Esquimalt’s Environmental Debt: From the Gorge to Juan de Fuca

A documented history of sewage cross-connections, contaminated stormwater, failing underground infrastructure, shoreline damage—and the political failure to finish the work

By John Roe, Veins of Life Watershed Society

There are two versions of Esquimalt.

One is the Esquimalt presented in brochures: waterfront parks, walking trails, public art, restored gardens, recreational docks and carefully photographed views of the sea.

The other Esquimalt lies underground.

It is a municipality crossed by aging clay pipes, leaking joints, deteriorating sewer mains, incomplete infrastructure records, sanitary and stormwater cross-connections, contaminated outfalls and a financial deficit accumulated through decades of postponing essential underground work.

The first version photographs well.

The second version empties into the Salish Sea.

Esquimalt’s pollution does not stop at Gorge Park. Depending upon the drainage catchment, stormwater, sewage-contaminated flows, hydrocarbons, metals, tire particles, industrial contaminants and other pollutants can enter:

Gorge Creek;
the Gorge Waterway;
Portage Inlet;
West Bay;
Victoria Harbour;
Esquimalt Harbour;
Constance Cove;
the Outer Harbour approaches;
the shoreline around Macaulay and McLoughlin points;
the Strait of Juan de Fuca; and
the wider Salish Sea.

The Capital Regional District’s harbour-management service covers Victoria Harbour, the Gorge Waterway, Portage Inlet and Esquimalt Harbour. These waters border several municipalities, but they are connected receiving environments—not isolated municipal ponds. (Capital Regional District)

Tides do not recognize municipal boundaries.

Currents do not stop because a council’s jurisdiction has ended.

Pollutants carried through municipal infrastructure may settle near an outfall, bind to fine sediment, enter worms, shellfish and fish, travel with suspended material or be resuspended by storms, propellers, dredging and construction.

A contaminant carried away from the end of a pipe has not disappeared.

Esquimalt receives enormous benefits from its waterfront location: valuable property, public parks, recreation, tourism, industry and civic identity.

The environmental costs of failing municipal systems, however, are shared by neighbouring communities, First Nations, harbour users, fisheries, marine wildlife and the public.

This is not merely a Gorge Waterway problem.

It is a regional marine-pollution problem.

This is not an attack on Esquimalt residents

The people of Esquimalt did not install every defective pipe.

They did not personally decide to underfund infrastructure replacement, leave cross-connections unresolved or make investigations of contaminated outfalls dependent upon whatever money happened to remain in a consulting budget.

Many Esquimalt residents have supported the restoration of the Gorge and surrounding marine waters.

Volunteers have cleaned shorelines, removed submerged debris, planted stream banks, reported spills and demanded better action from government.

This article examines the governments that held the authority.

Esquimalt’s mayor and council establish policies and bylaws, approve municipal budgets and set the political priorities of the Township. Staff and consultants may identify a problem, but council determines whether the work receives adequate funding, enforceable deadlines and public accountability. (Corporation of the Township of Esquimalt)

The relevant modern leadership timeline includes:

Arthur George Young, mayor from 1970 to 1979;
Kenneth A. S. Hill, mayor from 1979 to 1987;
W. Ronald Warder, mayor from 1987 to 1990;
Christopher Clement, mayor from 1990 to 1996;
Ray Rice, mayor from 1996 to 2003;
Darwin Robinson, mayor from 2003 to 2005;
Christopher Clement, again from 2005 to 2008; and
Barbara Desjardins, mayor from 2008 through the present council term. (Corporation of the Township of Esquimalt)

Barbara Desjardins also served three years on Esquimalt Council before being elected mayor in November 2008. (Corporation of the Township of Esquimalt)

Each administration inherited problems.

Each administration also inherited the authority to address them.

This history must nevertheless be fair.

Christopher Clement and Ray Rice were not opponents of our work. Both were helpful, both became trusted friends, and both deserve recognition for supporting the early restoration effort.

Ken Hill served as mayor and as a member of council during his long political career.

In my experience, Ken was a real piece of work—abrasive, dismissive and extremely difficult to deal with.

He does not deserve much more space than that.

The environmental record is the real subject of this story.

Before there was a municipality

Long before Esquimalt was incorporated in 1912, the surrounding lands and waters were part of the living territories of the xʷsepsəm and Songhees peoples.

The Gorge, Portage Inlet, Esquimalt Harbour and Victoria Harbour were not empty spaces waiting for colonial development.

They were transportation routes, food-harvesting areas, cultural landscapes and parts of an interconnected marine ecosystem.

Colonial development radically altered those waters.

Creeks were buried.

Wetlands and intertidal areas were filled.

Shorelines were hardened.

Roads, railways, docks, military installations and industries replaced natural habitat.

Sewage and industrial wastes were discharged into marine waters.

Storm drains became conduits for whatever washed from streets, yards, workshops, military properties and industrial sites.

Esquimalt Harbour carries an especially complex history. The Department of National Defence is its largest landowner, and the harbour contains Canadian Forces Base Esquimalt and the federally owned Esquimalt Graving Dock. (Capital Regional District)

Esquimalt is therefore not the only historical polluter.

Federal departments, military and industrial operators, neighbouring municipalities and private landowners all carry portions of the record.

But shared responsibility does not erase municipal responsibility.

The Township remains responsible for maintaining its municipal stormwater and sanitary systems and for controlling pollution arising from the roads, properties, infrastructure and activities under its authority. (Corporation of the Township of Esquimalt)

By the mid-twentieth century, the Gorge had been sacrificed

The Gorge Waterway had once been an important food-gathering, transportation and cultural area.

Decades of sewage, shoreline alteration, industrial waste and urban runoff badly degraded it.

The waterway was treated as a disposal route rather than as fish habitat, public water and part of the Salish Sea.

The improvements that began during the 1990s did not occur because governments had always protected the Gorge.

They occurred because residents, volunteers, community organizations, businesses, scientists and some government partners refused to accept its continued decline.

That distinction matters.

The Gorge did not clean itself.

The cleanup citizens began

In 1994, my son Wesley and I began pulling garbage from the Gorge in a small rowboat.

There was no large government cleanup program behind us.

There was a boat, some rope, a growing group of volunteers and the belief that allowing a public waterway to remain a dumping ground was unacceptable.

Friends joined us.

Divers joined us.

Residents worked from the shoreline.

Businesses supplied equipment.

Industrial partners brought cranes, barges, trucks and skilled operators.

The effort grew into the Veins of Life Watershed Society.

We removed shopping carts, tires, engines, machinery, dock debris and tonnes of accumulated waste.

Young people worked through our environmental crews, assessed creeks, planted stream banks, traced drainage systems and learned restoration through direct fieldwork.

But we understood from the beginning that visible garbage was only one part of the problem.

Volunteers could remove a shopping cart.

They could not replace kilometres of municipal sewer.

Divers could recover an engine block.

They could not order the correction of a sewage cross-connection.

Community organizations could document pollution.

They could not approve municipal capital budgets.

Those powers belonged to government.

Christopher Clement: an early ally and trusted friend

Christopher Clement was mayor when Wesley and I began the Gorge cleanup.

He did not treat our work as an embarrassment or an inconvenience.

He understood what the volunteers were trying to accomplish and became supportive of the effort.

He listened to our concerns and helped create room for cooperation between the municipality and the community.

Over time, that working relationship became a trusted friendship.

That matters.

The underground problems were already decades old. No single mayor could repair every pipe, restore every shoreline or reverse generations of contamination within one term.

But political leadership determines whether citizens bringing forward difficult evidence are treated as partners or adversaries.

Christopher Clement chose to work with us.

During his first term, residents, young people, divers, businesses and industrial operators demonstrated that they were prepared to contribute immense amounts of labour, machinery and expertise to the restoration of the Gorge.

The larger opportunity was to convert that community momentum into a permanent municipal system built around:

pollution-source investigation;
cross-connection testing;
stormwater management;
infrastructure renewal;
sediment monitoring;
shoreline protection; and
long-term enforcement.

That complete system did not emerge during one administration, but Christopher Clement’s contribution during the formative years should be acknowledged plainly.

He was helpful to the work, committed to the community and became someone we trusted.

The Ray Rice years: cooperation, progress and friendship

Ray Rice served as mayor from 1996 until 2003.

His years in office continued a period in which the Veins of Life Watershed Society could work constructively with Esquimalt’s political leadership.

Ray did not simply arrive after the work was finished for a photograph.

He listened.

He respected the volunteers, youth crews and supporters.

He understood that restoration required residents, industry, environmental organizations, schools and governments to work together.

Under that atmosphere of cooperation, the work expanded.

Divers removed submerged debris.

Industrial partners supplied barges, cranes and skilled operators.

Young people participated in Stream Teams and environmental crews.

Creek restoration and pollution-source investigation became part of a wider public effort.

The community eventually reached a goal many people had considered impossible: returning organized swimmers to the Gorge in 2000.

The swim did not prove that every contaminant had disappeared or that every underground defect had been corrected.

It proved that a waterway written off as an open sewer and industrial dumping ground could begin to recover when government and the community worked together.

Ray Rice understood something later municipal leadership too often forgot:

Community organizations are not enemies of municipal government. They are often the people doing the fieldwork, preserving the history and keeping public attention on problems government has failed to resolve.

Our relationship with Ray grew beyond municipal meetings.

He became a trusted friend.

The same was true of Christopher Clement.

They were different men with different styles, but both respected the work and both helped us during important years in the restoration of the Gorge.

Neither should be blamed personally for every failure of Esquimalt’s underground systems.

The proper criticism is directed at the municipality’s failure, across successive administrations, to build upon that cooperation and establish a permanent source-control and infrastructure program.

Darwin Robinson and the loss of momentum

Darwin Robinson served as mayor from 2003 until 2005.

By that point, the Gorge cleanup had demonstrated what coordinated action could accomplish.

The central question was whether Esquimalt would turn a successful community movement into a permanent municipal system.

Would it establish continuous source control?

Would it inspect and renew its underground infrastructure?

Would it trace contamination from outfalls back through the drainage network?

Would it protect restored habitat from being contaminated again?

That transition was not completed.

The Gorge cleanup became part of Esquimalt’s public environmental story, but the hard institutional work—inspection, enforcement, asset replacement and long-term source control—remained incomplete.

The municipality learned how to celebrate restoration before it learned how to guarantee it.

Christopher Clement’s second administration

Christopher Clement returned as mayor from 2005 until 2008.

Important sanitary-sewer work occurred during and immediately after this period.

Between 2005 and 2009, Esquimalt reports that it:

relined approximately half of its then-59-kilometre sanitary-main network;
upgraded 11 pump stations;
installed a portable emergency generator;
separated 42 combined manholes; and
smoke-tested the collection system. (Corporation of the Township of Esquimalt)

That work should not be dismissed.

It represented real investment in infrastructure already showing serious age and performance problems.

The testing also exposed the scale of the problem.

The Township reported identifying:

407 sanitary services possibly connected to storm drains;
63 storm services possibly connected to sanitary mains;
47 catch basins possibly connected to sanitary mains; and
111 combined manholes. (Corporation of the Township of Esquimalt)

Those findings should have triggered a sustained correction program extending across future councils, with protected funding, property-by-property testing and annual public reporting.

A sanitary service connected to a storm drain may carry wastewater toward a creek, shoreline or marine outfall without treatment.

A storm connection entering a sanitary sewer increases wet-weather flow, consumes treatment capacity and places additional stress upon the collection network.

A combined manhole creates another pathway for interaction between systems that should be separated.

Once hundreds of possible cross-connections had been identified, this was no longer an unknown historical problem.

It was a documented environmental, infrastructure and public-health responsibility.

Christopher Clement helped advance important work, but the scale of the problem extended beyond one term.

The failure came when later administrations did not maintain the urgency, funding and transparency needed to finish the job.

Barbara Desjardins was already on Council

Barbara Desjardins did not arrive at Esquimalt Municipal Hall for the first time when she became mayor.

She served three years on Esquimalt Council before being elected mayor in November 2008. She was subsequently re-elected in 2011, 2014, 2018 and 2022 and is identified by the Township as Esquimalt’s longest consecutively serving mayor. (Corporation of the Township of Esquimalt)

This places her on Council during one of the most important periods in Esquimalt’s underground-infrastructure history.

The Township was relining sanitary mains, upgrading pump stations, separating combined manholes and smoke-testing the collection system.

It was also identifying hundreds of possible sanitary and stormwater cross-connections.

Barbara Desjardins therefore inherited serious infrastructure problems when she became mayor, but she did not inherit them without prior knowledge or municipal experience.

She was already a member of Council while those findings were being uncovered.

The deteriorating pipes, mixed connections and contaminated drainage pathways were not discovered for the first time after she became mayor.

They were known municipal concerns during her time as a councillor.

When Barbara Desjardins became mayor, she moved from participating in those decisions as a councillor to leading the municipality responsible for completing the work.

When her time as councillor and mayor is combined, she has served for more than twenty years in Esquimalt municipal office.

The current condition of Esquimalt’s sanitary and stormwater systems cannot be described merely as a distant problem inherited from long-departed administrations.

She was part of Council when the scale of the problem was being documented.

She became mayor when responsibility for finishing the work passed under her leadership.

Partial follow-through was not enough

Between 2010 and 2015, Esquimalt reported additional work, including:

disconnecting or confirming 47 catch basins;
separating 84 combined manholes; and
conducting voluntary dye testing at five homes.

The Township reports that all five homes tested negative for cross-connections and that the inflow-and-infiltration component of its sanitary flow decreased by approximately 15 per cent. (Corporation of the Township of Esquimalt)

That work was useful.

But five voluntary residential tests could not resolve hundreds of suspected connections.

Nor could selected repairs replace a comprehensive, enforceable, property-by-property and catchment-by-catchment program.

The Township had discovered a system-level problem.

Its response remained incremental.

The Desjardins era: more than twenty years in municipal office

Mayor Desjardins has demonstrated that she can fight forcefully when she chooses to do so.

Her administration devoted enormous political attention to the regional wastewater-treatment dispute and the placement of the treatment facility at McLoughlin Point.

Whatever one’s position on that dispute, it demonstrated that Esquimalt could organize, negotiate, challenge regional authorities and sustain political pressure over many years.

That same intensity was not applied to completing Esquimalt’s own stormwater planning, cross-connection correction, source control and underground-infrastructure renewal.

After more than twenty years as councillor and mayor, deteriorated pipes, inadequate funding, incomplete stormwater planning and unresolved cross-connections cannot reasonably be described as unexpected inheritances.

At some point, an inherited system becomes the record of the people who had the authority and time to correct it.

That point passed years ago.

I did not begin raising these concerns after the damage became public.

I ran for mayor and warned that Esquimalt’s aging infrastructure, mixed connections and incomplete source control threatened the Gorge and the surrounding marine environment.

The warnings were not new then.

They are certainly not new now.

Gorge Creek in 2017: the underground system spoke publicly

On July 29, 2017, contamination was reported entering Gorge Creek beside Esquimalt Gorge Park.

The Township deployed containment booms and worked with Island Health, the CRD and provincial spill-response authorities. It initially reported that there was no evidence of a break or failure in the sewer system. (Corporation of the Township of Esquimalt)

Esquimalt then announced that the contamination appeared to have been caused by deliberate dumping of septic-tank sewage and disinfecting chemicals into a storm drain. (Corporation of the Township of Esquimalt)

Weeks later, fecal counts increased again, and municipal crews reported continuing turbidity and a milky appearance in the creek. (Corporation of the Township of Esquimalt)

In October, after a lengthy investigation, the Township announced that a significant contamination source was a cross-connection directing wastewater intended for the sanitary sewer into the stormwater system. (Corporation of the Township of Esquimalt)

The progression is revealing.

The first explanation pointed outward toward an alleged illegal dumper.

The eventual finding led back underground—to a cross-connection in the serviced drainage system.

This was not an abstract engineering concern.

It was wastewater travelling through stormwater infrastructure toward an estuarine creek and public waterway.

The contamination forced the cancellation of the Gorge Swim Fest.

It should have triggered an emergency-scale, municipality-wide correction program.

Instead, the response continued through individual investigations, gradual repairs and further studies.

Additional spills have also reached Gorge Creek.

In 2020, a leaking residential heating-oil tank was confirmed as one source of hydrocarbons entering both the ground and the municipal stormwater system. (Corporation of the Township of Esquimalt)

The lesson should have been unmistakable:

Municipal stormwater infrastructure is a direct pathway between activities on land and sensitive marine habitat.

The 2019 sanitary engineering report removed the excuse of uncertainty

Esquimalt commissioned a sanitary-sewer collection-system model and capacity analysis.

The report acknowledged areas where sanitary and stormwater cross-connections were known to exist and recommended continued investigation and smoke testing. (Corporation of the Township of Esquimalt)

The engineering analysis identified:

41 gravity mains deficient under the existing 2018 scenario;
42 deficient under the projected 2038 scenario; and
51 deficient when projected climate-change effects were included.

It also identified capacity concerns involving the Grafton and Kinver pump stations and recommended gravity-main upgrades, new mains, pump-station work, forcemain upgrades, additional monitoring and continued inflow-and-infiltration rehabilitation.

The analysis estimated that inflow and infiltration contributed approximately 90 per cent of peak system loading.

“Inflow and infiltration” sounds dry and technical.

In ordinary language, it means water is entering the sewage system where it should not.

The related cross-connection problem may also mean sewage is entering stormwater infrastructure where it must not.

The report did not describe a healthy underground system.

It described a system under substantial stress.

Barbara Desjardins was mayor when the report was received.

By then, she had already served more than a decade as mayor and three years before that as a councillor.

The stormwater model also contained serious limitations

Esquimalt’s 2019 stormwater modelling work was not the final answer.

The model’s own recommendations included installation of a permanent, high-accuracy municipal rain gauge because unreliable rainfall data could make calibration difficult or misleading. (Corporation of the Township of Esquimalt)

By 2025, the Township acknowledged that:

the earlier stormwater model had not been updated;
the original monitoring budget was limited;
field observations did not align with portions of the model;
more extensive monitoring was required;
substantial development had occurred since the model was prepared; and
important condition information remained unavailable.

A model is only as reliable as the measurements, assumptions, field verification and infrastructure records used to build it.

When field observations do not match the model, government must investigate the discrepancy.

It cannot simply continue relying upon the model as though the pipes will eventually agree with the paperwork.

The evidence continued after 2019

Regional reporting continued to document Esquimalt’s inflow-and-infiltration problems.

Between 2022 and mid-2023, Esquimalt reported:

lining approximately 80 metres of sewer main;
repairing or replacing 21 sewer laterals;
repairing or replacing seven stormwater laterals; and
removing a cross-connection that had been identified as a source of contaminants entering the Gorge Waterway. (Capital Regional District)

That repair was necessary.

It also demonstrated that contaminated connections were not relics of the distant past.

They were still being found decades after the original smoke-testing and cross-connection program began.

The 2025 sanitary-sewer reckoning

The January 2025 Sanitary Sewer Asset Management Plan placed a clearer price on the accumulated delay.

The Township owns and maintains approximately:

57.3 kilometres of gravity sewer;
3.8 kilometres of forcemains; and
13 pump stations.

The report concluded that approximately 23 per cent of Esquimalt’s linear sanitary-sewer network had exceeded its design life. It described historical sewer-rehabilitation spending as highly variable and primarily reactive. (Corporation of the Township of Esquimalt)

The plan recommended approximately 13.2 kilometres of pipe for replacement, representing roughly 23 per cent of the network.

Most of the priority replacement value was driven by observed condition, supported by closed-circuit television inspections—not simply assumptions based upon the age of the pipe.

The twenty-year scenario identified approximately 13 kilometres of further work valued at about $53.1 million.

The plan estimated:

approximately $5.7 million annually in required investment during years 1–10;
approximately $5.3 million annually during years 11–20;
historical spending of roughly $1 million annually;
a first-decade annual gap of approximately $4.7 million;
a second-decade annual gap of approximately $4.3 million;
an average annual life-cycle investment target of approximately $3.9 million; and
a life-cycle funding gap of approximately $2.9 million annually, representing a shortfall of roughly 75 per cent against the estimated sustainable requirement. (Corporation of the Township of Esquimalt)

The consultants warned that the shortfall was contributing to a growing rehabilitation backlog and increasing the risks of system failure, emergency repairs, higher costs and service disruptions.

Esquimalt’s broader infrastructure analysis has similarly concluded that current annual renewal spending must rise substantially over the coming decade to sustain expected service levels. (Corporation of the Township of Esquimalt)

This is not merely a story about old pipes.

It is a story about old political decisions.

Councils approved the budgets.

Councils determined how quickly reserves would be built.

Councils decided whether replacement would occur proactively or after failure made it unavoidable.

Keeping taxes or utility rates below the amount required for sustainable replacement does not eliminate the cost.

It transfers that cost to future residents—and transfers environmental risk to the receiving waters.

Barbara Desjardins was mayor when this report was received.

She had been part of Esquimalt’s municipal government for approximately twenty years by then.

The infrastructure deficit was no longer a newly discovered inheritance.

It was the documented result of decades of incomplete investment and delayed action.

Stormwater: the larger environmental failure

Sanitary sewage attracts attention because people understand what sewage is.

Stormwater is easier to neglect because it arrives disguised as rain.

Urban runoff can carry:

tire and brake-wear particles;
copper, zinc, lead and other metals;
petroleum hydrocarbons;
polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons;
pesticides and herbicides;
fecal contamination;
plastics and microplastics;
legacy PCBs;
PFAS and other persistent chemicals;
phthalates, bisphenols and other endocrine-active substances;
dioxins and furans mobilized from contaminated sites; and
tire-derived chemicals such as 6PPD-quinone.

Not every contaminant will be present at every outfall.

That is precisely why monitoring must be based upon catchment land use, industrial history, spill history, drainage pathways and identified risk—not restricted to one convenient indicator.

Peer-reviewed research identified 6PPD-quinone, a transformation product of a common tire additive, as acutely toxic to coho salmon and found it in roadway runoff and stormwater-affected creeks at toxic concentrations. (Science)

A fecal-bacteria result cannot determine whether water or sediment contains PAHs, PCBs, metals, hydrocarbons, PFAS, dioxins, furans or endocrine-disrupting substances.

Those are separate questions requiring different sampling, analytical methods and risk assessments.

A beach or waterway can pass one test while still presenting another hazard.

Esquimalt entered 2025 without an overall stormwater-management plan

In July 2025, Esquimalt issued a request for proposals to create a long-term Storm Sewer Asset Management Plan.

The procurement document described a municipal stormwater system containing approximately:

67.29 kilometres of storm mains;
3,355 service laterals; and
1,010 stormwater manholes. (Corporation of the Township of Esquimalt)

The same document acknowledged that:

the previous stormwater model had not been updated;
the original monitoring budget was limited;
field observations did not align with parts of the model;
more extensive monitoring was required;
substantial development had occurred since the model was prepared;
condition data were unavailable for manholes and service laterals;
poor-condition storm mains might contribute to sanitary inflow and infiltration; and
the Township did not have an overall stormwater-management plan identifying priorities and funding requirements. (Corporation of the Township of Esquimalt)

Consider the timeline.

The major Gorge cleanup began in 1994.

The international swim took place in 2000.

Hundreds of possible cross-connections were identified during the 2000s.

Barbara Desjardins served as councillor from 2005 to 2008.

She became mayor in 2008.

Wastewater contamination continued to enter Gorge Creek in 2017.

Major sanitary-system deficiencies were documented in 2019.

Yet in 2025—after Barbara Desjardins had served approximately twenty years as councillor and mayor—Esquimalt was still seeking to create an overall stormwater-management plan identifying priorities and funding requirements.

That is not an overnight oversight.

It is a failure spanning decades to convert environmental concern into a complete municipal program.

High-risk outfalls—and optional investigation

Esquimalt’s 2025 stormwater procurement document stated that regional monitoring had identified:

five outfalls with a High Public Health Concern rating;
three of those outfalls recommended for corrective action; and
three further outfalls recommended for action because of elevated chemical-contaminant concentrations in sediment over time. (Corporation of the Township of Esquimalt)

The Township then listed additional source investigation of problematic outfalls as an optional component.

The optional work covered outfalls 742, 749, 780 and 805/806 and was expressly described as dependent upon the available project budget.

The purpose of that work would have been to conduct additional monitoring, identify contamination sources and recommend remediation.

That word—optional—deserves attention.

The public-health concerns were documented.

Elevated sediment contaminants were documented.

The outfalls were identified.

But the fieldwork required to pinpoint the sources and recommend remediation was treated as an optional extra.

A municipality cannot credibly claim to practise source control while treating source investigation as optional.

Source control is not a slogan placed in a plan.

It is the work of moving upstream through the drainage network, finding the discharge and stopping it.

Esquimalt’s pollution does not remain in the Gorge

The Gorge Waterway is only one part of Esquimalt’s pollution footprint.

Depending upon the catchment:

northern and northeastern drainage may reach Gorge Creek and the Gorge–Victoria Harbour system;
western drainage may reach Esquimalt Harbour and Constance Cove; and
southern drainage may reach the shoreline facing the Outer Harbour approaches and the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

The precise fate of a discharge depends upon the outfall, drainage catchment, tides, currents, weather, particle size, chemical properties and surrounding sediment.

It would be inaccurate to claim that every Esquimalt discharge travels through every harbour.

It would be equally inaccurate to claim that contamination remains permanently fixed at the mouth of one pipe.

Fine material can settle near an outfall.

Suspended material can move with tides and currents.

Sediment can be disturbed by storms, propellers, dredging and construction.

Contaminants can enter worms, shellfish, crabs and small fish and remain within the food web long after the original discharge occurred.

The pollution may leave the immediate shoreline.

The responsibility does not.

The Gorge–Victoria Harbour pathway

The Gorge is a narrow tidal inlet connecting Victoria Harbour with Portage Inlet. It forms part of the Victoria Harbour Migratory Bird Sanctuary and supports diverse plants, animals and intertidal habitat. (Capital Regional District)

Contamination entering Gorge Creek or another municipal outfall may settle in nearby mudflats, enter living organisms or move within the tidal system.

It is therefore not merely an Esquimalt Gorge Park problem.

It affects a waterway shared with Victoria, Saanich and View Royal and connected directly to Victoria Harbour.

Esquimalt’s own planning documents describe the Gorge as a sensitive tidal watercourse connecting the fish-bearing fresh waters of Craigflower and Colquitz creeks with Victoria Harbour. The same planning record acknowledges that substantial public effort and expenditure were required to remove former pollution sources. (Corporation of the Township of Esquimalt)

That connection makes source control essential.

There is little value in spending public money restoring shoreline or remediating sediment if uncontrolled runoff is permitted to contaminate it again.

Esquimalt Harbour

Esquimalt Harbour is affected by a complex mixture of historical and current activities.

The naval base, graving dock, ship-repair operations, roads, residential neighbourhoods, commercial properties and municipal drainage systems all present different contaminant pathways.

The Department of National Defence is the largest landowner in the harbour, and the federally owned Esquimalt Graving Dock is another major industrial presence. (Capital Regional District)

That history must not become an excuse for Esquimalt to dismiss its own contribution.

The proper response to multiple polluters is not for every party to point toward somebody else.

Each party must identify and control the sources under its authority.

For every significant Esquimalt outfall, the public should be able to determine:

which properties, roads and activities drain to it;
which contaminants were tested;
what concentrations were found;
whether the source was identified;
what corrective action was ordered;
when the work was completed; and
whether follow-up testing confirmed improvement.

Without that information, the public cannot distinguish historical contamination from continuing municipal, federal, military or industrial sources.

The southern shoreline, Outer Harbour and Juan de Fuca

Esquimalt’s southern shoreline faces the approaches to Victoria Harbour and the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

Macaulay Point and McLoughlin Point border waters used by salmon, seabirds and marine mammals.

Juan de Fuca is not a convenient drainage channel where pollution becomes somebody else’s problem.

It forms part of the movement, feeding and critical-habitat system used by Southern Resident killer whales.

Pollution entering the southern nearshore environment may settle locally, move along the shoreline, enter marine organisms or be transported farther by currents.

Dilution is not destruction.

Esquimalt cannot rely on tides to export its environmental responsibility.

The dock decision: private privilege over public habitat

Esquimalt’s planning documents acknowledge that shoreline development, seawalls and other alterations have diminished habitat along the Gorge.

Then came the docks.

On February 3, 2020, Esquimalt Council directed staff to take no further enforcement action against existing Gorge docks attached to private land.

Council also directed that no further enforcement action be taken against existing docks accessed across Township land. Instead, owners were to enter licence arrangements permitting the private occupation and use of municipal property.

The existing docks were declared “grandfathered” in their current size and configuration.

The resolution was carried unanimously. (Corporation of the Township of Esquimalt)

The council responsible for that decision consisted of:

Mayor Barbara Desjardins;
Councillor Ken Armour;
Councillor Meagan Brame;
Councillor Jacob Helliwell;
Councillor Lynda Hundleby;
Councillor Tim Morrison; and
Councillor Jane Vermeulen. (Corporation of the Township of Esquimalt)

Council may say it was attempting to regularize a difficult historical situation.

From an environmental and public-land perspective, it also rewarded years of non-enforcement.

The Township’s own planning policy acknowledged that shoreline structures and alterations had contributed to habitat loss.

Council’s response was to grandfather the structures.

A proper process should have begun with:

verification of legal tenure;
mapping of public and private property;
identification of docks crossing municipal land;
engagement with the xʷsepsəm and Songhees Nations;
assessment of eelgrass and intertidal habitat;
cumulative shading and habitat-loss analysis;
contaminated-sediment review;
assessment of fish and migratory-bird impacts; and
determination of whether each structure served a genuine public need.

Instead, the starting point was accommodation of existing private use.

More docks without a complete cumulative assessment

Esquimalt has also examined potential public-dock locations along both the Gorge Waterway and the municipality’s southern shoreline. The project identifies public waterfront land and assesses candidate locations for community-dock suitability. (Corporation of the Township of Esquimalt)

Public access can be valuable.

But no new dock should be assessed as though all the other structures do not exist.

Cumulative effects can include:

shading of eelgrass and intertidal vegetation;
fragmentation of shoreline habitat;
construction and maintenance disturbance;
increased vessel traffic;
propeller disturbance;
interference with fish and bird use;
disturbance of contaminated sediment;
increased pressure for additional private facilities; and
further conversion of public shoreline into structured recreational space.

The correct question is not simply:

“Can another dock fit here?”

The correct questions are:

How much habitat has already been lost? What is the condition of the sediment? What cumulative burden can this ecosystem withstand?

The $17-million contrast

The agreement associated with the McLoughlin Point wastewater-treatment facility brought Esquimalt a one-time $17-million amenity contribution.

The agreement allocated:

$7 million for waterfront parks;
$5 million for recreation facilities; and
$5 million for emergency-services and public-safety facilities. (Corporation of the Township of Esquimalt)

Those funds were restricted.

They could not simply be transferred into an ordinary sewer-replacement reserve.

That distinction must be stated honestly.

But the political contrast remains.

Esquimalt demonstrated enormous energy while negotiating visible community benefits around the regional treatment facility.

Meanwhile, its own underground infrastructure continued accumulating a multimillion-dollar annual funding gap.

The issue is not that the amenity money was unlawfully diverted.

The issue is that political attention and negotiating power were abundant when visible facilities were involved, while sustainable funding for pipes, outfalls and source control remained far behind.

A pavilion cannot repair a cross-connection.

A landscaped park cannot remove PCBs or PAHs from sediment.

A recreational dock cannot compensate for untreated contaminants entering through an outfall.

Pretty infrastructure above ground does not cancel failed infrastructure below it.

Credit where credit is due

Esquimalt has completed worthwhile projects.

The Township has:

relined portions of its sanitary system;
upgraded pump stations;
separated combined manholes;
repaired laterals;
corrected identified cross-connections;
restored portions of Gorge Creek;
participated in regional harbour initiatives;
supported environmental education; and
completed Green Shores work at Esquimalt Gorge Park.

The Green Shores project removed riprap, recontoured the shoreline and planted native vegetation and salt-marsh species to restore more natural coastal processes. (Corporation of the Township of Esquimalt)

Those improvements deserve recognition.

Municipal field crews, engineers, contractors, volunteers and residents have completed valuable work.

Christopher Clement and Ray Rice deserve clear recognition for supporting our efforts and becoming trusted friends during the early restoration years.

But a municipality cannot plant its way out of failed source control.

Habitat restoration beside an uncontrolled or inadequately investigated outfall is incomplete restoration.

The proper sequence is:

Identify the source.
Stop the discharge.
Assess the sediment.
Remediate where necessary.
Then restore and protect the habitat.

Not the other way around.

The legal responsibility does not end at the pipe

The federal Fisheries Act defines fish habitat to include water frequented by fish and the spawning, nursery, rearing, food-supply and migration areas upon which fish depend. (Department of Justice Canada)

Section 36 prohibits unauthorized deposits of deleterious substances into water frequented by fish or into places where those substances may enter such waters.

The Act defines “deposit” broadly to include discharging, releasing, spilling, leaking, seeping, pouring, emitting, emptying, dumping and placing. (Department of Justice Canada)

Whether a particular discharge constitutes an offence depends upon the evidence, the substance, the pathway and any applicable legal authorization.

But a municipal pipe is not exempt merely because it is labelled “stormwater.”

British Columbia’s Environmental Management Act also contains specific powers concerning pollution prevention, pollution abatement and municipal pollution. Sections 82 and 84 expressly authorize provincial action where a municipality is causing or is likely to cause pollution. (BCLaws)

The central legal and environmental questions are straightforward:

What entered the water?
Where did it come from?
Who owned or controlled the pathway?
What did the responsible authority do after learning about it?

From the catch basin to the orca

The Southern Resident killer whales face three principal threats:

limited availability of Chinook salmon;
physical and acoustic disturbance; and
environmental contaminants. (Canada)

Those threats are often discussed separately.

Within the ecosystem, they overlap.

A road drains into a catch basin.

The catch basin drains into a municipal pipe.

The pipe discharges near a creek, mudflat, harbour or intertidal area.

Contaminants settle into sediment or enter small organisms.

Eelgrass, forage fish and juvenile salmon depend upon nearshore habitat.

Chinook salmon depend upon that wider food web.

Southern Resident killer whales depend heavily upon Chinook.

The pathway is ecological, not rhetorical:

Stormwater and sewage contamination
→ intertidal sediment and invertebrates
→ forage fish and juvenile salmon
→ Chinook salmon
→ Southern Resident killer whales

That is why a failed connection beneath an Esquimalt street is not merely a plumbing problem.

It is part of a larger food-web problem.

Who owns the record now?

As of 2026, Esquimalt Council consists of:

Mayor Barbara Desjardins;
Councillor Ken Armour;
Councillor Andrea Boardman;
Councillor Meagan Brame;
Councillor Duncan Cavens;
Councillor Jacob Helliwell; and
Councillor Tim Morrison. (Corporation of the Township of Esquimalt)

They did not personally create every historical defect.

But they now possess the reports.

They know that approximately 23 per cent of the sanitary network has exceeded its design life.

They know the annual funding gaps.

They know that serious inflow and infiltration have burdened the sanitary system.

They know cross-connections have continued to be found.

They know the stormwater model required updating, additional monitoring and better calibration.

They know high-public-health-concern outfalls and chemically contaminated sediments have been identified.

They know that Esquimalt entered 2025 without an overall stormwater-management plan identifying priorities and funding requirements.

Barbara Desjardins knows this history from a longer perspective than anyone else presently on Council.

She was a councillor when investigations were identifying hundreds of possible cross-connections and combined manholes.

She was mayor when wastewater entered Gorge Creek in 2017.

She was mayor when the 2019 engineering work identified deficient gravity mains, pump-station concerns and severe inflow-and-infiltration loading.

She was mayor when the 2025 sanitary plan reported that approximately 23 per cent of the network had exceeded its design life and identified a major funding deficit.

She was mayor when Esquimalt acknowledged that it still lacked an overall stormwater-management plan setting priorities and funding requirements.

The present infrastructure situation cannot be dismissed as a surprise inherited from someone else.

After more than twenty years as councillor and mayor, the record is also hers.

From this point forward, failure cannot credibly be blamed on ignorance.

What Esquimalt must do now

Esquimalt does not need another declaration saying that it values the environment.

It needs a funded and enforceable program that proves it.

1. Make every high-risk outfall investigation mandatory

Every outfall rated as a high public-health or chemical concern must receive complete source tracing, repeat testing, corrective action and follow-up confirmation.

Outfalls 742, 749, 780 and 805/806 must not remain optional because of budget preferences.

2. Publish the underground record

The Township should release accessible GIS information showing:

sanitary and stormwater mains;
service laterals;
pipe age and material;
manholes and catch basins;
known and suspected cross-connections;
CCTV condition ratings;
pump stations;
outfall catchments;
complaints and spills;
completed repairs;
sediment-monitoring locations; and
outstanding corrective work.

Esquimalt already maintains portions of its sanitary infrastructure information through an open-data system. That disclosure should be expanded into an integrated environmental and infrastructure record. (Esquimalt Open Data)

Security and personal information can be protected without concealing the overall environmental record.

3. Close the sanitary funding gap

Council must adopt a public schedule for closing the sustainable-lifecycle funding gap and completing priority replacements before emergency failures dictate the work.

4. Establish protected stormwater funding

Esquimalt needs a dedicated stormwater utility or an equivalent protected funding mechanism.

Stormwater inspection, maintenance, source control, monitoring and infrastructure renewal should not compete each year against more politically attractive projects.

5. Require on-site rainwater management

New development and major redevelopment should be required—not merely encouraged—to retain, infiltrate, treat or reuse stormwater where site conditions permit.

New construction should not increase the contaminant and flow burden placed upon an already deficient system.

6. Test the contaminants justified by each catchment

Monitoring should extend beyond fecal indicators where land use, industrial history, spill records or previous sampling indicate chemical risk.

The analytical program should include, where appropriate:

metals;
petroleum hydrocarbons;
PAHs;
PCBs;
dioxins and furans;
PFAS;
pesticides;
phthalates and bisphenols;
tire-derived contaminants, including 6PPD-quinone;
microplastics; and
other endocrine-disrupting substances.

7. Finish the cross-connection program

Every suspected connection should be tested under a mandatory and time-limited program.

Financial assistance may be required for property owners who cannot afford corrective work.

Financial assistance should not mean indefinite delay.

8. Assess sediment before promoting recreation

Before encouraging swimming, shoreline play, dredging, dock construction or habitat work near identified outfalls, Esquimalt should determine:

which contaminants are present;
their concentration and depth;
whether they are bioavailable;
whether disturbance could spread them;
whether source control has been completed; and
whether ecological and human-health risk assessments are required.

9. Complete a cumulative dock assessment

Every dock, float, ramp, piling and over-water structure should be mapped.

Their combined effects on eelgrass, light, sediment, fish, migratory birds, public land and Indigenous interests should be assessed before further expansion.

10. Report performance annually

Council should publish an annual environmental-infrastructure report identifying:

which outfalls were inspected;
what was found;
which pollution sources were identified;
what corrections were ordered;
which repairs were completed;
what remains outstanding;
how much was spent; and
whether environmental conditions improved.

11. Refer potentially unlawful discharges

Where evidence indicates an unauthorized deposit of a deleterious substance into fish-bearing water, the evidence should be reported promptly to the appropriate federal and provincial regulators.

Municipal embarrassment is not a lawful reason to withhold environmental evidence.

12. Work with the Nations as governments

The xʷsepsəm and Songhees Nations must be involved in decisions affecting shorelines, sediments, food resources, public lands and marine waters within their territories.

Engagement should begin before projects are designed and decisions are effectively complete.

13. Open the historical record

Esquimalt should digitize and publish its historical environmental and infrastructure records.

That record should include:

complete council rosters;
engineering reports and attachments;
sanitary- and storm-sewer investigations;
cross-connection records;
spill and pollution complaints;
outfall studies;
shoreline-development decisions;
dock and public-land records; and
correspondence with regional, provincial and federal regulators.

History should not be limited to the parts that flatter the institution.

The final word

Esquimalt has benefited enormously from the waters surrounding it.

The Gorge, Esquimalt Harbour, Victoria Harbour and the Juan de Fuca shoreline provide beauty, property value, industry, recreation, tourism and civic identity.

In return, those waters have received generations of sewage, industrial pollution, contaminated stormwater, shoreline hardening, over-water structures and political delay.

Volunteers removed the visible garbage.

They could not replace the pipes.

Community organizations documented contamination.

They could not approve municipal budgets.

Young people planted stream banks.

They could not compel the Township to investigate every contaminated outfall.

Those powers belong to government.

Christopher Clement and Ray Rice deserve recognition for the years when Esquimalt worked constructively with the Veins of Life Watershed Society and the wider community effort.

They helped us.

They respected the work.

They became trusted friends.

They demonstrated that community organizations and local government could work beside one another rather than against one another.

That history makes the later failures more frustrating, not less.

Esquimalt had already seen that cooperation worked.

It had already seen residents return to the water.

It had already received evidence of cross-connections, aging pipes, contaminated runoff and damaged habitat.

Barbara Desjardins was already serving on Council when the Township’s investigations were identifying hundreds of possible cross-connections and combined manholes.

She then became mayor and remained in office while wastewater entered Gorge Creek, while the sanitary system was found to have major capacity and inflow-and-infiltration problems, while approximately 23 per cent of the sewer network exceeded its design life, and while Esquimalt continued without a complete stormwater-management plan.

The criticism must therefore be precise.

Christopher Clement and Ray Rice were not enemies of the work.

They were allies who helped it succeed.

Barbara Desjardins did not personally install Esquimalt’s oldest pipes or create every historical cross-connection.

But after more than twenty years as councillor and mayor, the condition of Esquimalt’s underground infrastructure, the slow pace of source control and the stormwater-planning deficit form part of her political record.

The institutional failure was Esquimalt’s failure to build upon the early cooperation and finish the underground work required to protect the Gorge, Victoria Harbour, Esquimalt Harbour, the Outer Harbour and the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

The pollution is not confined to Gorge Park.

Depending upon the catchment, it can enter several receiving environments.

It can settle into sediment, enter marine organisms and add to the cumulative burden already carried by the Salish Sea.

The pollution may cross the municipal boundary.
The responsibility does not.

The Gorge does not need another promise.

Esquimalt Harbour does not need another jurisdictional excuse.

Juan de Fuca does not need another pipe carrying contaminants toward it.

The work is clear:

Fix the pipes.
Find the cross-connections.
Stop the sources.
Assess the sediments.
Protect the intertidal habitat.
Restore the food web.
Give the Southern Resident orcas a genuine chance to survive.

This is the clean replacement for all previous versions.