Cecelia Creek: The Creek We Daylighted, the Pollution We Traced, and the Source Control Still Missing

The history of a community-led restoration and industrial source-control project—and the warning governments received more than 25 years ago.

Cecelia Creek is easy to overlook. Today, most people see a short channel flowing through a green ravine before entering Cecelia Cove and the Gorge Waterway.

What they do not see is the much larger urban drainage network buried beneath roads, neighbourhoods, shopping areas, vehicle businesses and industrial properties in Victoria and Saanich.

Cecelia Creek is not merely a small stream in a city park. It is the exposed end of a heavily altered municipal stormwater system—and a direct pathway by which sewage, metals, petroleum products, contaminated sediment and other urban pollutants can reach one of the Gorge Waterway’s most valuable remaining intertidal areas.

A Watershed Divided by Municipal Boundaries

Several different drainage-area figures appear in the historical record.

The 1998 Cecelia Creek Project Report studied an approximately 900-hectare area, estimated to be about 90 percent impervious, and reported that roughly two-thirds of the watershed lay within Saanich. The 1999 fisheries design report defined the more specific Speed Avenue drainage as approximately 360 hectares: 254 hectares in Saanich and 104 hectares in Victoria. Under that definition, about 71 percent of the drainage lay in Saanich. Current CRD information describes Cecelia Creek as a highly urbanized 353-hectare watershed. [1][2][7] (Capital Regional District)

These figures are not necessarily contradictory. They were produced at different times and appear to use different study boundaries. However, they all establish one essential fact:

Most of the upstream drainage is in Saanich, while the visible creek, ravine, estuary and receiving shoreline are in Victoria.

Pollution follows pipes and gravity—not municipal boundaries.

Veins of Life Went Upstream

Veins of Life Watershed Society began intensive work on Cecelia Creek during the 1990s. We worked with the Capital Regional District, the City of Victoria, the District of Saanich, Camosun College, environmental consultants, businesses, students, volunteers and representatives of provincial and federal agencies.

Our objective was not simply to pick garbage from the ravine or plant shrubs beside the creek. We went upstream to determine where the pollution was coming from.

In 1998, a four-person Camosun College Environmental Technology Co-op Team prepared The Cecelia Creek Project for Veins of Life Watershed Society. The 13-week investigation:

mapped the drainage system;
identified industrial and commercial properties;
developed a business database;
visited and interviewed operators;
examined chemical use and wastewater practices;
assessed private catch-basin maintenance;
mapped contaminated-sediment locations;
distributed stormwater educational material; and
recommended practical source-control and treatment measures. [1]

This was an early, hands-on urban watershed source-control program—not merely a cleanup campaign.

The ETEAM Investigation

The project identified 119 potentially relevant businesses. Of these, 101 were visited, interviewed and assessed.

Automotive-related operations represented approximately 58 percent of the businesses studied. These included repair shops, dealerships, detailing operations, auto-body facilities, rental fleets, towing companies, gas stations and businesses maintaining commercial vehicles. [1]

The investigation documented practices including:

engine shampooing and pressure washing;
washing solvent- and oil-contaminated shop floors;
rinsing radiator and engine parts outdoors;
transmission and radiator flushing;
washing repaired vehicles and dealership inventories;
acidic treatment of newly delivered vehicles;
engine and wheel cleaning with high- and low-pH products;
commercial fleet and bus washing;
pressure washing gas-station lots;
washing appliances and industrial equipment; and
discharging furniture-stripping and other process residues into drains.

At one facility, a bus from a fleet of 29 vehicles was observed being power-washed with detergent into a lot storm drain. Nine repair businesses were reported to wash engines using alkaline degreasers in the pH 12-to-14 range. One furniture-refinishing operation was rinsing stripping residues into a floor drain connected to the stormwater system. [1]

The report did not claim that every business was a polluter. It found a broad range of conduct:

27 businesses were rated poor;
27 were rated suspect to satisfactory;
47 were rated negligible to good; and
18 were not interviewed.

Many operators were cooperative and responsible. Others needed better infrastructure, education, maintenance or enforcement. The ETEAM approach helped distinguish between the two.

Sixty-Seven Private Catch Basins

The study identified 67 private catch basins.

Approximately 42 percent had never been maintained, while another 22 percent were reportedly cleaned only once each year. Some were pumped only when they were full—after much of their ability to retain contaminated sediment had already been lost. [1]

Catch basins do not destroy contamination. They temporarily capture sediment containing oils, metals, road residues and other pollutants. When neglected, accumulated material can be flushed into municipal pipes during heavy rainfall.

The 1998 report therefore recommended:

defined responsibility for private catch-basin maintenance;
regular inspection and cleaning;
proper testing, handling and disposal of captured sediment;
oil-water separators where appropriate;
contained washing areas connected to suitable wastewater treatment;
enforceable industrial best-management practices;
public and business education; and
municipal enforcement backed by provincial and federal law.

Those recommendations remain remarkably current.

The Pollution Was Already in the Sediment

Historical sampling cited in the 1998 report found exceedances of the marine sediment guidelines then used by the CRD for:

cadmium;
copper;
lead;
zinc;
mercury;
arsenic;
light polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons; and
heavy polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.

Sediment exceedances were reported at Tolmie Lane, Beta Street, upstream manholes, catch basins and the 641C and 641D systems. Drainage 641D, with its greater concentration of industrial and automotive properties, was identified as a particularly important contaminant pathway. [1]

The report also recorded elevated fecal contamination and noted that drainage 641 had received high public-health and contaminant ratings in earlier CRD assessments.

This is important because the contaminants carried by urban runoff do not simply disappear when the water looks clear. Many bind to fine sediment and settle in the creek, estuary and Gorge Waterway.

Once contaminated sediment reaches the intertidal environment, it can expose worms, amphipods, shellfish and other benthic organisms. Those organisms support forage fish and juvenile salmon, linking urban stormwater pollution to the larger Salish Sea food web.

The present record does not provide a complete historical assessment of endocrine-disrupting compounds, tire-derived chemicals, PFAS or microplastics. Their absence from the documented analyte lists is a data gap, not evidence that they were absent.

Cecelia Cove Was Worth Protecting

The 1998 report described the Cecelia Creek estuary as the second-largest estuarine mudflat in the Gorge Waterway and one of the few remaining unconsolidated shoreline areas.

The report warned that catchments draining toward valued habitat should receive high priority for contaminant source control. It also made the point governments continue to avoid:

Once contaminants reach harbour sediment, cleanup becomes more difficult and expensive. There is little value in costly receiving-environment remediation while pollution continues entering from upstream.

That conclusion remains the foundation of responsible watershed management: control the source before restoring the receiving habitat.

Daylighting the Creek

Following the source-control work, attention turned to daylighting and rehabilitating the lower creek.

In June 1999, representatives of the City of Victoria, consulting engineers, architects and fisheries biologist R.P. Griffith met to consider the project. Griffith was retained as the biological adviser on behalf of Veins of Life Watershed Society.

His October 1999 report, Habitat Rehabilitation Recommendations for Lower Cecelia Creek, provided technical guidance for:

the new base-flow channel;
spawning gravel;
boulder clusters;
pools and riffles;
upstream fish passage;
native riparian vegetation;
bank stabilization; and
public viewing and education areas. [2]

But the report included a warning that should be read by every government agency considering habitat construction below a polluted storm sewer.

Habitat Construction Was Not Water-Quality Restoration

The fisheries report stated that the daylighting project did not, by itself, improve water quality or correct the altered flow regime.

It cautioned that contaminated domestic or industrial water could continue entering the drainage system and that overall conditions might remain unsuitable for sensitive aquatic organisms, including salmonids.

It also warned against creating a wetland or natural-looking habitat that would become a sink for fine sediment and unknown contaminants.

Where treatment was needed, the report recommended that a proper retention, settling or treatment facility intercept polluted flows before they entered the restored habitat. [2]

That distinction is critical:

Daylighting revealed and rehabilitated part of the creek. It did not clean the watershed feeding it.

The work prepared Cecelia Creek for future ecological recovery. It did not remove the need for permanent upstream source control.

A Clear Future for Cecelia Creek

The project also included a substantial public-education campaign.

Camosun College Applied Communication students Tara O’Donovan, Natasha Post, Colin Sparrow and Scott Watts produced the video A Clear Future for Cecelia Creek.

A November 9, 1999 letter from Veins of Life to Camosun College records that the video was receiving good reviews and that the Cecelia Creek Clean-up Committee was exploring opportunities to use it in local media. [3]

The 1998 project also produced the illustrated pamphlet Storm Drains to Streams, explaining the condition of Cecelia Creek, municipal stormwater rules and practical measures businesses could take.

The contemporary press record includes a June 1998 Times Colonist story cited in the project report as “Cecelia Creek to be Cleaned Up.” The full clipping has not yet been recovered from the archive, so we rely only on the bibliographic entry and do not attribute additional wording to it. [15]

Together, the report, fieldwork, pamphlet, public outreach, video and press coverage demonstrate that Cecelia Creek was a well-known regional environmental project—not an obscure drainage complaint.

The Program Was Not Maintained

The archive shows that Veins of Life continued pressing for renewed source control after the original project ended.

In 2019, correspondence concerning a possible joint salmon-restoration application stated that water quality in the Cecelia drainage appeared to be declining and that any renewed program would have to bring Saanich back to the table.

The proposed work included:

stormwater and sediment sampling;
vacuuming catch basins;
tracing contaminant sources;
business education;
restoring treatment features; and
developing infrastructure information for larger funding applications. [6]

The proposal did not lead to a permanent watershed-scale program.

That history matters because it shows the problem was not forgotten by the community. Governments were repeatedly reminded that the original work required follow-up, inspection, maintenance and enforcement.

Monitoring Confirmed Continuing Impairment

CRD information sent to Veins of Life in July 2024 summarized weekly sampling conducted five times during the summer and fall of 2023.

According to that correspondence:

aluminum, copper, iron, nitrite, phosphorus, suspended solids, temperature, turbidity, zinc and oxygen conditions were at levels capable of adversely affecting aquatic life;
elevated E. coli indicated sewage influence;
the benthic community was dominated by pollution-tolerant midges and worms;
no sensitive benthic group was identified in 2023, compared with one in 2018 and two in 2013; and
the Hilsenhoff Biotic Index indicated moderate-to-high organic pollution or nutrient enrichment associated with sewage, spills and development. [4]

These results should be treated as a summary of CRD findings rather than a substitute for the complete monitoring report, laboratory sheets, station descriptions and quality-control documentation.

Nevertheless, the chemistry, bacteria and benthic community all pointed in the same direction: the creek remained impaired.

The White-Water Incidents of 2024

In July 2024, Cecelia Creek repeatedly turned cloudy or white.

The Province recorded reports on July 4, July 8 and July 16. The discharge stopped and returned more than once. Victoria and Saanich attempted to trace the source, while provincial responders, Environment and Climate Change Canada, Island Health, the First Nations Health Authority, Songhees Nation and Esquimalt Nation were notified or involved. The Province’s public incident page reported that the precise substance and source had not been confirmed at the time of its last update. [8] (Government of British Columbia)

Subsequent CRD email correspondence reviewed in the VOLWS archive records that municipal and regional inspections identified and stopped several other pollution pathways in the catchment:

two cross-connections;
a new water-play facility draining toward the creek; and
two businesses whose vehicle-washing stations discharged into stormwater.

The correspondence also reported elevated titanium and zinc when the creek appeared white, suggesting—but not proving—a possible paint-related source. Sampling at Banfield Dock did not find a corresponding metal impact, but it was not conducted while the creek was visibly white. [5]

That timing limitation is important. A sample collected after an intermittent discharge has stopped cannot reliably characterize the discharge that was missed.

In January 2025, CRD staff advised that no stand-alone formal investigation report was then available, that information would be summarized in the annual stormwater report, and that the staff member had not seen a separate Victoria or Saanich report. [5]

A recurring multiagency spill investigation should produce a consolidated public closure report.

A Public Report Is Still Needed

That report should identify:

every reported incident and observation;
sampling times, locations and weather conditions;
the full analyte list and laboratory results;
whether samples were collected during visible discharge;
traced municipal and private drainage pathways;
confirmed cross-connections and improper discharges;
corrective measures and enforcement actions;
unresolved or suspected sources;
impacts at Cecelia Cove, Banfield Park and adjacent sediment; and
the basis for declaring the incident resolved.

A collection of emails, annual-report summaries and fragmented agency responses is not an adequate substitute.

Current Government Responsibilities

Cecelia Creek crosses an institutional maze:

Saanich contains most of the historically defined upstream drainage.
Victoria contains the lower system, visible creek, ravine and shoreline outlet.
The CRD conducts regional monitoring and source-control work.
Transport Canada owns or manages much of the harbour seafloor.
Provincial and federal agencies retain environmental and fisheries responsibilities.

The CRD’s Gorge Waterway Initiative recognizes that connected watersheds and shorelines span multiple municipalities and require coordinated management. (Capital Regional District)

Victoria currently states that only clean water may enter its stormwater system and maintains Codes of Practice covering automotive businesses, parking lots, construction, outdoor storage, recycling and other activities. (City of Victoria)

Saanich’s Watercourse and Drainage Bylaw regulates and protects natural watercourses, ditches and municipal drainage systems. (https://www.saanich.ca)

Transport Canada’s Victoria Harbour Source Control and Sediment Management Plan identifies stormwater and sanitary discharges as continuing contaminant sources and includes Cecelia Cove among the priority shoreline areas requiring remediation planning. (TC Canada)

Section 36(3) of the federal Fisheries Act prohibits depositing—or permitting the deposit of—a deleterious substance into water frequented by fish or any place where that substance may enter such water, unless authorized by law. Its definition of a deleterious substance is broad and focused on whether the substance may degrade water quality or harm fish, fish habitat or human use of fish. (Department of Justice Canada)

These responsibilities cannot be divided until nobody is accountable.

What Must Happen Now

1. Publish one authoritative drainage map

Victoria, Saanich and the CRD should publish a joint map showing:

the current watershed boundary;
the 641C and 641D subcatchments;
municipal ownership and jurisdiction;
storm and sanitary pipes;
manholes and catch basins;
cross-connections;
industrial and commercial properties;
sampling stations; and
the complete route to Cecelia Creek and Cecelia Cove.

The difference between the historical 900-hectare study area, the 360-hectare Speed Avenue drainage and the current 353-hectare CRD boundary should be explained. The CRD already maintains watershed and land-cover mapping resources that can support this work. (Capital Regional District)

2. Reconstruct the business inventory

The original ETEAM database should be compared with:

current business licences;
property-use records;
municipal Codes of Practice registrations;
CRD sanitary source-control records;
private drainage plans; and
inspection and enforcement records.

Priority sectors should include vehicle repair, detailing, dealerships, fleet operations, body and paint work, metal fabrication, recycling, printing, chemical storage, construction and commercial washing.

3. Inspect the entire watershed

Every priority property should receive a physical drainage inspection. Staff should verify—not merely assume—the destination of:

floor drains;
vehicle-washing areas;
outdoor sumps;
private catch basins;
oil-water separators;
loading areas;
roof drains; and
sanitary connections.

4. Find the cross-connections

Victoria and Saanich should coordinate dye testing, CCTV inspections, flow isolation, microbial-source tracking, conductivity testing and wet-weather investigation.

Intermittent sewage and industrial discharges will not necessarily be found during a scheduled dry-weather visit.

5. Sample while the discharge is occurring

Automated or remotely triggered samplers should be installed at key branches of 641C and 641D.

The analytical program should include conventional contaminants and emerging concerns appropriate to the land uses, including metals, PAHs, petroleum hydrocarbons, PCBs where warranted, nutrients, fecal indicators, microbial-source markers, selected endocrine-disrupting compounds, tire-wear chemicals and other contaminants identified through business inventories.

6. Restore mandatory catch-basin maintenance

Private catch basins in higher-risk commercial and industrial areas should have enforceable inspection and cleaning schedules, with records available to municipal inspectors.

Captured sediment must be tested and disposed of according to its contamination level—not washed back into the watershed.

7. Treat the water before calling it habitat

Retention, settling and treatment should occur upstream of the rehabilitated channel wherever practical.

Restored creek habitat must not be used as an inexpensive filter for untreated municipal runoff.

8. Tie Cecelia Cove cleanup to source control

No major sediment remediation or shoreline-habitat project at Cecelia Cove should be considered complete unless Victoria, Saanich, the CRD and Transport Canada can demonstrate that the upstream contaminant supply has been controlled.

Otherwise, public money will be spent cleaning a site that the drainage system continues to recontaminate.

9. Publish an annual Cecelia Creek report

The public should receive one joint annual report covering:

water chemistry;
bacteria;
sediment;
benthic health;
spills;
complaints;
inspections;
cross-connections;
enforcement;
corrective work; and
remaining data gaps.

The Lesson of Cecelia Creek

Cecelia Creek is not a story about governments lacking information.

The drainage was mapped. Businesses were inventoried. Operators were interviewed. Catch basins were inspected. Chemicals were documented. Contaminated sediment was identified. Practical recommendations were written. Habitat designs were prepared. A creek was daylighted. A public-education video was produced. The press covered the work.

Governments were also explicitly warned that habitat construction without water-quality improvement could create attractive but contaminated habitat.

The failure was continuity.

When the original project ended, the comprehensive watershed-scale source-control program was not maintained. Businesses changed. New operations opened. Catch basins filled. Cross-connections remained or appeared. Vehicle-washing water entered storm drains. Sewage indicators persisted. Contaminated sediment continued moving toward the Gorge.

Veins of Life Watershed Society helped prove that residents, students, responsible businesses and governments could work together to investigate and restore an urban watershed.

The next step is not another study explaining that Cecelia Creek is polluted.

The next step is to permanently stop the pollution before it reaches the creek.

Numbered References

[1] Camosun College Environmental Technology Co-op Team and Veins of Life Watershed Society. The Cecelia Creek Project. September 1998. Primary watershed, business-practice, contaminant and source-control report.

[2] R.P. Griffith & Associates. Habitat Rehabilitation Recommendations for Lower Cecelia Creek in the City of Victoria, British Columbia. Prepared on behalf of Veins of Life Watershed Society, October 1999. Fisheries and habitat-design report containing the warning that daylighting alone would not correct water quality.

[3] John Roe, Veins of Life Watershed Society, letter to Al Lehmann, Camosun College Applied Communication Program, November 9, 1999. Confirms production, reception and intended local-media use of the Cecelia Creek video.

[4] Capital Regional District email correspondence to John Roe, July 22–23, 2024, subject: Cecelia Creek 2023 summary data.xlsx. Provides the CRD’s draft summary of 2023 water-quality and benthic-invertebrate findings. Reviewed in the connected VOLWS Gmail archive.

[5] Capital Regional District email correspondence to John Roe, January 24–25, 2025, subject: Cecelia Creek 2023 summary data.xlsx. Describes cross-connections, water-play drainage, vehicle-washing discharges, titanium and zinc observations, Banfield sampling limitations and the absence at that time of a stand-alone formal report. Reviewed in the connected VOLWS Gmail archive.

[6] VOLWS email correspondence concerning renewed Cecelia Creek source control, March–May 2019. Proposes catch-basin cleaning, sampling, business education, source tracing and renewed participation by Saanich. Reviewed in the connected VOLWS Gmail archive.

[7] Capital Regional District. Gorge Waterway—Cecelia Creek watershed information. Current watershed description and receiving-environment context. (Capital Regional District)

[8] Province of British Columbia. Cloudy Substance in Cecelia Creek—July 2024 incident updates. Official incident chronology and responding organizations. (Government of British Columbia)

[9] Capital Regional District. 2023 Core Area Stormwater Quality Annual Report. Official annual-report publication record. (Capital Regional District)

[10] Capital Regional District. 2024 Core Area Stormwater Quality Annual Report. Official annual-report publication record. (Capital Regional District)

[11] City of Victoria. Stormwater Management and Sanitary Sewer and Stormwater Utilities Bylaw information. Current discharge rules and Codes of Practice. (City of Victoria)

[12] District of Saanich. Stormwater Management and Watercourse and Drainage Bylaw information. Current Saanich drainage and watercourse responsibilities. (https://www.saanich.ca)

[13] Transport Canada. Victoria Harbour Source Control and Sediment Management Plan and related harbour environmental information. Identifies continuing stormwater and sanitary sources and prioritizes Cecelia Cove remediation planning. (TC Canada)

[14] Government of Canada. Fisheries Act, sections 34 and 36. Definition of deleterious substance and prohibition against deposits into fish-bearing waters. (Department of Justice Canada)

[15] Cleverley, B. “Cecelia Creek to be Cleaned Up.” Times Colonist, June 1998. Bibliographic entry contained in the 1998 Cecelia Creek Project Report; complete clipping not yet recovered.

[16] VOLWS Emails—Company Knowledge Master Index, 1999–2026. Archive index confirming historical Cecelia Creek correspondence and attachments, including the 1999 Camosun video letter.

Numbered Report and Evidence File Register

Cecelia Creek Report.pdf — September 1998
Main 110-page ETEAM investigation. Contains watershed mapping, business surveys, industrial practices, catch-basin findings, sediment contamination, public-health information, chemical inventory, source-control recommendations and education material.
Habitat Rehabilitation Recommendations for Lower Cecelia Creek.pdf — October 1999
Fisheries-biologist report prepared for VOLWS. Documents the daylighting project and warns that habitat work cannot substitute for water-quality improvement.
Camoson.doc — November 9, 1999
VOLWS letter confirming the Cecelia Creek video, identifying the four student producers and recording favourable early reviews.
A Clear Future for Cecelia Creek.mpeg — circa 1999
Historical public-education documentary produced with Camosun College students. The film itself should be digitized, preserved and embedded with the final blog posting.
Cecelia Creek 2023 summary data.xlsx
CRD monitoring workbook associated with 2023 water-quality and benthic-invertebrate sampling. Should be preserved with station metadata, units, methods and laboratory quality-control information.
Heavy_Metal_Contaminant_Exceedances_Cecilia_1.csv
Extracted aluminum, copper, zinc and antimony data. The reviewed copies are duplicates. The file lacks sufficient units, dates, station identifiers and guideline metadata to support independent quantitative interpretation.
CRD email—July 22–23, 2024: Cecelia Creek 2023 summary data.xlsx
Provides the clearest available written summary of 2023 impairment findings and records active response to another 2024 spill report.
CRD email—January 24, 2025: Cecelia Creek follow-up
Records discovered cross-connections, water-play drainage, vehicle-washing discharges and the titanium/zinc observations.
CRD email—January 25, 2025: No formal report
Confirms that a stand-alone report was not then available and that the information was expected to appear in an annual report.
VOLWS–Transport Canada correspondence—January 2025
Transfers the historical Cecelia Creek file and describes the source-control and business-education work dating to approximately 1996.
VOLWS renewed source-control correspondence—2019
Documents the observed decline in water quality and the proposal to restart inspection, sampling, catch-basin cleaning and business education with Saanich’s participation.
VOLWS Emails Company Knowledge Master, 1999–2026
Master evidence index linking historic PST archives, Gmail records, attachments and later source-control advocacy. It should remain the navigation document rather than replacing the original records.