‘Clean up dirty water’By Phil Melnychuk
Staff Reporter
By Phil Melnychuk
Staff Report
Jan 14 2006
(Above) Dave Smith of KEEPS looks at the brown water in Spencer Creek, north of Samuel Robertson Technical School; (below, left) a siltation pond off Industrial Avenue, below a housing development on Thornhill; (below, right) milky runoff pours into a drain.Fisheries and Oceans Canada has told developers and construction companies in Maple Ridge to clean up their storm water and has given them seven days to do it.
Three directions have been given under the Fisheries Act to several companies.
Omni Pacific, Aplin & Martin Consultants Ltd. and Progressive Contracting Ltd. have been told to “implement appropriate measures without delay” so runoff from the site at 239th Street, north of 130A Avenue, meets Fisheries and Oceans criteria for total suspended solids and turbidity.
The orders apply to a construction site in Silver Valley within the Millionaire Creek system.
Fisheries and Oceans biologist Bruce Clark said fish soon will be hatching and won’t be able to access food if it is covered by sediment, even temporarily.
“It’s going to be a potentially significant impact on juvenile fish associated with those waterways,” he said.
There is a “potentially serious and imminent danger” of “deleterious substances” running into fish-bearing streams, he said, paraphrasing the order.
A similar direction has been issued for another work site, also in Silver Valley, on 239B Street, north of 132nd Avenue. That area also is within the Millionaire Creek system, which drains into the South Alouette River.
The companies directed in that order are Atlantic Pacific Land Corp., D.K. Bowins and Associates Inc., Progressive Contracting L td. and a numbered company.
In Albion at 10300 Industrial Ave., Damax Consultants Ltd., B and B Contracting Ltd. and two numbered companies, 685457 B.C. Ltd. and another one, have been given the same direction.
Runoff from that area, which includes gravel pits and new homes which sit atop a steep hill of a former gravel pit, drains into three large detention ponds that trap the water, settle the sediments and control the flow during heavy rains.
Water is discharged from there beneath Industrial Avenue to Spencer Creek, a tributary of Kanaka Creek.
Clark said Fisheries and Oceans issued the directions after considering sampling data from environmental consultants and doing its own limited sampling, as well as from information from the public. Fisheries and Oceans officers have visited Maple Ridge four or five times since the fall.
Under the Fisheries Act, an “inspector’s direction” is given to clarify Fisheries’ expectations, he said.
“They are fairly routine instruments that the department uses, but how often they’re used … there could be a huge range there.”
Clark said failure to comply with an inspector’s direction is itself a violation of the Fisheries Act, but nothing has been decided in the above cases.
“We’ll consider what steps we have to take at that time.”
The companies have a week to report how they’re complying.
The directions focus on potential discharges of sediment into the creeks, but the department is also concerned with water from construction sites being discharged directly into streams, even though the guidelines don’t prohibit that. Often, runoff from construction sites can take a more circuitous route through settling ponds and ditches before entering a stream.
Fisheries’ is concerned with the mud that is produced when ground is excavated during construction, but the department also is worried about runoff from roads and roofs when construction is complete.
The guidelines the department follows when an area is under construction requires that total suspended solids be no more than 25 milligrams per litre of water above the levels that preceded construction.
Maple Ridge, however, allows levels to be 75 milligrams per litre on rainy days, something Clark challenges.
“If 25 [mg of solids per litre] is a problem for fish, why would 75 mg be acceptable?”
Dave Smith with Kanaka Education and Environmental Partnership Society is happy Fisheries and Oceans is doing something.
“We [the district] use creeks and streams for our stormwater management,” Smith said.
Spencer, Maggy and Thornvale creeks, all tributaries to Kanaka Creek, are all showing muddy runoff from construction, Smith added.
On Wednesday, coffee-coloured water poured into the headwaters of Spencer Creek on Industrial Avenue. Even on the north side of 104th Avenue and Sam Robertson Technical school, the creek ran a thick brown.
Smith said all groups in Maple Ridge are going to have to come up with a better way and use methods and technology that are used elsewhere.
Developer blames builder for muddy water
Gary Lycan with Atlantic Pacific Land Corp. says Fisheries and Oceans is picking the wrong target.
His development company and a numbered company prepared the upper portion of the Silver Valley area along 239th Street that will accommodate 55 homes. Landscaping and seeding were all completed in the summer and there’s no mud flowing from those sites, he said.
“Our problem is with the builders … once we sell the lots we have absolutely no control,” Lycan said.
“DFO should find the source of the problem, then act accordingly.”
During construction when basements are being dug and materials hauled in and out, mud and clay can get on to the roads then wash into the storm drains and creeks.
A simple measure such as building a pad covered with drain rock at each lot for unloading materials can keep the dirt from getting in the water, or, moving a muddy grader up a road by truck rather than driving it up, could help.
Lycan said he tries to talk to builders, but the response he gets is varied.
“Some are good. Some are in between. Some are bloody rotten.”
While he can’t do anything about the builders, “I’m fully prepared to take responsibility for the eight lots that I own.”
The District of Maple Ridge can require such measures in its building permits, he said.
Lycan said the water detention ponds on each new subdivision are meant mainly to control the flow, so water is released gradually into the storm sewers and creeks.
While some sediment or sand falls out while the water is standing in the ponds, there’s no way of removing the clay that turns water the colour of chocolate milk.
“The only way you can do that is to keep the dirty water from being created.”
Lycan said Fisheries and Oceans’ guidelines, which call for ground filtration systems so storm water doesn’t empty into creeks and storm sewers, don’t work in the winter when large areas are cleared and the ground is saturated.
But Fisheries and Oceans Canada biologist Bruce Clark points out there are no sedimentation problems when the ground isn’t disturbed.
Geoff Clayton with the Alouette River Management Society agrees the district should increase its enforcement.
Under the district’s storm water bylaw, it can issue a stop-work order if mud is flowing into the streams.
He asked if the district has issued any stop-work orders and if the district is keeping any of the performance bonds posted by companies before development starts.
However, according to a district spokesman, a stop-work has been issued to one builder in Silver Valley.
Heavy machinery work has also stopped while district staff scramble to respond to this week’s heavy rains.
On the other hand, developers also are responsible, Clayton said.
“You cannot open a land form greater than you can manage and they clearly did that,” he said of Omni Pacific’s project.
“You cannot shift the ball on to the district and [say] tell us what to do now – duh?”
Fisheries and Oceans Canada told the District of Maple Ridge last August that Fisheries guidelines weren’t being followed in the Omni Pacific subdivision in Silver Valley.
But Clayton agrees, once the property is with the builders, “it’s clearly beyond the developer’s control.”
He said around the end of January, coho and chum salmon eggs will start to hatch in the gravel. If that gravel is covered by fine silt, “this has the capacity to suffocate the eggs by sealing off the oxygen.”
He wondered, however, about the timing of Fisheries’ actions.
“Do you think it’s driven by the [federal] election?
“Do you think we have a prime minister who’s getting a little desperate?”
Damax Consultants David Laird said, “we’re doing everything we can to solve the problem.”
Omni Pacific didn’t return phone calls.
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