You may have already read the news about a toxin found in tires that killed salmon in Brothers Creek in West Vancouver and in Piercy Creek in the Comox Valley. 6PPD is a tire preservative which becomes 6PPD-quinone when it reacts with ozone in the air. This chemical collects in rainwater and is lethal to Coho Salmon at a concentration of 0.8 parts per billion.
Bridges that cross creeks and rivers often have stormwater drains that empty directly over the waterways. When it rains, stormwater flushes whatever is on the bridge through the drains into the water below, including 6PPD-quinone. There is a term for a die-off of salmon caused by flushing this toxin into waterways: Urban Runoff Mortality Syndrome (URMS).
BCCF is partnering with stewardship groups on the east coast of Vancouver Island to learn what extent 6PPD-quinone exists within our waterways, focusing on those that are utilized by salmon. MVIHES volunteers have been collecting water samples downstream of bridges in the Parksville area since 2022. Sampling events are based on weather, particularly heavy rain following a 48-hour dry period when contaminants are most likely to be flushed into waterways.
Our first sampling location was the Englishman River downstream of the Orange Bridge. 6PPD-quinone was not detected in any of the samples collected, probably because the river is a large waterbody providing a lot of dilution (unlike Brothers and Piercy Creeks) and traffic across the bridge is much lighter than in West Vancouver.
Sampling locations (above map) moved to smaller salmonid creeks in 2023 and include: Shelly Creek where the resident Cutthroat Trout hang out in Shelly Creek Park; Shelly Creek downstream of the crossing at Hamilton Rd; and Craig Creek in Craig Bay downstream of Northwest Bay Rd. So far, none of the samples collected from Shelly Creek contained detectable levels of the toxin.
Volunteer Dick Dobler is shown in the left-hand photo preparing to collect a sample from Craig Creek. One sample from Craig Creek contained a trace amount of 6PPD-quinone (0.003 parts per billion, below lethal concentration of 0.8 parts per billion) while concentrations in the other samples were non-detectable.
The relatively low traffic at these crossings are probably the reason for the non-lethal concentrations of 6PPD-quinone in these small waterway.
We'll continue monitoring our local waterways for 6PPD-quinone and keep you up to date on the results.
Many thanks to our volunteers and Haley Tomlin at BCCF.
It's National Volunteer Week so time to celebrate and thank our awesome volunteers by showing off what they've been up to.
Volunteer of the Year
MVIHES has started something new this year and that is selecting a Volunteer of the Year. Our selection is not based solely on charm, wit and style (although our volunteers do have charm, wit and style) but on their participation in our projects and going the extra mile for salmon. This year's volunteer is...drum roll please.....
Dick not only participates in most of our activities, he rescues fry trapped in small isolated pools in creeks and rivers and behind beaver dams. He also helps with the maintenance of the Englishman River Regional Park, all with a cheerful and positive attitude. Congratulations Dick!
Annual Smolt Count
MVIHES volunteers and the BC Conservation Foundation (BCCF) were busy on March 25 installing the smolt trap for our annual count of coho salmon smolts as they migrate out of Shelly Creek into the Englishman River on their way to the ocean. Coho smolts, along with a few trout, are corralled by the smolt fence and directed through a pipe (seen in the left-hand photo) into a large metal box.
Every morning at 9 am our volunteers open the smolt box (seen in the right-hand photo) to count all the fish and measure some of the salmon and trout before releasing them back into the creek. We've caught over 400 coho smolts, 16 rainbow trout, and 8 cutthroat trout so far. Water temperatures are still pretty cool (below 8 degrees C most days) so we anticipate the peak of the migration is yet to come. One year we counted almost 9000 smolts.
A great blue heron and a river otter are regular visitors to Martindale Pond (a wetland in Shelly Creek just upstream of the smolt fence). One morning a pair of common mergansers was also partaking in the smorgasbord. The fish better get a move on before they're all eaten. The regular presence of predators is a good indicator that Shelly Creek is a productive salmon creek.
The lengths of the smolts average around 9 cm while some of the trout have been much bigger. So far, we've measured rainbow trout up to 19.8 cm long and cutthroats up to 26 cm! And, we caught a fish that BCCF believes is a hybrid between a cutthroat and a rainbow trout (seen in the right-hand photo below). A cutbow! How cool is that? BCCF is PIT tagging the salmon smolts and trout caught in our smolt box again this year for the Salish Sea Survival Study. A few of our volunteers on the smolt count are in the left-hand photo below.
l. to r. Cathy Kuntz, Jo McIlveen, Maggie Estok, Shelley Goertzen. Photos taken by Sue Wilson
Other volunteers involved with the smolt count are: Jeff Allen, Gord Armbruster, Terry Baum, Marilyn Bilsbarrow, Denis Cote, Dick Dobler, Carmel Lowe, Barb Riordan, Barbara Wildman-Spencer and Bob Williams. Thanks to Ally Badger and Thomas Negrin of BCCF for assisting in the installtion of the smolt trap and PIT tagging our fish.
If you would like to join the fun and count coho smolts with us, you can sign up here or send an email to Shelley at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
The Parksville Rain Garden Receives Some TLC
On April 13, nine volunteers led by Team Leader, Bob Williams, descended on the Parksville Raingarden at the Firehall to give it some much needed weeding and pruning (left-hand photo). You may already know that rain gardens provide an important service to salmon. Rainwater that runs off roofs, driveways, parking lots, and roads picks up pollutants such as oil, detergents from powerwashing, moss-controlling chemicals from roofs, weedkiller, and litter (plastics) before flowing into stormwater drains and storm sewers which empty directly into creeks, rivers and the ocean.
This rainwater doesn't get a chance to soak into the ground and add to the groundwater that provides flow to creeks and rivers during the dry months of summer. Rain gardens are designed to intercept rainfall runoff and filter out pollutants while allowing the water to infiltrate the ground.
The Parksville Rain Garden was constructed in 2012 under a partnership between MVIHES and the City of Parksville. The rain garden mitigates rainfall runoff from the the Firehall parking lot. MVIHES has been maintaining the vegetation in the rain garden since 2021.
The photos below were taken by our Social Media Co-ordinator, Polina Iudina, and show our volunteers in action. MLA Adam Walker, in the middle photo below, joined us and got down to work. Himalayan blackberry, ivy, and weeds were removed while bald-hipped rose, red-osier dogwood and red currant were pruned back. Many thanks to the City of Parksville for hauling away all the trimmings.
From l. to r. Bob Williams, Dick Dobler, Doug Herchmer, Adam Walker, Sue Wilson, Brenda Riley, Gord Almond, Jo McIlveen, Cathy Hamlen, absent Yana Maltais
You can watch a video with an explanation about rain gardens by Bob and Adam here.
Friends of Shelly Creek Park Invasive Plants Removal
Thanks to Sue Wilson and her dedicated volunteers, along with Warren Payne, City Parks Supervisor, loads of invasive species such as lamium (yellow archangel) and Himalayan blackberry are being eradicated from Shelly Creek Park. The park is home to a resident Coastal Cutthroat Trout population, a blue-listed species of concern in BC. By removing invasive species and replacing them with native plants, they are maintaining the health of the forest ecosysytem that protects and nourishes Shelly Creek and the trout. This work has been ongoing since 2022.
The photo below shows a few of the many volunteers surveying the big pile of Himalayan blackberry canes that were cut in March. More canes were cut on April 10, when the photo was taken, which the City of Parksville will be hauling away.
l.to r. Gene Gapsis, Del Rokosh, Nancy Pezel
A City worker expertly removed a very dense patch of blackberry at the park entrance with a backhoe, leaving native shrubs intact, shown in the photo below. Well done and thank you to the volunteers and the City.
You can follow the activities of the Friends of Shelly Creek Park here.
WE ARE SO THANKFUL FOR ALL THE GREAT VOLUNTEERS MAKING A DIFFERENCE FOR SALMON!
It’s well-known there’s a housing shortage in BC and that it’s impacting people and our communities. Bill 44 was passed in November 2022 by the BC Legislature in response to this shortage. The Bill requires municipalities to amend their zoning bylaws by June 30, 2024 to allow small-scale multi-unit housing on single dwelling lots. What this means is that landowners can build triplexes and fourplexes on single-dwelling lots without having to apply for a zoning amendment or holding public hearings. You can see how this streamlined process could add much-needed housing in a relatively short time.
It also means that small-scale multi-unit housing could be built on the single-dwelling lots along the Englishman River and other sensitive ecological areas without a zoning amendment, and therefore, without the public hearings that zoning amendments require. That is, unless protective measures are already in place. Without public hearings, protection of Environmentally Sensitive Areas will depend on the Official Community Plan (OCP) and Bylaws. Parksville’s current OCP, written in 2013, contains Environmentally Sensitive Areas (ESAs) that are assigned Development Permits Areas (DPAs), shown in the map below. These DPAs contain conditions for protecting the environment during development. The OCP has seventeen DPAs with those for ESA's accounting for eight. For a definition of a DPA, and a list of the City's DPAs with their development regulations and guidelines, click on this link.
Since Bill 44 requires municipalities to update their OCPs with the amended zoning bylaws by December 2025, there will be an opportunity to ensure DPAs provide adequate environmental protection measures in response to the new zoning bylaw.
MVIHES made a presentation at the March 4 City of Parksville Council Meeting encouraging the City to start updating the ESAs and DPAs now so they are ready for the OCP update. Councillor Amit Gaur, also concerned with the implications of Bill 44, made a motion at the same meeting for single-dwelling lots in riparian areas to be a minimum of 4 ha in size and that development within the lots be low impact to protect rivers and creeks. The motion has been deferred until 2025 when the City will be working on the OCP. Both our presentation and Councillor Guar’s motion were highlighted in this PQB news article.
We would like to see the Englishman River floodplain (in the left-hand diagram) included as an ESA in the OCP. It's true that the Englishman River floodplain is already on a map in the OCP identifying Hazard Land Areas, and this imposes certain restrictions on development. But the DPA’s for Hazard Lands are written for the protection of property and human safety, not environmental protection.
Floodplains are essential for preventing serious erosion and destruction of fish habitat during extreme flood events, which will be coming more often with climate change. They provide a place for some of the roaring flood waters from rivers and creeks to escape, literally taking the pressure off the channels where fish and other wildlife live. If a floodplain is filled with buildings and roads, there is not enough space for all the water that would have filled that area so that water stays in the rivers and creeks causing serious damage to fish habitat....and possibly flooding of neighbourhoods.
Floodplains are also areas where floodwater is filtered and recharges groundwater. Some of that groundwater supplies flow to rivers and creeks in the summer, thereby maintaining streamflow during drought. If floodplains are filled with impervious surfaces like roofs, driveways, concrete patios and roads, this ecological function is disrupted.
We also encourage the City to include the recent Coastal Floodplain produced for the Regional District of Nanaimo for sea level rise and storm surge (seen below) as an ESA, even though there is already a DPA for Coastal Protection. One of the environmental protection measures in the Coastal Protection DPA is the use of Green Shores methods for minimizing environmental impacts of shoreline development. With predicted sea level rise, the boundary in some sections of the current Coastal Protection DPA will need to be updated in OCP amendments as the shoreline moves inland. If the floodplain is an ESA for Coastal Protection, protective measures can follow the shoreline as it encroaches inland in a proactive manner and without having to draw a new boundary in an OCP update.
So why is using Green Shore methods so important? We have learned what hard armouring and retaining walls do to the intertidal zones of marine shoreline environments. Not only do they cause scouring away of sand that supports eelgrass, forage fish and other marine organisms, when sea level rises, they prevent sea water from moving up the shoreline to create new intertidal zones. This is called Coastal Squeeze. If the Coastal Floodplain were made an ESA, a DPA could ensure Green Shores methods continue to be applied as the shoreline moves inland and as new intertidal zones are created by sea level rise.
Fortunately, updating an OCP requires public consultation. The City announces when public consultations are coming up and we'll let you know as well. We encourage everyone who is concerned about the environment to participate in the OCP public consultation process when it happens. Your input could make a big difference. The salmon will thank you.
MVIHES volunteers and the BC Conservation Foundation (BCCF) were busy on March 25 installing the smolt trap for our annual count of coho salmon smolts as they migrate out of Shelly Creek into the Englishman River on their way to the ocean. Coho smolts, along with a few trout, are corralled by the smolt fence and directed through a pipe (seen in the left-hand photo) into a large metal box.
l.to r. Gene Gapsis, Del Rokosh, Nancy Pezel
Floodplains are essential for preventing serious erosion and destruction of fish habitat during extreme flood events, which will be coming more often with climate change. They provide a place for some of the roaring flood waters from rivers and creeks to escape, literally taking the pressure off the channels where fish and other wildlife live. If a floodplain is filled with buildings and roads, there is not enough space for all the water that would have filled that area so that water stays in the rivers and creeks causing serious damage to fish habitat....and possibly flooding of neighbourhoods. 
