegetate can basket draw down area as parts of the upper area to help with reducing dust and improve the land when it's dry and dusty. That's related to dust. I can probably tackle this one. Hydro does have a revegetation program. It's a real challenge up there in those very cold wet ecosystems for vegetation to get reestablished. So there is an ongoing register that revegetation plan. And as Ryan described earlier when the question around the the arrow stable levels. In the video where we'll be exploring different reservoir levels for can basket as well that would would be would promote revegetation, which would have impact dust as well. Thanks Cindy. So I don't see any raised hands. And there's a couple more questions that are coming in. So some questions around ecosystem function performance measures so maybe we can provide a quick written answer just to direct you to another source for that information because we won't be covering that on today's webinar. Great. Thanks very much every that's great. And we will also yeah definitely provide the link to the webinar we held last year, specifically on the ecosystem function studies that are that are ongoing. So I think at this time, we're going to take a quick five minute break so folks can stand up and stretch their legs, grab a glass of water, especially our presenters. And in the meantime, you know, feel free to have a look at some of the resources that have been added into the chat. And we'll we'll see everyone back here in about five minutes. Thanks very much to all of our presenters so far and for everybody else's attention, this this thus far in the session. Hi everyone, welcome back. So, at this time, we are going to turn the mic back over to Lauren and Cindy to talk about era lakes reservoir interests. So Cindy's already got our camera on Lauren, you're welcome back whenever you're ready. Thank you. Hi, Brooke. Thank you Lauren for bringing the slides up. So now we're going to look at arrow reservoir and I want to emphasize that we, as I mentioned earlier we have not. There are not any performance measures for the section of the river between Micah Dam and Rebels Stoke Dam or Lake Rebels Stoke, because we aren't aware of any community interests, specifically related to reservoir levels for that. So now down to the arrow reservoir. So this one stretches from the community of Rebels Stoke. I can see it right outside my window down to just just upstream of Castle Gar. This is by the Cusp, and a number of small communities, Pokie, Edgewood, Burton, etc. And it's important to know that this, this area, this river's reach used to have two lakes in it. Upper arrow lakes that started at Shelter Bay to use the ferry there, and went down south of the cusp. And then there was the narrows where the river was, and then the lower arrow lakes and so sometimes this is called arrow lakes reservoir as well. Aversion to calling these reservoirs lakes so the name gets shifted around a little bit. So that's what we're going to focus now. So this body of water is most important for regulating flows to the United States, that's how it's going to describe to me. It's 250 kilometers long. The inflows are natural through that, that stretch and the flows that are regulated through the Rebels Stoke Dam as well. The inflows are through the Hukini side dam, which is a BC hydro CRT dam, it does not have power generation, and the arrow lakes generating station, or ALGS as it's called, which is owned by Columbia Power Corp, which is a collaborative cooperation between Columbia base and trust and the province, and it has a very small power generator. The storage in arrow is 7.1 million acre feet. And remember, Kimbasket was 12 million acre feet, so arrow is smaller, but very important for providing water flows to the US, and it has an annual water fluctuation of up to 66 feet, which is much less than the big Kimbasket reservoir. That's some background on this body of water. This one has lots of interests, and so lots of goals. First one is navigation, and this is about minimizing disruptions to commercial navigation and transportation, and that is principally through the narrows between upper arrow lake and lower arrow lake. When the water levels get low, it's tough to move logs through there. Recreation and tourism, the same goal as for Kimbasket maximizing community benefits from quality and diversity of activities. And this is true across the range of the reservoir, with different sort of priorities and uses throughout the different sections. So you've got the Revelstoke reach in the north, then upper arrow and lower arrow lakes and this is one that Lauren has been spending a lot a lot of time on understanding the background and putting together really amazing information. The third one is dust potential. And the fourth one is to minimize dust generation. When the reservoir is drawn down, some parts of the reservoir can result in dust around populated areas. Fourth ones around agriculture, maximizing agriculture opportunities and some of you are probably going, what? We'll explain it in a few minutes. And then the last one is erosion, as was stated in Kimbasket. Next slide please, and I think it's over to you Lauren. Okay, so here is the graph for arrow reservoir, which shows two of the four performance measures. Recreation and tourism and navigation, which is all these dotted lines. The other two agriculture and dust don't have specific thresholds that we're working against. They apply across the whole range of operations. It's basically, you know, higher is better for one and lower is better for the other. That reflected on this graph. For recreation and tourism again in the solid box you can see same with Kimbasket we've got this tail out in the spring where folks, recreational folks would generally prefer levels to be higher during those months. And during what's traditionally been the spring recharge period over the last 40 years or so of operations. Recreation this performance measure is based on into forest need to tow logs, throw wraps of logs through the narrows. So higher water levels allow for bigger toes and more efficient towing. And then the opposite is true for smaller or lower water levels. So we recommended a weighted approach to this performance measure, which matches past practice for other performance measure processes that have happened in the past. So above 1400 feet, which is this line here, which is, which is when, okay, so below 1400 feet no toes are possible. So above 1400 feet we start to see the performance measure kick in. And so that's usually achieved except for in the early spring here. The next threshold which allows for movement of medium sized toes generally occurs and sort of the last half of the year here if we're looking at this blue line as the average. And then 1420 feet and above that's got that's kind of the optimum and they can move the biggest toes, and that happened you know it's a little bit shorter range than what we're seeing for the medium sized toes. So we just discussed navigation I don't think I need to talk about that anymore but let's talk a little bit more about recreation and tourism. The range we're recommending for that overarching performance measure is 1420 to 1437 feet from April 1st to October 15 and that's a season that's been recommended through past studies that have undergone public consultation that minimum elevation was selected. Because there's an important shore based recreational assets in the rebel Stoke reach that flood. When the level is 1424 and above so we want to leave the sun room there for recreation around rebel Stoke. And the maximum elevation was again partially based on an asset in rebel Stoke they're all stoked boat launch which is the only boat launching that kind of upper part of arrow. It has a total elevation of 1434 feet so we wanted to leave some room for for operation of that boat ramp. In terms of sub measures for arrow recreation. There's lots we have more information on this reservoir than we do for others and partially that's because of some studies that have happened in recent years that have provided lots of information for us. One thing I wanted to note about the sub measures is that we've differentiated between access and experience here. Access is of course very important you can't do the activity without being able to access. But experience measures are also important because they help us understand whether an activity is desirable or not. And we can see that come out in these some or can see that difference come out in some of these performance measures so for example, because of long boat ramps built by BC hydro. So this performance measure down here. Motorized voting access is possible down to about 1400 feet. But there's recognition that because of hazards that exist in the reservoir at that level, voting doesn't really become desirable until much higher around 1424 feet so we just wanted to point out that difference. But that does potential the research team has heard about two main areas around the reservoir would just his historically been a concern at low water levels, burnt flats and the rebel Stoke reach. We've also heard that does concerns around rebels dark have have have largely subsided over the past several years and that says as a result of revegetation of the shoreline. So the performance measure that that we're recommending is really based on the Burton area to develop the performance measure we reviewed satellite imagery from a low water year and outlined areas. That were exposed at low water levels and didn't have any vegetation on them and then we ran those polygons through a computer model to see what area of those potentially does producing polygons would be exposed at various water levels. So the performance measure is a function of the number of days exposed each day during the dry season, or April to mid October, and the number of hectares exposed each of those days. So we've heard a little bit of concern about that this recommended performance measure and specifically about the potential aspect of desk potential and like erosion there's many factors that influence desk generation beyond simply water or water levels and reservoir elevations. So we're looking at ways to potentially improve the precision of this performance measure which we're not considering final at this time. And you can help with that we're, if you have evidence of dust storms occurring anywhere on the reservoir not just around Burton, and specifically if you have dated pictures, we would love to see them, we invite, we invite you to share them with us please send them our way. Over to you Cindy for agriculture. Okay, agriculture. So, the historically there were many driving farms along the reservoir particularly in the Rubble Stoke Reach but also around communities of Burton Folkier Edgeworth, Renata and Deer Park, and if there if the reservoir levels were kept low, and certain areas of the reservoir that used to be cultivated, we're going to be not inundated in any one year that area could be used either for grazing, or for seasonal crops. And that is already being done by a farmer here in the in the Rubble Stoke area he actually has leases on on some lands, and, and, and he's interested in doing more. So, we have a performance measure that for the area that is not inundated within the existing leases in the previously cultivated lands between the growing season April one to September 15. And that would again just be for seasonal crops now we recognize that these areas line up with the areas that are where there's interest in re establishing a natural vegetation natural ecosystems. And so we would need, you know, this goes forward, there would need to be some agreement around which areas we're going to be for ecosystem restoration which areas might be for seasonal agriculture. So this is, this is particularly important in the Rubble Stoke reach where there were a number of small communities and, and, and farm operations. And the reservoir is the reservoir levels mean that the land is not inundated as much because it's at the upper end of the reservoir. So that's the context for the agriculture potential performance measure. So, erosion for arrow will reiterate that the socioeconomic research team is convening with other Columbia River Treaty research teams to discuss how we should collectively address erosion through our collective bank of performance measures, understanding that the areas contributing to erosion are many and complex but we've heard many sites around the reservoir that are experiencing erosion. And that's this sort of big list here, and we've documented those, and they are on our radar. That's it for arrow. Do we want to move into questions. Yes, let's do it there's a couple folks who have their hands up. And there's a couple questions in the Q&A box. Let's start with the hands to begin with this time. So, buzz. I know you've entered something in the chat but I'm going to let you ask your question verbally is it, is it different than what you entered into the chat. Go ahead buzz. That's the, the fact that there's so much confusion coming from the trust, and not the trust the agreement. And like I read that the Kootenai River is going to be so many thousand acre feet of water discharged into the Columbia Lake. The total flow of Finley Creek redirected into Columbia Lake. And I want to know what the temperature drop would be approximately in Lake Windermere for summer recreation with that water coming in. I have a feeling that's not something that folks on this call could answer. Yeah, that's the, I mean, good pondering. One more question then. Okay, go for it. In the regular agreement, it's the first agreements that came out of the center and we three storage dam between Invermere and Golden for holding water to make electricity for the hungry lower mainland. And would there, this dust problem be created there eventually just the same because the only time they hold water in the spring. I'm not sure, but you're referring to reservoirs that were said to have been made between Invermere and Golden. There are none. Yes. Yeah, there are none is go ahead Cindy yeah. They've been taken out of the agreement. Yes, early on there were several different arrangements for damming across the Kootenai and Columbia system, a whole bunch of different approaches were investigated by the US and Canada together. And those dams were never implemented. The dams that we focused on today are the ones that are in the treaty and have been implemented. Is the Kootenai River flooding going to be controlled by dumping the Kootenai River into Columbia Lake. Buzz that we're not in the position to answer those questions I'm sorry I'd really encourage you to direct to send an email or make phone call to the BCC RT team. They are the ones that can answer those questions I'm certain. Thank you very much. Thanks very much buzz. All right, what, why don't we go to the Q&A box now. Sure, thanks. We just have one clarification question around Hugh Keenley side being not being or being a power generating dam. So if we could clarify that because there's some information on the Hugh Keenley side website that says it's a power plant but then we mentioned that it's not power generating. The BC hydro dam, the Hugh Keenley side dam itself is not power generating. That's the portion that BC hydro built under the treaty. And it doesn't have any power generation specifically, there was a power generating plant built next door to that dam. And it's a pro lakes generating station that does generate power through and it's that is owned by Columbia power corp and I apologize for creating confusion earlier on. I hope that clarifies things. Thanks Cindy. So another question, I believe to born around recreation and arrow and there was someone wondering if you ever come across any information around windsurfing, relating to recreation and tourism. And sailing anything in that realm. No, we haven't. And we, if you go into the info sheets, you'll note that we have a big list of potential recreational activities and we have information for 10 or 20% of them and we don't for the others. The focus of for this round of research was really focusing on existing information and obvious consultations with community members when we knew there was there was an existing gap that we knew about that would be easy to fill. But there's always more work that could be done and understanding recreational values we've got a good, a good sense of our reasonably good sense for arrow understanding the major gaps and that that's even much better than we do for other reservoirs so we know we don't have any information on wind oriented sports for arrow. And another maybe similar question but it's around fire threat around arrow if that's been considered in the research. We haven't considered fire threats that are our research is really parameterized by issues that are affected by reservoir flows or river flows or reservoir elevations. And so those are the main values that were honed in on. I think let's go we have one more raised hand here. So I invite Bill to ask his question bill if you still have a question for the group. You can go ahead and unmute yourself. We'll give it a moment. All right. If there are there other questions that can be answered from the Q&A's or shall we move on to the next presentation. I think we're at time here so probably time to move on. Thanks. Let's do that. Thanks everyone. Back to you. Sydney and Lauren. Thank you, Lauren. Okay, now we're getting down to the bottom end of the system, the lower Columbia River. We just call it lower Columbia for being short and this is the portion of the free the remaining free flowing portion of the river. We're in the in the Columbia system, the downstream Columbia system from the Hugh Keenley side and al GS downs through to the US border flowing past Casa Gar trail, Jenelle, Fort Shepherd, etc. Next click please. Essentially the delivery route of the flows to the United States. It's 86 kilometers long. And there are natural inflows some large creeks do flow in in this little short section, but most of the flows are regulated. The flows from the Columbia River are regulated by the Hugh Keenley side down in the early X generating station from the Poonie River which which joins the Columbia, just at the just at Casa Gar. That river is regulated by the brilliant dam and expansion project which is the Columbia power corp facility, and then the pond array river which flows in just at the border is regulated by one eat a dam owned by BC hydro and the expansion project on by Columbia power So this section of the river is very highly regulated and there are weekly fluctuations in that in the often there are weekly fluctuations in their in the river flows and the levels of the river to meet BC fish flow needs and to meet the flow requirements into the United States which are both for power and for and for fish. Next slide please. We have two goals for the local lower Columbia based on the current available information the first is flooding to minimize damage to private property and community infrastructure and injury to people. And the second is the recreation goal that we've had any for the rest of the year maximizing community benefits for quality and diversity of recreation tourism. Now there are two reaches in this. In this section one is the rubs and reach from the. He can decide down to the confluence with the Columbia at Casa Gar and then the main lower Columbia reach, and there's a water station that we use to measure the flows here, and it said the birch bank water station which is kind of in the middle of the the main lower Columbia flow. And this is part of the reason why we're still struggling with the Mercer towing navigation information is getting flows in the upper reach we don't have a station over to learn I think unless letting us. Oh yeah. So this is the graph for the lower Columbia which is Cindy just mentioned is measured a birch bank important to note here that the measurement units are not elevation. Instead flow units so we've got cubic meters per second and cubic feet per second. We have two performance measures for this reach there's two components to the flooding performance measure which are the boxes here went for infrastructure damage which is this wide dashed box that's the more severe flooding. You can see that happens very rarely with 2012 being the year and recent memory when there was significant damage due to flooding that year and Cindy will talk about that a little bit more. The second component of that flooding is low line low line flooding. And you can see that that happens more frequently since the 90s, but still in that top 10% of flows so still relatively rare. And then there is recreation and tourism, which is this dash dot box down here. And that shows a bit of a bit of a different pattern than we've seen for the reservoirs. You can see there's no tail sticking out into the spring. Recreationists would like the river to be higher and that's because this is a free free flowing section of river it's not a reservoir and recreationists on rivers tend to prefer and not to prefer high water because it can be dangerous. You can see that the historic flows here the average flow aligns pretty closely with recreational preferences except for kind of six weeks in the spring and summer. When we see average flows go above preferred levels at least based on the information that we currently have Cindy. Thank you Lauren sorry and the flooding performance measure as Lauren has mentioned there are two there are two elements and I want to say we've spent a lot of time on on these flooding measures across the base and we've done that to make sure they are correct as correct as we can with current information and I want to thank the four local governments in the area for their help with understanding the local flooding and understanding the timing pictures, etc. So for low level for flooding of low lying areas basically recreation areas over the length of the reach based on pictures that came in this year when the river level started to go up a bit and flooding started to happen. So we've set the level at 151500 151500 CFS and that's year round, and this is the numbers of days per years when you get to that level, and less is obviously better. And so we're quite confident with that number because we, it's based on in recent photography dated photos which are super helpful in this work. Next click please. The second performance measure is around infrastructure damage which is, you know, really very critical. And this, and for this one, the performance measure is set at flows above to 14000 CFS. And this is based on information from emergency management folks and city staff in 2014, and also BC hydros responses to the flood risk event. Now, this is based on the damage to the castle garceau prawns to recreation infrastructure not just flooding low lying recreation areas but recreation infrastructure and access that Janelle and septic same tank systems down there that levels above this would cause a problem. We do need better information here, and we are strongly recommended in red text that there be a joint local government flooding innovation mapping a project to to refine these numbers because this is a key local flooding issue. So first concern across the basin, and we want to make sure you know these numbers are as good as they can be counting for all potential impacted interest. Thank you. Now we also doing a count of the number of days is kind of helpful but really it isn't just the number of days when you're above the these these flow levels. It's also how many days is the flow level reached. How many years is this happening. And so we have some measures at a defined set of flow levels that the document what the potential impacts might be including not just total number of days but these these details. So for recreation, the preferred flows that we recommended for the overarching recreation and tourism measure are between 40,000 and 100,000 CFS between May 1 and October 31. The minimum elevation was recorded as the minimum preferred elevation for boat based angling so that's where that came from. And the maximum elevation reflects reflect reflects the preferences of non motorized voters, swimmers and shore based anglers. It's important to note for this performance measure that much of the data we have access to is really dated much of it from the early 1990s. And we do have some questions about the validity of the data. We do need some measures for example, if you can see that we have a boat based angling at a lower range than we do for shore based angling. So, you know we have some questions about these figures and have recommended some updated research together more current perspectives on recreational access needs and preferences along the lower Columbia. And that's it for lower Columbia. Thank you. Ever any questions we want to direct to the presenters. There's no question specifically related to the presentation that we just received but we do have some more general questions or some questions for older performance measures if we want to talk about those now, or save them to the end. We do, we do have time and in the absence of other questions let's go for it and yeah, leave it to you. So there's a question about how the Tanaha can basket we're engaged in this process. I will take that on because I was, this was before Lauren was actively involved. Thank you for the question. Early on, the I met with the CRT indigenous nations representatives, the people that are involved individuals who are involved in CRT negotiations from each of the three nations. And I laid out the process and let them know that we wanted to respectfully engage with indigenous nations and in whatever way would work best for them we wanted to build that into our process. And we've left the door open for them to come back to us and ask us. Tell us what they want. And we've, we've, we've not heard anything specific we know that these sessions are have been advertised within the indigenous nations, and we're hoping that some indigenous peoples will join the session and provide us with some feedback. The door is always open. That's the way we've left it with the nations. Thanks. So we have a question about what gauge was used for the flow metrics for lower Columbia. That's the verge bank agent water survey candidate water survey water survey candidate. We also have a question I think about comparing different types of research so could ecological concerns on the drawdown of the arrow be weighted more heavily than concerns for recreation navigation. So what's the difference between ecosystem and socioeconomic for example and how they're weighted. There is no weighting of the performance measures at this time. We are simply running it through the model and reviewing the results and getting to understand how the models responding to different scenarios. That's the state that we're at at the moment. Right. So another question here. They're all coming in really quickly so just give me a second to read them as they appear. So what happened when the highest flow occurred on the lower reach. Why is the range so large and how can we make sense of this for understanding impacts. And will we have any warning or reason for these large variations of flows. And I assume this is about flooding in lower Columbia. I don't want to classify but I would assume. Well, the, what happened that, that was most drastic was that the sewer ponds. Jason to cast of our began to subside was the term. That's not a good thing. So that was one of the consequences that we wanted to avoid by the high flows. So I think there's a big difference between the 251 five and 214,000 CFS flows in the measures. Those reflect what the impacts are for those performance measures as they are described. Thanks. There's a raised hand so I think I'll jump in and allow somebody to ask their question verbally. And go ahead. They may have troubles and muting themselves. So every, why don't you go ahead and we'll see if we can work that out on our end here. That's good. So, the next question is there have been talks about a weir over the reach. This could alleviate the dust problem and keep the elevation level more stable allowing more recreation around the north end of the reach. Is there a chance that this talk could be reopened. That's out of school. Direct that question to the community river treaty at gov.bc.ca. Thanks, and then just the last one is not a question but I think more of a comment for Lauren someone really encouraging you to reach back out to Mercer regarding the challenges low and high outflows. Sorry, Mercer and enter for these are their challenges and managing the ponds and feeding the mills at low outflows. Thanks for it. We're in touch with one of your staff. We'll reach back out. Great. Yeah, I think, I think we're closing in the people who have their raised hands who weren't able to ask them their question verbally if you want to enter it into the q amp a go for it. I hope that there were no technical difficulties there but if there were we'll work them out afterwards. I think we're at the point where we can move on to the next section, unless there's I see there's a couple of other questions coming up. I'll leave it to you able to decide whether their questions related to what our presenters can answer or if we should move on to the kind of final portion of the evening. Yeah, I think we might as well move on and I think there are questions that can be answered at a later time by people with more information on those topics. Wonderful. Thanks, Avery. And actually, I believe the next portion of the evening is yours. So go ahead and and you've got the stage thanks. Yeah, thanks so much Brooke. So we were just really encouraging everyone who's been on this webinar so far to visit the website we're going to repost it again in the chat but it's a website that has all the information about each of the socio economic performance measures for the Columbia system and also for Cooney. And it's everything we've talked about tonight but more in depth information so you can take your time you can go through each of those. And then we also have a survey this is our way that we would love to collect feedback from each of you on this webinar. Please feel free to share this information with your community members or your constituents. And this is how we can take your feedback into account for updating the performance measures. We would really love to hear from you so we really encourage you to take that time. Again, those links are up on the PowerPoint here but we're also going to post them in the chat so they're really easy for you to access. Yeah, let us know if you have any questions about that but we really look forward to hearing your feedback in our survey that's posted on the website and we'll also share the link again in the chat box. And I think I can hand it back over to Brooke. Thanks very much every. We do have time now for for other questions. And again questions related to the development of these socio economic performance measures along the Columbia River. We don't you know we still see a few questions I know you're super curious about all sorts of issues related to the Columbia River treaty and more broadly hydro operations etc but we don't have the right people to answer those questions for you here. So as we have said a few times your your Columbia River treaty related questions can be sent to the province of BC's email address at Columbia River treaty at gov dot BC dot CA and we'll put that in the chat. But now we've got a little bit of time here for final questions on the performance measures we heard about this evening. I don't see any final questions coming up. There's some some good information being shared in the chat. Thanks for those who are engaging there. And, and also to remind folks that we have another session on Thursday evening focused on the Cootney River interest so very similar session to tonight except focused on the reservoirs and river flows along the Cootney River. We'll be asked if there will be a meeting on ecological measures and I think we'll put a link to the session that we held last May, specifically focused on the ecosystem studies that are that are ongoing in tandem with this work. So we'll put that link in the chat you can watch the recording of that session, phenomenal amount of information on the efforts to seek ecosystem improvements to the treaty. Great. Well, thank you all once again. And I think at this time, I'll, I'll welcome back Linda Warley to say a few words in closing before we, we truly wrap up for the evening. Linda, you can go ahead. Oh great picture behind you. Great. Thank you, Brooke. And we'd like to extend our sincere appreciation to the team for this webinar, and to all of you for participating. I expect you can see the great value in this work and and it's been a great pleasure to be involved in this are coming from a treaty committee, as well as working alongside the team. So we ask that you please provide your feedback through the online survey and as always, your input and yourselves are very important to us. And it's very valuable to this work ongoing. We ask that you watch for information on an upcoming public webinar and hope that you can join us on February 2 for this next in the series of webinars which is focusing on the Kootenai system. And as always, for more information on the work of the Columbia River Treaty Local Government Committee, please go online to our website to see the latest information on the committee and its work on your behalf. And that is CRTLGC.ca. And thank you so much for taking the time to be here this evening. Thanks very much, Linda. And, you know, thank you for me again, truly thank you to all of our presenters here tonight, Linda, Cindy, Lauren, Ryan, and Avery and Morgan for supporting us in the background here and answering some of the questions that were raised through web links, etc. Do stay tuned to the Columbia River Treaty website, the province's website for updates on treaty negotiations, you know, our information is consistent as the negotiations are ongoing. So there will be an opportunity in the future to hear more about that. Similar to these types of sessions. But for this work in particular, really reiterate to visit the local government committee website and provide your feedback on this work. This is, there's been an incredible amount of research done and I applaud the research team for all of the hours sifting through past public consultation reports and, and really trying to and talking with folks across the basin trying to really understand what issues matter most to them, and what would make a difference in a modernized treaty so thank you again for all of the work that you've done. The meeting of this session will be available if not tomorrow the day after on YouTube, and we'll be emailing it out to everyone who registered for this event. So if you need to go back and review anything you'll have the opportunity to do that. And, you know, we'll we'll also look forward to seeing you at the at the next session if you're at all interested on Thursday. We'll end the recording here in a bit, but we can leave the meeting running in case folks want to browse the chat or, or the Q&A is maybe to read some some of the comments that were made but at this point, I think we'll say once again, thank you very much. So the final piece I almost forgot to mention is that there will be a summary report of this session where the questions related to this topic will be responded to so you'll have a written form of going back to check on what was said here tonight. Thank you all once again for your time and you're ever going interested in these important issues and we look forward to seeing you at the next session. Take good care.