Residual Impacts on water quality and sockeye salmon fry habitat: Twenty years after the end of log storage in Morrison Arm of Babine Lake

The Morrison River enters Babine Lake from the northwest. Morrison and Tahlo Lakes are important sockeye (Oncorhynchus nerka) nursery lakes that collectively host the second largest wild sockeye population in the Skeena. Downstream migration of juvenile sockeye salmon from Morrison River into Morrison Arm occurs during May, shortly after the spring ice thaw. Immediately following their entry into Morrison Arm, juvenile sockeye salmon utilize the shallow water (<1m) in the littoral zone, where they feed, for approximately one month before moving offshore for the remainder of their lake occupancy (Levy, 1990; McDonald, 1969). The objective of the study being reported on here was to replicate the experimental protocols used by the Levy et al. (1990) study during the spring of 2012, to establish if the deleterious impacts caused by aquatic log storage observed by Levy et al. (1990) and Power and Northcote (1991) are still affecting the Morrison River juvenile sockeye migrating into Morrison Arm.