LNG Canada restores fish habitat with Anderson Creek fish ladder

Throughout the construction period, LNG Canada is implementing a wide range of environmental offsets that will serve to protect critical habitat in the freshwater, marine, and estuary environments surrounding the project site.

The latest phase of our environmental offset program is the recently completed fish ladder at Anderson Creek. Due to previous development in the area prior to the LNG Canada project, there was a barrier to fish passage on the creek preventing the use of upstream habitat. Together with our environmental experts and our contractor, Ledcor-Haisla, LNG Canada has now built a fish ladder, allowing salmon to bypass the barrier for the first time in 70 years. During periods of high flow, this will give salmon access to up to 3,500 square meters of habitat for spawning, rearing, and overwintering.

We’re very happy to report that since completion of the ladder, a significant number of both chum and coho salmon have been observed using the ladder, with as many as 80 fish seen using it at one time during early season! At LNG Canada, we’re of course very proud of this success and look forward to applying the knowledge gained to future environmental offset projects. To quote our Environmental Advisor, Isaac Wing: “A lot of eyes have looked at it, a lot of brains have thought about it, and a lot of hands went into building it. We just want to produce the best product that we can. We will keep monitoring the effectiveness of this fish ladder and apply the learnings towards the next offset we build.”