The Shickluna hydro project has been saved — for now — after a high-level meeting between hydro and environmental officials over the fate of an endangered species of eel.

“I think there is still work in progress,” St. Cathbarines city administrator Colin Briggs said after a two-hour meeting Tuesday afternoon. “We both better understand each other’s positions, and we’re working towards a solution.

“We have a commitment from the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to meet with hydro to come up with solutions we can agree on.” Members of St. Catharines Hydro’s board of directors had said Tuesday’s meeting was the last chance to save the $38-million project.
At issue were requirements to protect the movement of American eels, an endangered species that has been found in Twelve Mile Creek.

Hydro had already agreed to build a $1.2 million fish ladder to allow the eels to swim upstream past the proposed generating plant, but environmental officials recently asked to add grates to the turbine intakes to prevent downstream eels from getting caught in the spinning blades.

At Monday’s city council meeting, St. Andrew’s Coun. Joe Kushner, who is also a member of the hydro board, said the trash racks would slow the water flow and make the project “financially non-viable.”

Briggs said Tuesday the small size of the openings would trap more debris.

“The smaller the holes in the screen, the more junk you capture and the more you have to clean it,” Briggs said.

Tuesday’s meeting included one representative from the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans, six people from the provincial Ministry of Natural Resources, two people from St. Catharines Hydro, Mayor Brian McMullan and Briggs.

Briggs said one of the concerns expressed by St. Catharines Hydro was uncertainty about just how many eels are living in Twelve Mile Creek, its headwaters in the Shorthills and in Martindale Pond.

“We don’t know how often they are moving up and down the system,” Briggs said. “They were only recently listed as an endangered species, in 2008.”

He said more research needs to be done.

But the president of a Torontobased water watchdog group said he’s happy the federal and provincial governments are enforcing the rules and that St. Catharines Hydro needs to abide by them.

Lake Ontario Waterkeeper president Mark Mattson said St. Catharines is fortunate to have the rare American eel in its waters, and officials need to do everything they can to protect the endangered species that was once abundant in Lake Ontario.

The population of the fish has been depleted by dams and a general disregard for the rivers that flow into Lake Ontario, said Mattson, whose organization submitted concerns to Shickluna engineers Hatch in March over the potential hazard the hydro project posed to eels and other fish habitat.