Weeks of lower than average rainfall have left Langley streams dry as a bone, or reduced to shrinking puddles.

Doug McFee, head of the Salmon River Enhancement Society, is worried that streams around Langley are drying up earlier than normal, damaging the habitat of fish and other wildlife.

"The only water here is in the fountain and the washrooms," he said this week at Noel Booth Park.

Anderson Creek runs through the Brookswood Park, but right now that stretch of the river is dry. Shallow pools, with a few fish left in each one, are separated by hundreds of feet of dry rocks. Yet during the rainy spring and summer, the stream can run up to two or three feet deep and up to 10 feet wide through the same stretch.

"I'm told it dried out pretty quickly in July," McFee said.

Some creeks, like Anderson, have dried up every year for many years. But this year's summer drought seems to have been especially hard on the creeks.

The numbers tell the story.

According to David Phillips, senior climatologist at Environment Canada, rainfall levels are way down from their seasonal averages.

Rainfall records at the Abbotsford Airport showed a drier than normal June, with 50.6 mm of rain this year, compared to an average of 78.9 mm.

In July, the drought intensified. Just 1.2 mm of rain fell, compared to an average of 50.2 mm.

As of Aug. 25, a total of 11.3 mm has fallen, compared to an average of 39.8 mm.

The low rainfall levels in July were close to a record for the Lower Mainland, said Phillips.

With little to no rain falling from the sky, the only source of rainwater is the aquifers under the ground. They feed streams through springs, often in the sides of ravines.

However, local environmentalists have been raising the alarm for years about the dropping levels of some local aquifers, especially the Hopington, which underlies the Salmon River and portions of several other major streams in Langley.

At Yorkson Creek, streamkeepers and members of the Langley Environmental Partners Society (LEPS) did a fish rescue in mid-July as the streams dried out.

About 600 fry were rescued from shrinking pools of water and moved on July 14 and July 21, said Nicolas Walser of LEPS.

While this isn't the first year LEPS has conducted a salmon rescue, another is being considered because of the lack of rainfall.

The creek is continuing to dry out, said Walser.

"It drives the fish further and further down the creek, and a lot of them will die," he said.

While there's nothing that can be done about rainwater, McFee is hopeful that the declining aquifers can be at least partially restored.

This fall, Langley Township is to begin a program of locating and capping old artesian wells in the Salmon River area.

Hundreds of wells were drilled around Langley in the early to mid-20th century by farmers and settlers. Some of them were never capped, even after they were abandoned. They dribble water onto the surface, where it is lost to evaporation.

McFee is also worried about continuing development. If too much of an area is covered with buildings, it prevents rainwater from soaking into the ground and replenishing the aquifers and streams.

Some neighbourhoods, like Brookswood, are relatively good at soaking up water, while more urbanized areas have a problem absorbing water.

Three years ago, Langley suffered through a similarly dry summer.

The effects of that summer on the salmon fry in the stream will be seen next year, said McFee. The coho salmon returning to the Fraser in 2011 are the fry that had to live in dwindling, warm creeks in 2007.

McFee would like to see regular monitoring of when and where creeks dry out, so a baseline can be established to determine if things are truly getting worse over time.

mclaxton@langleyadvance.com