At first, the worst was feared when a construction mishap caused a series of washouts along a tributary of Stoney Creek last fall in Burnaby.
But nearly six months later, Koho fry are being spotted in the creek, and hopes are high from local streamkeepers that eventually the waterway will make a complete recovery.
“It’s a very pleasant miracle,” said John Templeton, the chair of the Stoney Creek environment committee. “Thankfully, when I saw those fish last week, I was like ‘Wow, this is unbelievable.’”
He also explained thanks to rains through the winter, some of the areas that were inundated with sand and sediment along the creek are starting to clear, which is also good news for the creek.
“It’s almost like nature is doing what nature does,” Templeton said.
The challenge for returning fish is if the eggs get coated in the sediment, it creates a barrier where oxygen doesn't get into the developing eggs, essentially choking them.
The saga began on Oct. 31 when a construction mishap led to a series of events that eventually forced a large amount of sediment into the creek and put the fish habitat in the waterway at risk.
During the rehabilitation of a culvert on a Stoney Creek tributary, an A.C. Paving employee who was maintaining a filter screen on a pump at the construction site got his boot sucked into the inlet hose of the pump.
City staff had originally suggested heavy rains prior to the original incident on Oct. 30 were the cause of the failure and subsequent sediment damage.
The city had undertaken the project in the first place after crews and Stoney Creek streamkeeper members noticed the beginning of some creek bank erosion near the outlet of the Stoney Creek Tributary 3A culvert under Gaglardi Way in the fall of 2014.
In the weeks and months following the October incident, city engineers began working on a remediation plan. Fisheries and Oceans Canada [DFO] also got involved, directing the city to provide a fall/winter site management plan to ensure no further impacts to fish and fish habitat occur. The federal agency also wanted a restoration plan to restore identified fish habitat to previous conditions, an implementation schedule and a monitoring plan.
In an email to the NOW last week, the DFO noted “the City of Burnaby is continuing to work towards meeting requirements to mitigate or remedy adverse effects to fish and fish habitat as outlined in the letter from DFO. These requirements are legally binding.”
While Templeton said there is still plenty of work to be done to get the creek back to the condition prior to the washout, he’s happy to see an improvement. And he’s hopeful as long as the DFO is involved, the creek will make full recovery and the city’s remediation plans will be carried out.
