The Damming of the Fraser

Downstream Geomorphic Impacts of the Moran Dam

[Author]

ABSTRACT
This paper examines the downstream hydrologic and geomorphic impacts of
the hypothetical Moran Dam project on the Fraser River, stemming from the
differing flow regime and sediment load that typically occur once a river is
dammed. The baseline conditions of the Fraser are outlined, and then the
changes that occur due to dam construction are explored. Hydrologic
implications would include a decrease in annual discharge, a shift in the
maxima and minima of flows, and a removal of flood risk. Geomorphic
changes would include bed scouring and armouring immediately
downstream of the site due to the impoundment of sediment behind the dam,
and a channel narrowing further downstream, which would reduce bank
erosion and would impact downstream ecosystems.
 The Moran Dam was an infrastructure project, proposed in 1955, to build a
hydroelectric dam on the Fraser River at a site thirty-two kilometers north of Lillooet
(Warren, 1957). If it had been constructed, it would have created a reservoir more than
250 kilometers long, reaching near Quesnel. The Fraser River is the longest river in
British Columbia, 1,375 kilometers in length, (Evenden, 2004, p. 5) and it created the
floodplain where Metro Vancouver now sits. While some of its tributaries have been
dammed, the Fraser itself has never been dammed. The Fraser is the most productive
salmon run in the world (Evenden, 2004, p. 2) and activists quashed the original Moran
dam proposal due to concerns about the dam’s effect on the salmon run. As the original
proposal was now more than sixty years ago, and as the electric power needs of British
Columbia continues to grow along with its population, perhaps one day it will again be
discussed to dam the Fraser. This research paper will explore the downstream
geomorphic effects due to the resulting change in sediment transport and discharge rates
if the Moran dam had actually been built.

The Fraser River begins in the Rocky Mountains. In its upper reaches below
Mount Robson, through Prince George to Quesnel, it is a sinuous two-phase meandering
channel. Further downstream from Quesnel, it enters the Fraser Canyon, and becomes a
fast-flowing bedrock channel, until Yale. In the lower reaches of the Fraser Valley, it
returns to its meandering, gravel-bed form, then transitions to a single-thread, sandbar
channel until it flows into the Straight of Georgia (McLean, 1990, p. 36). Its drainage
basin area is 234,000 km2, and a dam at Moran (Figure 3) would intercept 60% of the
total drainage, or 140,000 km2 (Fisheries Service, 1971). The annual mean discharge was
measured as 1,920 m3/s in 2015 at the Texas Creek hydrometric station, (Figure 4)
located 60 km south of the dam site (Environment Canada, 2015). The nearest continuous
measurement (spatially and temporally) of the sediment load was in 1986 at the
hydrometric site near Marguerite, which is north of the dam site, closer to Quesnel. The
annual daily mean sediment load in 1986 was 27,585 tonnes, with the total annual
sediment load measured as 10,088,700 tonnes (Environment Canada, 2015).

The Moran dam would be built for the purpose of hydroelectric power generation,
which would markedly alter the downstream hydrology of the river. The flow regime of
regulated rivers is changed both on a diurnal and seasonal timescale. In dammed rivers,
there is a decrease in annual discharge (Piqué, 2016, p.1702). Peak flows are minimized;
in studies of large rivers in the United States “dams have reduced peak discharges by an
average of 67%,” (Marren et. al., 2014, p.1). This has implications for the Fraser, as it is a
nival system that is dominated by the freshet, which is a peak flood event driven by snow
melt (Mclean, 1990, p. 39). The river begins to rise in April and peak flows would occur
sometime in June, whereas the highest energy demand spikes in winter. To produce
electricity, the dam would contain the peak flows from the summer in the reservoir, and
release them in the midst of winter, inverting the natural trend of the flow regime. This
shifts the dates of maximum and minimum flow by 6 months, which has ecologic
consequences outlined later in this paper (Graf, 2006, p. 350). The Fraser River
floodplain sediments were deposited during peak flood events, (Marren et. al., 2014, p. 3)
so the floodplain would no longer be replenished. The decrease in discharge would also
have estuarine impacts; currently, during low flows, the Fraser is tidal up to 95 kilometers
inland from the river mouth, to Chilliwack (Pretious, 1972, p. 5). This now occurs from
December to March, but would be extended to a year-round effect if the annual flows
were decreased. On a diurnal timescale, the daily flows on a dammed river are “more
complex in temporal trends and reversals” (Graf, 2006, p. 350). The daily range of
discharges is larger than in an unregulated system; instead of rising and falling smoothly,
a sawtoothed pattern (Figure 1) can be observed in the hydrograph (Punys et. al., 2015).
This is because more water is released during the day to generate electricity than during
the night (Brandt, 2000, p. 377).
 Figure 1: Daily hydrographs showing pre- and post-dam trends in small hydropower plant in
Lithuania (Punys et. al., 2015, p. 7491).

The ratio between the mean annual flood and the mean minimum discharge at the
Fraser is 14:1 (8750 m3/s to 600m3/s, measured at Hope). This is “typical of large rivers
and reflects the attenuation of snowmelt and rainfall inputs over large areas,” (Ham, 2005
p.23). On an annual timescale, the range of flows from minimum to maximum is
decreased after dam construction. The 30-day minimum flows of dammed rivers are 52%
higher than undammed rivers, largely due to power demand in the summer driving flow
releases (Graf, 2006, p. 350). Due to the high precipitation levels in the Pacific
Northwest, the reservoirs only store a small portion of the total annual runoff, thus “the
annual maximum discharge in Pacific Northwest rivers is only 19% smaller in regulated
streams than in unregulated ones,” (Graf, 2006, p.353). Because of this phenomenon,
dams in the Pacific Northwest tend to have less downstream geomorphic and hydrologic
changes compared to other regions with dammed river systems, due to the high rainfall
this region experiences. The Fraser would see this effect to a degree, but as it spans
bioclimatic zones, the annual maximum discharge would likely decrease more than the
19% reduction observed in other regulated Pacific Northwest rivers.

A positive effect of reducing the annual maximum discharge would be that the
risk of flooding would be removed. The last major flood event from the Fraser was in in
1948 (Figure 2) which damaged infrastructure and flooded agricultural land throughout
the Fraser Valley (Evenden, 2004, p. 142-144). This was, in part, what drove the
conversation on building the Moran originally. Currently the reach from Agassiz to
Mission is aggrading, which exacerbates the flood hazard (Nelson, pp. 2-18, 2011). This
is likely due to a combination of factors, one of which is the human history of placer
mining, which occurred continuously from 1858 to the early 1900s (Nelson, 2011 p.1).
That reach is a local zone of instability that would be affected by a change in the
sedimentation regime. Currently dikes and pump stations protect the Fraser Valley.
Taking into account sea level rise and other climatic changes, there is a “significant risk
of a large-magnitude flood in the region, and this risk is expected to increase over the
next 85 years,” (Fraser Basin Council, 2017). Flood mitigation options that are being
looked at include dike upgrades and sediment management strategies (Fraser Basin
Council, 2017, p. 5). The strategic plan does not include a dam. The elimination of peak
floods would contribute to the narrowing of the channel downstream, as riparian
vegetation would begin to colonize the floodplain, stabilizing it (Graf, 2006, p. 342).

Figure 2: Flooding in the Fraser Valley in 1948 (Evenden, 2004, p. 143).

Downstream geomorphic impacts are usually noticeable immediately after dam

closure. The degradation of the bed is initially rapid, but over time slows. Within the first
10 years after construction, half of the total degradation will occur (Marren et. al., 2014,
p. 5). Sediment transfer is the dominant factor determining changes in channel
morphology, “but because the transport rate is small relative to the volume of bed
material stored within the reach, changes to morphology usually occur slowly,” (Ham,
2005 p. 182). Thus the timescale to look at channel instability on a river the size of the
Fraser would be on the order of decades (Mclean, 1990, p. ii). As a scientific community,
the results of damming the Fraser would not be evident until years after construction is
completed, however, informed predictions can be made based on other regulated rivers.
Upstream geomorphic effects would occur as well, such as aggradation due to sediment
accumulation, but those effects are outside the scope of this paper.

The geomorphic change of a river system can be thought of using the concept of
‘downstream continuum’, introduced by Leopold and Maddock in 1953 in their formative
paper on hydraulic geometry, wherein a newly constructed dam would disrupt the
equilibrium conditions that the channel had adjusted to, based on the baseline sediment
and flow regimes, (Marren et. al., 2014). The reservoir at Moran would impound the
entire sediment load, apart from dissolved load, behind it. Outflow released from the dam
would be water with a high sediment transport capacity and thus erosive qualities (Smith
et. al., 2016, p. 186). The relationship between environmental factors can be analyzed
using the following qualitative equation by Lane (1955):

QsD α QS (Equation 1),

where Q is discharge, S is slope, Qs is sediment load and D is grain size. This equation
qualitatively shows the relationship between variables; in the case of a dam, the sediment
load decreases far more than the discharge does, in which case the slope must decrease or
the grain size must coarsen (Brandt, 2000, p. 383).

Despite the high sediment transport capacity, due to a reduction in total discharge
relative to baseline below the dam, the water will only be able to transport fine-grained
material, resulting in armouring of the bed through winnowing (Brandt, 2000, p. 384) and
thus results in the general downstream trend of coarsening after dam closure that is
observed in most dammed rivers, (Smith et. al., 2016, p.186). Additionally, as the
sediment supply diminishes, the slope will decrease, (Pretious, 1972. p.2).
Figure 3: Location of Moran dam site in relation to entire watershed. (Pretious, 1972)
Figure 4: Location map of Fraser River watershed, with hydrometric stations shown. (Ham, 2005, p.19)

For different dam sites undergoing the same change in discharge, downstream
effects may differ depending on baseline conditions such as erodibility of bed material,
slope gradient and grain size (Brandt, 2000, p. 396). On most dams after closure, a
downstream enlargement is generally observed near the site, first by bed scouring at the
foot of the dam, then channel widening or deepening until sediment inputs from
tributaries bring the sediment load back to equilibrium (Smith et. al., 2016, p. 186). For
example, the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River eroded the bed to a depth of 0.6 to 1.8
meters in various locations over the first 21 kilometers downstream of the dam, (Pretious,
1972, p. 22). At the Moran site, there would likely be a deepening and scouring of the
channel rather than a widening. This is due to the relative inerodibility of the banks,
which at that point of the reach consist of the bedrock of the Fraser Canyon. The main
source of sediment is the “incision, erosion and mass wasting of Pleistocene-era
glaciolacustrine, glaciofluvial and glacial deposits,” (Mclean, 1990, p.38). The measured
sediment yield is 0.25T/day/km2 at Marguerite, ranging to 0.21T/day/km2 at Hope, which
is a fairly constant sediment yield over the increasing drainage area. This is indicative of
important sediment sources between Marguerite and Hope, (Mclean, 1990, p. 49). Due to
the sediment input from tributaries, the scouring and widening effects would likely be
mitigated before the gravel-bed portion of the channel at Hope. Additionally, the erosion
of the main channel can trigger bed erosion, travelling up the tributaries (Petts, 1984),
which could add to the sediment supply from that point onward.

Downstream from the erosive zone, a channel narrowing is likely to be observed

due to the reduction in discharge. At the sand-bed floodplain portion of the channel, this
would correspond to a reduction in bank erosion, which in turn could reduce meander
bend migration rates (Marren et. al., 2014, p. 10-11). In the gravel bed section of the
channel, the bank is strengthened with retaining walls and riprap to minimize bank
erosion, due to the historical tendency towards lateral instability (Mclean, 1990, p. 63,
Ham, 2005, p. 28). Thus bank erosion is unlikely to be a geomorphic consequence after
the construction of the Moran. The Fraser at the gravel bed portion of the reach has
already been observed to narrow due to anthropogenic interferences, “more quickly than
can be explained by a corresponding decline in bankfull discharge over the period of
record,” (Ham, 2005, p. 98). A dam would contribute to this trend. Dammed river
systems have been observed to have 43% less active flood plain surfaces than in
unregulated systems (Graf, 2006, p. 351).

The physical barrier that a dam would pose to salmon migration is what stopped
the Moran project in the 1950s; however, the cascading effects of hydrologic and
geomorphologic changes downstream of the dam would also affect other aspects of the
salmon life cycle, alongside other organisms. For example, due to downstream channel
simplification, the spawning of salmon would be impacted as well due to a decrease in
habitat quality (NRC, 1996, p. 201). Natural flow regimes are interconnected with the life
cycles of certain organisms and disruption of those cycles can have “catastrophic declines
in some wildlife populations,” (Graf, 2006, p. 338). After a change in flow regime,
ecological implications would include habitats drying out, changes in habitat cues for
reproductive behaviours, reduction in the amount of space available, access to and
stability of habitats, and a decrease in nutrient availability, (Graf, 2006, p. 346).

Methodology:
As the Moran was proposed in the 1950s, a recent analysis of the hydrologic and
sedimentation effects from the damming of the Fraser is absent from the literature. Using
peer reviewed journal articles relating to downstream effects of dammed rivers and
disrupted fluvial processes, a general conceptual model has been built for the specific
case of the Moran. From that, the author has attempted to estimate the consequences of
building the Moran on the Fraser. Articles were initially retrieved from the UBC library
catalogue using search terms such as ‘dam flow regime’, ‘hydroelectric dam hydrology’,
‘dam hydraulic geometry’ and ‘grain size downstream dam geomorphology.’ Related
articles were also found in the bibliography of relevant articles found through the search
function. Articles were included if they were directly related to the topics of the Moran
dam specifically or general downstream effects of dams. Only articles from credible
sources were considered.

Conclusion:
In the above paper, the current state of the Fraser River was reviewed, followed
by an assessment of the changes in hydrologic regime and sediment transport that would
occur after the construction of a large dam. These changes were further explored in the
context of their effects. The downstream grain size of the bed would increase due to the
armouring effect. Near the dam, channel width would remain constant due to underlying
bedrock, with significant channel scouring deepening the reach. Further downstream, a
narrowing would be observed due to a decrease in discharge. There would not be
significant bank erosion, due to bedrock banks in the Fraser Canyon and anthropogenic
bank strengthening structures downstream. Ecological consequences would include
changes in habitat, which could affect sensitive wildlife. A decrease in the maximum
discharge would work as flood control. A dam on the Fraser would have significant
geomorphic implications for the watershed. As the Fraser remains one of the largest
unregulated rivers in the North America, the construction of a dam should be avoided
unless necessary.

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