Tucked away along Hoy Creek in Coquitlam is the Hoy-Scott Watershed Society.
“We’re more about educating the public because we’re right here with our residents. They really take pride in our facility what we do here,” said Robbin Whachell, communications director of the Hoy-Scott Watershed Society.
On Thursday, the hatchery received a concerning call from a nearby resident, who observed dead fish floating in the creek.
“Out here we could smell some bleach. When we opened up our tank when we’re holding our coho, it didn’t smell so bad. I was pleasantly surprised to see only one dead fish. We had them test the water and there was chlorine in there, and over the next one to two hours, they slowly started dying.”
Fish carcasses could be seen in and along the creek for about 1km down stream. Staff estimates a loss of around 2000 fish.
“Not just juvenile salmon, but trout and cutthroat trout as well. Kind of devastating for me to see,” said Whachell.
“It’s pretty sad, it’s not something we like to deal with. We wish we could raise nice happy healthy salmon and they could go to the ocean and live out their lives,” said Matthew Watts, director of Hoy-Scott Watershed Society.
City officials and Department of Oceans and Fisheries were on site to investigate. The City of Coquitlam tells CityNews an industrial strength chlorine from a pressure washing job nearby went down a storm drain that fed directly into the creek. Further investigation will determine fines and mitigation measures.
As the heavy rain washed away the harmful chemicals and dead fish, the ones that survived seem to be doing okay.
“We’re trying to take it easy on them, as it can be very stressful to have bleach in the container and cause more mortality. In the next couple weeks, we’ll take some samples to make sure they’re doing okay.”
The hatchery is reminding residents to never pour anything down storm drains marked with yellow fish and to stay off of areas around the creek as we head into the salmon return season.
