The race is on to contain the pollutant already in the stream — and to find the source before it contaminates more of the waterway.
The mystery fuel fouling the fragile waters of Bowker Creek has been traced to a location somewhere in Victoria.
Now the race is on to determine the source and contain the fuel already in the stream as it spreads down the waterway and affects critical fish habitat.
Environmental group Friends of Bowker Creek, which has been working to turn the creek back into a salmon-bearing stream, called the spill one of the worst-polluting incidents in decades.
Gerald Harris, a director of the group, said by Thursday morning, the fuel had reached the lower reaches of the creek, where chum salmon incubation containers have been installed just before the water spills into the ocean at Oak Bay Marina.
Harris said a strong odour of fuel was in the air, and a sheen could be seen on the creek at Monteith Street, where a section of the waterway has been painstakingly restored for the first returns of salmon this fall in more than a century.
“This is a heck of a whack on the efforts to [reintroduce] salmon and for the whole ecosystem,” said Harris.
A City of Victoria spokesperson said Thursday that public works staff from Victoria, Saanich and Oak Bay, all of which have the creek flowing through their municipalities, have determined the leak originated in Victoria through a drainage system that flows into the creek.
But the city did not supply any immediate information about the location and cause of the leak or the amount of fuel involved.
The Ministry of Environment confirmed in a statement that the substance is either diesel or oil, or a mixture, and said it was still investigating.
Sacha Veelbehr, who lives in the area, first noticed a rainbow-like sheen on the water on Tuesday evening, in the spot where the creek meanders past the recreation centre.
She said there was a strong odour of fuel. Her photographs show the oily substance moving in the shallow areas of the stream.
“You could really see it, and the smell was very noticeable,” Veelbehr said.
Oak Bay municipal crews have been laying absorbent booms and pads at points along the creek within the municipality, swapping them out on a regular basis for fresh ones.
Oak Bay spokeswoman Hayley Goodgrove said samples of the substance were sent to the Capital Regional District and the Ministry of Environment for testing, and the municipality is collaborating with a provincial emergency environmental response officer to contain the spill.
Oak Bay was using its vacuum truck to skim some of the pollutants from the surface.
Goodgrove said municipal crews monitored Bowker Creek from the Victoria border near Foul Bay Road to where the waterway empties into the ocean near Oak Bay Marina and did not find a fuel source.
Bowker Creek is an eight-kilometre-long urban waterway that begins in springs and underground gravel beds that collect winter rains at the University of Victoria and flows through Saanich, Victoria and Oak Bay. About 60% of the creek flows through large underground culverts, but small stretches through each municipality flow on the surface.
Harris said from the amount of fuel he observed, it was “one of the worst” spills he had seen since he began volunteer work around Bowker Creek in 2007. He said a similar spill several years ago involved a buried home-heating-oil tank, but that involved less fuel.
He said there is a concern for wildlife that use the waterway, including salmon and trout in the lower reaches, as well as crayfish, waterfowl, birds, insects and other aquatic life.
The portion of the creek near Oak Bay Marina has been carefully prepared for years for the return of chum salmon, which haven’t been seen in Bowker Creek since major diversions of the flow began in 1914.
Bowker Creek has been populated for the past four years with incubated chum salmon, and conservationists have been keenly hoping for the first chum to return and spawn this fall.
Thousands of chum salmon have been hatched in the creek using specialized stainless steel incubators. The eggs were supplied by the Goldstream River Hatchery.
Goodgrove said crews were laying out booms at four locations, including Hampshire, Monterey, Monteith and Beach Drive, and the municipality said it was hopeful the fuel would not reach the ocean.
Harris said the Friends of Bowker Creek, though dismayed by the spill and potential damage, were encouraged to see the municipalities acting quickly to clean up the spill.
“It is good to see the municipalities, especially Oak Bay, acting so fast and so fulsomely to this,” Harris said. “It’s a terrible thing that’s happened, but it seems the municipalities are acting with a bit more awareness and speed, and we’re feeling hopeful.”
The Friends of Bowker Creek have been advocating for the urban stream for decades, urging Victoria, Saanich and Oak Bay to factor in impacts to the creek when considering all future developments.
Harris said last year, Saanich stopped construction on the Shelbourne Street revitalization project to prevent heavy amounts of silt from entering the waterway until the issue was resolved.
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