After a lengthy study the Nechako Environmental Enhancement Fund Management Committee - which includes representatives from both government and industry - has concluded cold water has to be released into the salmon for the benefit of salmon.

The Nechako, a northern tributary of the Fraser River, was dammed in 1952 when Alcan Inc., created an impoundment to power an aluminum smelter at Kitimat.

As part of the deal, Alcan was given the rights to later expand its power generating capacity by diverting more water from the Nechako. But when the giant aluminum company tried to undertake what it called the Kemano Completion Project, in the early 1990's, it found that public attitudes had changed. People were placing a higher value on protecting the environment, and on salmon, and after lengthy public hearings the B.C. government ruled, in 1995, that Alcan could not go ahead with the planned expansion.

But that still left the river's salmon stocks in tough shape because of the existing water removals and increased temperatures caused by spilling surface water from the reservoir.

One study found that changes in water temperatures and water flows in the river were adversely affecting the survival and migration of young salmon in the upper Nechako.

Warmer temperatures in the upper river, near Alcan's dam, are so high that chinook eggs have started to hatch a month early.

And reduced flow in the river has hampered young fish when they start their migration to the Pacific in the spring. Because the dam is designed to hold back spring floods, Nechako chinook don't have freshets to push them quickly downstream when they start their long migration to the ocean.

The committee concluded that a facility that draws cold water out of the lake and discharges it below the dam could go a long way to restoring ecological balance in the river, where both chinook and sockeye stocks have been in decline.

The committee recommends that the B.C. government put up $50 million and Alcan provide $50 million for the cold water project.

"While the costs of these decisions and recommendations are substantial, the environmental and social benefits are worth the investment," said Dr. Charles Jago, a member of the committee and president of the University of Northern B.C.