Mystery bubbles worry steward

A thick, white foam resembling bubble bath covered Riverview Creek Monday morning and had one well-known streamkeeper frustrated and angry.

Ted Wingrove, known for his volunteer efforts with the Hyde Creek Watershed Society, noticed the foam while driving past the creek out-fall at about 9:30 a.m. and promptly called the city of Coquitlam to investigate.

As a patient driver at Riverview Hospital, where the creek emerges, Wingrove has “adopted” the salmon-bearing waterway and always gives it a quick peek while driving by to make sure all is well.

He’s made many phone calls to the city over the last several years regarding siltation he figures could be from improper dumping at the city works yard on Mariner Way near Austin Avenue.

This time, however, the water was far from murky — it was completely covered and remained so for the day.

“Unfortunately this is an extremely good coho and chum salmon spawning area,” he said of the pool.

Whether any fish have died as a result of the contamination is still unknown, but Wingrove said he has seen up to 60 salmon in the pond, which flows to Sheep Paddocks Slough at Colony Farm Regional Park, a newly-constructed salmon and animal habitat, and into the Coquitlam River to the Fraser.

Also unknown is what was dumped down a storm drain, and thus flowed into the creek, or where it originated.

While the foam looked like that used by firefighters, the Coquitlam fire department confirmed none was used at its Mariner Way fire hall, nor nearby.

The city says no spill occurred at its works yard. And Bill Susak, the city’s engineer, said staff could not find a source of the contamination upstream and followed protocol by informing the Provincial Emergency Program of the situation.

But Wingrove says more needs to be done to prevent a similar situation from happening again.

“Everybody’s wondering where our salmon are going... and this is the perfect example of what’s going on,” he said.

In April, about 44,000 Coho fry and eggs narrowly escaped death at Port Coquitlam’s Hyde Creek after someone dumped litres of white paint into a storm drain nearby. Now, a watershed society volunteer tours the area on his bike painting yellow fish beside storm drains to serve as a reminder to people that what goes down always ends up in the creek. Paint was also dumped earlier this month at DeBoville Slough.

People are reminded that every storm drain in the Tri-Cities flows into a fish-bearing waterway and to be cognizant of what’s washing down inadvertently, such as fertilizers from lawn or cleaners used for decks, pools, driveways, etc.

lgerrits@tricitynews.com