A summer of 'desperate' low river levels in central Newfoundland could have lasting impacts: scientist

When Craig Purchase visited his normal fishing spot upstream of Terra Nova Lake this past Labour Day weekend, it was clear why angling was off the table.

"Where it would normally be waist deep, there was two to three inches of water," Purchase, who's also a professor of biology at Memorial University, said.

Bare rocks and trickling brooks have been a common sight through a swath of central Newfoundland this summer, Purchase said.

"The stretch from Springdale to Clarenville, it's been kind of desperate for a whole long time," Purchase said. "Basically those rivers, since the snow melted, they never got any reprieve at all."

Rainfall has boosted most rivers in the last two weeks, Purchase told CBC Radio's The St. John's Morning Show Monday, with the exception of Terra Nova River. That area has continued to have "bad luck," he said, missing out on rain events elsewhere.

Volunteers who monitor water gauges on the Terra Nova River confirm it's been a dry and dire situation for the salmon spawning river.

"We are 70 per cent below the average waterflow in the river for the months of June to August for this year," said John Baird, the head of the Freshwater-Alexander Bays Ecosystem Corporation.