Residents near Stoney Creek in Coquitlam say they are concerned about a mysterious white substance that has been seen spilling into the water.
The City of Coquitlam says it received a spill report of a “white foamy substance” in the creek March 24.
“Environmental Officers attended the site and collected samples for lab analysis,” senior manager of environment Caresse Selk told CityNews.
They were unable to identify the source of the spill.
Local Suzana Kovacic says this is by no means the first time strange substances have been seen entering the creek. In fact, she says, it has been going on since 2019, although it doesn’t always appear to be the same substance.
She says locals have observed pollution coming out of a culvert that collects storm water from a section of Coquitlam and Burnaby that has a lot of construction going on.
“When construction sites do work, they discharge water into the storm system,” Kovacic said.
“There is treatment that goes on at the construction sites. But we’re concerned that the treatment level that is done at the construction sites isn’t sufficient.”
Selk says officers didn’t observe any dead fish and saw fish swimming both upstream and downstream.
But this may not always be the case, as Kovacic says residents have seen many fish kills in the creek over the years.
“We can’t say for sure that all of them are related to construction, but there have been several incidents when the pH in the creek has been very, very high,” she said.
“We’ve seen incidents over the summer, especially, where there are high levels of E. coli. So that’s a bacteria that comes usually from landscaping. So we think that it’s landscaping, over-watering at those sites.”
Kovacic says residents have been sharing their concerns for years.
“We’ve been in contact with the City of Coquitlam and with the City of Burnaby,” she said.
“There’s frequent discharges of various different types of material, this white material being only the latest one that we’ve been observing over the last few days, but we’ve seen this material many times in the past.”
The City of Coquitlam says it will receive the lab results in “about a week or so.”
Metro Vancouver confirms the pollution is not related to its sewer work.
With files from Sonia Aslam.