TMX crews taking steps to limit impact on Kamloops wildlife

Looking over the new addition to the pipeline path, Rothenburger says the toads haven’t begun to migrate yet, and is curious to see how the amphibians will react to the detour.

“I don’t know whether it’ll work. I hope it does,” he says, “It’s kind of interesting. They put buckets along the fence with the idea that the toads will come and they’ll fall into the buckets and then we’ll carry them away. But at least they’re trying, it’s an attempt. I did bring it to their attention early on and they are trying to do it.”

As with any large construction project, there is going to be some impact to the landscape in the area and to the animals who call it home. But Trans Mountain says it is trying to minimize how massive that impact could be.

Sean Britt is the Director of Environment for the Expansion Project, and says it’s been an extensive undertaking. He notes the environmental requirements are a vast improvement to several decades ago, when construction would plow through an area as quickly as possible with little regard for the long-term impacts.

“We have more than 10,000 pages of environmental specifications. When you think of a big project like this, everyone thinks of engineering specifications, but we have more than 10,000 pages of filed material that we have to adhere to.”

Britt says the company’s baseline surveys began nearly a decade ago and involved input from external consultants, biologists and local Indigenous communities.

“First step is we’ve got to find out what’s there. And then the next step is figuring out how we can avoid it,” he says. “Maybe we time construction so we’re going there when the species isn’t there. Or it could be minimizing our impact by doing something like a salvage dig.”

The vast majority of projects are focused on the ground-dwelling species, but there is also some attention paid to the sky. Britt says his team has been watching out for two federally listed bird species in the valley — Lewis’s woodpecker, and Williamson’s sapsucker.

“If we’ve found some habitat and specifically some food sources, so (for example) — ant hills. We’ve taken the ant hill and we’ve relocated the ant hill so the food source stays intact for the species in that area.”

Some mitigation work has already prevented harm, as last year three wintering snake dens were found in the Lac Du Bois area and carefully brought to the B.C. Wildlife Park for the winter. Britt says the snake discovery has actually become a longer term monitoring project in conjunction with Thompson Rivers University.

“The cool thing about that is the crews are actually out there right now reconstructing those dens to relocate those snakes back into that habitat.”

Humans and animals in the valley will be listening to the sounds of construction for the next several months, but the hope is once work is complete, there won’t be significant long term impacts.

“I don’t envy their job,” adds Rothenburger. “And I think there are going to be consequences for wildlife and environmentally. But they’re trying their best to minimize that. So I guess that’s all we can ask.”

by Dylana Kneeshaw

TMX crews taking steps to limit impact on Kamloops wildlife

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