High water curtails salmon enhancement work on the Campbell

"We had one fairly large project just northwest of the pumphouse," said Mike Gage, chair of the Campbell River Salmon Foundation. "Money was approved, over $100,000 from BC Hydro's Bridge Coastal Fish and Wildlife compensation fund, but the river was so high that we couldn't see what we were doing. There was no way we could possibly do the project. Therefore the project was cancelled."

The Campbell has run higher than normal all summer long because of a much larger than normal mountain snowpack left over from last winter.

"We were going to put in another 2,000 tonnes of gravel there on the pumphouse side, a big gravel platform for chinook, a continuation of the chinook enhancement program which we've been doing in the river since 1995," Gage said. "Hopefully we can do it next year, plus one or two other smaller projects which Campbell River Salmon Foundation will be a partner in."

More recently the high flows and a turn in the weather put an early end to Destiny River Adventures river snorkeling tours.

"Thanks to an early fall storm event and lots of water from last year's snowpack, the flows on the Campbell River are now too high for the last week of snorkeling with the salmon," Destiny's Jim DeHart announced Friday. "It would be racing with the salmon now, so we are wrapped. Thanks everyone for a great whitewater and snorkeling season."