Keifer Ecological Services

• Kinbasket Reservoir Revegetation Program
• Arrow Lakes Reservoir Revegetation Program
• Silviculture, Wildfire and Forest Stand Effects on Huckleberries
• Spalding’s Campion Inventory and Habitat Assessment
• MOE Elder Creek Prescribed Burn
• Spatial and Quality Attributes of Culturally Important Plants
• Rare Plant Propagation and Restoration, Waneta Expansion Project
• Whitebark and Limber Pine Restoration in BC
• Impact of Accelerated Timber Harvesting on NTFPs
• Aberfeldie Channel and Revegetation Program
• Effects of Mountain Pine Beetle on NTFRs
• Revegetation of Disturbed Wetlands in Westpath Expansion Area
• Managing Saskatoon and other Traditionally Important Plants
• Invasive Plant Inventories at Provincial Parks
• Profile of NTFRs in the Cascade Forest District
• Invasive Species Mitigation Practices after Forest Management Activities
• Ethnobotanical Inventory, Invermere
• Reconnaissance Level Wetland Testing on TaTa/Skookumchuck Range
• Revegetation Monitoring - Kootenay 230 kV System Transmission Line
• Cultural Plants of the Creston Wetlands
• Morels in the East Kootenay, BC

Aberfeldie Channel and Revegetation Program

The Aberfeldie dam is a run of river gravity dam located on the Bull River 30 km east of Cranbrook BC.  A recent redevelopment project completed at the dam undertook a $95 million dollar upgrade and enhancement to the previous structures.  The redevelopment resulted in construction of a new powerhouse, surge tower, switch yard, and penstock, along with enhancements to the water intake, dam and access road (BC Hydro completed new Aberfeldie generating station 2009).  In addition to these structures, streamside areas were modified to create 3,200 m²of fish and aquatic habitat.  A portion of impacted streambank and upland areas located within the redevelopment zone have been the focus of restoration activities by Keefer Ecological Services (KES) in conjunction with Tipi Mountain Native Plants and formerly the Aqam Native Plant Nursery.

The Aberfeldie site is located entirely within the Kootenay Dry Mild Interior Douglas-fir (IDFdm2) variant (Braumandl & Curran 1992).  Because the valley narrows and experiences a greater influence from the cooler montane climate of the Bull River valley than the Rocky Mountain Trench, portions of the site near the dam are considerably moister and cooler.  The more western facing hillsides of the project site are located within a solar basin which incorporates an open reflective character resulting in high insolation and indicator plants such as bluebunch wheatgrass (Pseudoreginaria spicata) and bitterbrush (Purshia tridentata).  These warmer areas typically have low winter snowpack and as such are important winter range for native ungulates.

Other than the wetted portion of the fish channel site it is the vision that the treatments will bring sites back to grassland, shrubland or forest habitats.  In the spirit of the original revegetation plan the revegetation activities will be highlighting native plant species. With the goal of a biologically rich plant community that provides habitat for a host of native fauna plantings will be clumpy in nature with significant voids that will be occupied by the seeded grasses as well as volunteer grasses and forbs.