Officials say there’s good news at the site of a major rock slide in the Fraser River north of Big Bar.

Jennifer Davis with the Ministry of Forests says salmon are getting through the site – where a five-metre waterfall has formed as a result of the rock slide. She estimates 700 salmon have passed the site since the slide happened nearly two weeks ago.

She says the biggest priority as crews continue to monitor the slide site is safety of workers.

“This is a very dangerous site, it’s a narrow canyon. It’s prone to rocks falling anyway, and it’s got fast water to begin with which has been amplified through this slide event. So there’s a very high human safety concern that’s number one and kind of the first thing we’re dealing with in any operation.”

Davis says an incident command post has now been set up in Lillooet. She says crews will take action if they find that not enough fish are getting through the slide site.

“But we are really to report that fish are getting through. We had some preliminary visual confirmation late last week, and through the weekend we now have some very good monitoring data that we’re seeing a number of fish going through.”