River pollutants in Chilliwack Effects everyone.
Reply With QuoteHi,
I hate to tell you this but there is no help going to come from the municipal, provincial or federal government.
I am Canada's lay expert on the subject of runoff of contamination from urban pavement, the toxic first flush syndrome and how it effects fish stocks.
I experienced what you are experiencing some six years ago while fishing in a waterfowl reserve in Esquimalt Lagoon, Vancouver Island and was nearly overcome when I found myself wading in what appeared to be an oil spill that stunk of rotten eggs.
So went the route you went. I went to the municipal, provincial and federal fisheries and health departments are completely useless when it comes to persevering or protecting human health or fish stocks.
They started talking about sewage, turbidity, sediment and being unqualified but an experienced fly fisherman it soon became apparent they were book talkers not stream walkers and had no idea what was happening to urban waters. And, worse, they really didn't care, they were state employees and they said caring beyond their job description would only get them into trouble, or at least’s that's their story.
I discovered that the water testing protocols used to measure water quality in BC water were worse than useless as they covered up what was really happening. They knew that but published them anyway because they were told to. Millions were spent on useless fish ladders etc. Why useless, the drain poisons were such no fish could survive. But that didn’t matter they had water quality test results that showed the water was fine.
When I reported the hard science of the matter to DFO, Prov. Gov. I got told one thing on record and another off the record.
What I got told on record that no matter what proof I had there could be no problem. What I got told off record was that it was worth the individuals career to acknowledge officially the truth of the matter.
This has nothing to do with the politicians. I have been right up to cabinet on this issue and this is strictly to due with the deputy minister level down, the bureaucrats.
So, I started looking at the volumes, concentration, speed etc. of hydrocarbons (oil) phosphate, nitrate, heavy metals and known carcinogens are flushed of the streets, through the storm drains and into our water table and local waters and how it interacted with human, flora and fauna. The answers terrified me.
The whole world is running around screaming like chicken little that the sky is falling due to carbon gas in the atmosphere and nobody has ever asked what about where all the really deadly stuff that occurs from burning fossil fuel and comes out of the tail pipe goes!
In Victoria, 200 acres of pavement, in a special designed centrifugal trap collected seven and half tons in a little of a year of lethal toxins. Toxins so hazardous they have to be shipped over to you guys on the mainland to disposed of at hazardous waste sight. Be careful that could be a field in Chilliwack.
In a single 'flush' of the GVRD paved area drains more toxins enter the Fraser River from the thousands of storm drains than the entire volume of all industrial accidental spills of contamination NORTH AMERICA wide annually.
Suck on that stat for a few minutes and you will perhaps look at mall parking lots a little differently.
Global warming, maybe. Global poisoning, absolutely, and if you know that there is 400 cities world wide with a million plus cars in them, add up the paved area, calculate the now proven average of two tons of toxins from urban pavement per annum and you will soon reach the conclusion the worlds ocean are already poisoned and the effects becoming more obvious everyday.
And, yet those we pay to pay attention to such matters don't even know its happening!
(Storm drain settlement tanks won't remove the toxins. They make it worse)
The reason breast cancer clusters occur down stream has escaped their notice despite qualified doctors doing their best to point it out. (The Canadian Breast Cancer Association has never even responded such information.)
I then looked at salmon, steelhead and what impact it has on them.
The record makes it clear. Eg. When millions of spawning salmon fair to appear in the Fraser if you go back through the weather record the reason is obvious. Rain washed the streets of the GRVD, thousands of storm drains discharged hundreds of tons of toxins into the waters full of smolts. Want to see the proof that has finally come to light, read this.
http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20070127/bob10.asp
Once juveniles are exposed it wipes out their GPS and they can't find their way home to spawn. Period.
None of this speculation. Its all hard science now, every where but in the most environmental backwards country in the Western word, Canada.
So, I got so pissed off and took the data to the US and there was an immediate reaction. They understand the cost of millions of missing salmon and their private health business the cost of cancer treatment. The EPA has already drafted new standards and many cities taking up the matter themselves. See http://www.mbnep.org/volunteer/firstflush.php
Here in Victoria, we have put a hard core science team together and we are testing on our own and will publish the results to demonstrate how dangerous our water is to us and fish. Government officials are freaked because the results are already demonstrating they have no only wasted all or time and money in health and fisheries but they have put us all at a great risk.
The Capital Regional District of Victoria having been informed that the largest source of lead and zinc in the environment is from roofs, commercial and residential still went ahead and on the radio promoted used rain water collected from roof tops for domestic roofs. Be very careful. You have to think for yourself, protect yourself.
So the only thing I can assure you of is that the government water testing protocols and methods of testing are useless, even dangerous because they do not tell you what is actually happening to your water.
Do your own testing and have it tested hydrocarbons, heavy metals, phosphate, nitrates PUH's and chemicals. The urban water table is polluted, its just a question of how much.
Take your water samples after it rains. There is a syndrome called 'First flush' where tons of the grease and grime from the roads and parking lots in your areas will be washed into the water table and local water ways in just a few hours after it starts raining. (You know that greasy feeling you experience when driving after it has been dry for a period of time and then it rains. That's what we are taking about. Take a swab of that stuff and put it on a cut on lad rat! It dies.
In Victoria they just spent a ten million dollars cleaning up toxic dump and they took it with the Prov. Govs written permission and dumped in a gravel pit a few feet from the tributary to the Cowichan and residential housing.
The greatest single danger to Canadians when it comes to environment and health is not so much the fossil fuels emissions and run off which we can do something about but the government workers bureaucracy which we can not. They will, intentional kill more of us, than any external enemy.
If you are not up close and looking at it is hard to believe but the proof of that matter is right before your eyes and in your case, your nose!
Take care and get an on line reverse osmosis filter system between you and the source of your water. Bathing in these contaminated waters can be worse than drinking it in some cases.
Take it very seriously. And, understand that you are own your own when it comes to safe water.
Tight lines,
Scouter
18 Days since we first detected the POLLUTANT in the river? 
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