A crew from Catalyst Paper is installing 18 pumps along the company’s weir on the Cowichan River. The weir’s floodgates are fully open and that has some water flowing into the river but with no substantial rain in the forecast, that won’t be the case for long. Currently water is flowing at 4.3 cubic metres per second, below the minimum ideal number of 4.5 cubic metres. …Lake Cowichan Mayor Tim McGonigle the river is in a dire situation as a prolonged drought is stretching into the critical salmon-migration season. “The big concern there is usually with the weir, they will send a pulse to get the fish from Cowichan Bay up into the upper tributaries, and without that storage that would probably not occur this year unless we get significant rainfall,” said McGonigle.