Volunteers with the Byrne Creek Streamkeepers have tracked dead trout and coho smolts all the way up Byrne Creek Ravine Park to Giffiths' Pond near the Edmonds Skytrain station in Burnaby. The total count of dead fish is now about 300.
One volunteer reported a "diesel smell" and a slick of oil coming out of the storm drain where the creek "daylights" (appears from the storm drain system into which it was channeled and covered), and a different chemical odour at another drain that enters the creek nearby.
Volunteers will try to cover lower portions of the creek today to further assess the damage. Streamkeepers increasingly fear that this kill may be approaching the magnitude of the 1998 tragedy that wiped out life in the creek after a toxin was poured down a storm drain in the upper watershed.
Posted by Paul at February 27, 2006 10:33 AM