Rock Bay, Victoria British Columbia
For more than 20 years, City Hall failed to deliver the permanent source control required to protect Rock Bay, Victoria Harbour, Selkirk Waters and the Gorge from recontamination.
VICTORIA CLEANED UP ITS IMAGE — NOT ITS PIPES
Taxpayers spent approximately $158 million to $159 million cleaning Rock Bay. City storm drains continued delivering contaminants into the harbour, and taxpayers will now have to pay twice.
For nearly 30 years, Veins of Life Watershed Society worked on the ground and in the water to restore the Victoria Harbour and Gorge watershed.
We did not arrive after the cleanup with a complaint.
We were there before governments admitted how severely contaminated Rock Bay and the harbour had become.
We sampled storm drains, traced pollution sources, mapped outfalls, removed submerged and floating debris, cleaned shorelines, restored streams, removed invasive species and replanted damaged habitat.
Our work extended far beyond Rock Bay.
We worked up the Colquitz and Craigflower Creek watersheds, planting millions of trees, restoring stream corridors, removing invasive vegetation, protecting fish habitat and trying to stop pollution before it reached Portage Inlet, the Gorge Waterway and Victoria Harbour.
We worked with federal and provincial agencies, municipalities, First Nations, schools, businesses and community volunteers.
We believed cooperation would eventually produce permanent change.
Rock Bay appeared to be proof that cooperation could work.
It has instead become proof of what happens when governments clean the bottom of a harbour but fail to stop the pipes that are polluting it.
Taxpayers paid approximately $158 million to $159 million
Rock Bay was one of the most heavily contaminated industrial sites in British Columbia.
A former coal-gasification plant and more than a century of industrial operations left coal tar, petroleum hydrocarbons, metals and other hazardous contaminants in the soil, groundwater, shoreline and seabed.
Our consolidated project records put the full public cost of investigating, engineering, excavating, disposing of, restoring and monitoring Rock Bay at approximately $158 million to $159 million.
More than 200,000 tons of contaminated soil were removed during the earlier stages. Approximately another 90,000 tonnes of contaminated bay and foreshore sediment were removed during the final phase. That represents roughly 290,000 tonnes of contaminated material removed from Rock Bay over the life of the project. (Canada)
This was an extraordinary public investment.
It was supposed to restore Rock Bay and protect the harbour from further damage.
But digging out contaminated sediment was only half the job.
The contamination entering through municipal stormwater pipes also had to be stopped.
Victoria agreed to comprehensive source control
In May 2004, the Government of Canada publicly announced that the Rock Bay remediation approach included a comprehensive stormwater-management plan to be implemented by the City of Victoria.
The purpose was explicit: to address ongoing contamination from municipal outfalls discharging into Rock Bay. (Canada)
That was not an optional beautification project.
It was not a future aspiration.
It was a central part of protecting the cleanup.
The City was expected to control the continuing contaminant pathways before they polluted the remediated bay again.
The City did not demonstrate that it completed that responsibility.
Our records show that Victoria was reminded of the source-control obligation more than once. Transport Canada continued to discuss monitoring City outfalls as the remediation approached completion. The City continued receiving warnings, reports, source-control proposals and evidence of contaminated material within its drainage system.
Yet the comprehensive program was never publicly completed, independently verified or reported to taxpayers.
More than 20 years later, Transport Canada describes its 2019 work as only “initial Rock Bay stormwater source control work.”
Transport Canada’s current harbour plan still lists stormwater and sanitary waste as sources of ongoing pollution, calls for additional source control and expressly states that more work is required to prevent the harbour from being re-contaminated. (Transport Canada)
That is not success.
That is confirmation that the original cleanup was never adequately protected.
Rock Bay and the harbour have been re-contaminated
The source-tracing reports were undertaken to identify contaminants capable of being reintroduced into the previously remediated Rock Bay sediments.
They found those contaminants within City drainage routes.
The findings include:
metals;
petroleum hydrocarbons;
PAHs;
PCBs;
dioxins and furans;
contaminated sludge;
sewage indicators; and
large volumes of contaminant-bearing sediment.
The three principal Rock Bay outfalls—626, 626A and 627—drain hundreds of hectares of urban, commercial and industrial land.
Project records estimate that the Rock Bay drainage catchments can deliver approximately 55 tonnes of sediment each year.
That sediment is not environmentally harmless.
Toxic chemicals attach to fine sediment particles. Water carries those particles through pipes, creeks and outfalls. They eventually settle in slower-moving areas, where they become part of the seabed and expose marine organisms. Environment and Climate Change Canada recognizes sediment as an important transporter of toxic chemicals and explains that those contaminants can later be released again. (Canada)
The Rock Bay reports identified PCB-related concerns, widespread PAHs, metals, dioxins and furans and contaminated sludge within the upstream drainage system.
The evidence also extends beyond the three Rock Bay pipes.
At least three additional City drainage systems entering the connected harbour and Gorge basin remain serious concerns, including Cecelia Creek.
Some of the most recent monitoring has identified extreme metals results, sewage odours, very high fecal-bacteria readings and continuing corrective-action requirements at City discharges.
This is recontamination.
It is not merely a theoretical “risk of recontamination.”
Contaminants capable of damaging sediment and marine life have continued to enter through municipal drainage systems after governments removed the contaminated seabed.
There is no magical curtain at the Selkirk Trestle
The City cannot treat Rock Bay, the Inner Harbour, Selkirk Waters, the Gorge Waterway and Portage Inlet as separate containers.
They are connected tidal waters.
There is no wall at the edge of Rock Bay.
There is no filter beneath the bridges.
There is no magical curtain hanging from the Selkirk Trestle.
Water, dissolved contaminants and contaminated sediment move through the connected system under the influence of tides, rainfall, currents, wind, waves, vessel traffic and propeller wash.
Pollution discharged into Victoria Harbour does not politely remain beside the pipe that released it.
Fine contaminated sediment can be moved and redeposited throughout the harbour basin. It can settle in Rock Bay, the Inner Harbour, Selkirk Waters, Cecelia Cove, the Gorge Waterway and Portage Inlet.
Colquitz Creek and Craigflower Creek enter the upper end of this same connected system.
That is why VOLWS spent decades working throughout the entire watershed.
We understood that planting trees in Colquitz and Craigflower, restoring stream banks, removing invasive species and reducing upstream erosion protected the Gorge and harbour below.
Watersheds do not follow municipal departmental boundaries.
Pollution does not stop at municipal property lines.
And tidal water does not recognize the Selkirk Trestle as an environmental boundary.
The City promotes recreation while the pollution continues
While these contamination pathways remain unresolved, the City of Victoria has actively encouraged more swimming, paddling and direct contact with the Gorge Waterway.
The City expanded the Banfield Park dock in 2022 and again in 2024.
The 2024 project tripled the previous dock space, added swimming access, lifejackets and a marked recreational swimming area. Council directed staff to increase public access to the Gorge, and the City spent $300,000 on the latest expansion. (City of Victoria)
The City now advertises Banfield Dock as providing easy access for swimming and paddling and describes it as a popular summer destination. (City of Victoria)
At the same time, City officials have been repeatedly warned about:
contaminated stormwater;
sanitary cross-connections;
sewage indicators;
contaminated shoreline and seabed sediment;
metals and hydrocarbons;
PAHs, PCBs, dioxins and furans;
outfalls beside recreational areas; and
the inadequacy of relying only on fecal-bacteria beach testing.
Bacterial beach monitoring does not measure the full chemical burden.
It does not routinely warn swimmers about PAHs, PCBs, dioxins, metals, petroleum hydrocarbons, PFAS, tire-derived chemicals or endocrine disruptors.
The City is inviting the public into a historically polluted and still actively contaminated tidal basin without providing a complete public warning about the contaminants that are not being routinely tested.
That is not environmental leadership.
It is reckless municipal promotion without adequate disclosure.
Taxpayers will pay twice
Rock Bay has been polluted again.
The harbour floor and connected shoreline must now be reassessed.
Where renewed contamination is found, it must be removed, isolated or remediated.
This time, source control must come first.
The City must:
identify every contaminant source in the Rock Bay catchments;
stop illegal commercial and industrial discharges;
find and correct sanitary-to-storm cross-connections;
remove contaminated sludge from pipes, manholes and laterals;
clean and maintain every treatment unit;
install treatment at every major outfall where source elimination is not immediately possible;
measure actual wet-weather flows and contaminant loads;
prove that the controls work through multiple wet seasons;
reassess the Rock Bay and connected harbour seabed; and
pay to re-clean the areas contaminated by its municipal drainage system.
The federal and provincial governments must not give Victoria another unconditional bailout.
Federal and provincial taxpayers already financed the original remediation.
Victoria taxpayers must now pay the municipal share attributable to their City’s infrastructure and failures. The City must then recover costs from businesses, property owners, contractors and other private polluters responsible for unlawful discharges.
The polluter must pay.
The governments that funded the first cleanup should not again pay Victoria to avoid the consequences of failing to protect it.
Based on the size of the drainage system, the number of unresolved sources, the need to construct permanent treatment and the requirement to reassess contaminated sediment, VOLWS estimates that proper source control and re-remediation could take another 15 to 20 years.
That is another generation waiting for the government to do what should have been completed when Rock Bay was first cleaned.
Victoria had decades of warnings and decades of cooperation
VOLWS did everything governments claim they want environmental organizations to do.
We cooperated.
We supplied evidence.
We mapped the system.
We proposed practical treatment.
We worked with businesses.
We worked with schools.
We planted millions of trees.
We restored Colquitz Creek, Craigflower Creek, Cecelia Creek, the Gorge shoreline and connected habitat.
We removed invasive species and extraordinary quantities of marine debris.
We brought ministers, enforcement officials and agency staff onto the harbour.
We shared our knowledge freely.
We waited.
And while we waited, City pipes continued delivering pollution into the waters we had spent decades trying to restore.
The City cannot claim it did not know.
It cannot claim that solutions were unavailable.
It cannot claim that it lacked legal authority.
It cannot hide behind the CRD, Transport Canada, provincial regulators or historical industry.
Victoria owns and operates its municipal stormwater system.
Victoria controls its bylaws.
Victoria controls its maintenance budgets.
Victoria controls development approvals.
Victoria controls enforcement within its jurisdiction.
Victoria is responsible for protecting the receiving waters from contamination delivered through its system.
This Council and senior staff must answer during the election
This is not simply an inherited problem.
The current Council and senior administration have continued expanding waterfront recreation and development while failing to provide a complete public accounting of Rock Bay source control, harbour contamination and the cost of re-remediation.
They have received repeated warnings.
They have received reports.
They have received source-control proposals.
They have been told that sewage, metals, PAHs, PCBs, dioxins, contaminated sediment and other pollutants continue entering the harbour system.
Silence, delay and another study are no longer acceptable.
Every candidate for mayor and council should be required to answer:
Will you acknowledge that municipal stormwater has recontaminated Rock Bay and the harbour?
Will you commit to permanent source control for every City stormwater outfall?
Will you require independent testing and public reporting?
Will you stop promoting swimming without full contaminant disclosure?
Will you make Victoria pay its share of re-remediation?
Will you recover costs from private polluters?
Will you require an independent review of staff and engineering decisions?
Will you establish enforceable deadlines and protected funding?
Any councillor unwilling to make those commitments should not be returned to office.
Any senior official who concealed known risks, failed to give Council the required professional advice, blocked corrective action or misrepresented the condition of the harbour should be independently investigated and replaced where the evidence supports it.
The public does not need another promise.
It needs new leadership willing to stop the pollution, tell the truth about the damage and pay to repair it.
The public paid once. Victoria must now pay to put it right.
Rock Bay was cleaned at enormous public expense.
The City failed to demonstrate that it protected that cleanup.
The contaminants continued entering the harbour.
The damage now extends through a connected tidal and watershed system that includes Rock Bay, Victoria Harbour, Selkirk Waters, the Gorge Waterway, Portage Inlet, Cecelia Creek, Craigflower Creek and Colquitz Creek.
The cleanup must be done again where the evidence shows renewed contamination.
But this time, the pipes must be fixed first.
This time, source control must be permanent.
This time, Victoria must be held accountable.
And this time, federal and provincial taxpayers must not be forced to pay Victoria’s share of the bill.
REFERENCES
Government of Canada, Working Together to Clean Up Victoria Harbour, May 19, 2004. Confirms that the Rock Bay remediation approach included a comprehensive City of Victoria stormwater-management plan addressing continuing contamination from municipal outfalls. (Canada)
Transport Canada, Completion of the Rock Bay Remediation Project, July 4, 2016. Reports the removal of more than 200,000 tonnes of contaminated soil and approximately 90,000 tonnes of contaminated bay and foreshore sediment. (Canada)
Transport Canada, Official Transfer of the Rock Bay Property, December 6, 2016. Reports approximately 290,000 tonnes of contaminated material removed during the 12-year remediation period. (Canada)
Transport Canada, Victoria Harbour Floor Project Source Control and Sediment Management Plan. Identifies stormwater and sanitary waste as sources of ongoing pollution, characterizes the 2019 work as initial Rock Bay source control and states that further source control and cleanup remain necessary. (Transport Canada)
Transport Canada, Protecting the Environment in Victoria Harbour, updated February 24, 2026. States that the long-term program is intended to address ongoing pollution and keep the harbour from being recontaminated. (Transport Canada)
Environment and Climate Change Canada, Water Pollution: Erosion and Sedimentation. Explains how toxic chemicals attach to sediment, are transported through water and are deposited in other areas. (Canada)
City of Victoria, Expanded Banfield Park Dock Opens, June 21, 2024. Confirms the $300,000 expansion, increased swimming and paddling access, marked swimming area and Council direction to increase access to the Gorge Waterway. (City of Victoria)
City of Victoria, City Expands Banfield Park Dock, June 21, 2022. Describes the earlier dock expansion intended to improve swimming and paddling access. (City of Victoria)
City of Victoria, Banfield Park. Promotes Banfield Dock as providing easy swimming and paddling access and as a popular summer destination. (City of Victoria)
VOLWS, Rock Bay–Victoria Master Evidence Chronology, Gmail Evidence Registers and Historical PST Reviews, 1996–2026. Documents early source-control proposals, direct notice to Victoria, Transport Canada monitoring discussions, City maintenance correspondence, CRD datasets and continuing outfall-treatment proposals.
The Gorge Guy
John R Roe
John R Roe
- Office 250 383 2086
- The Dead Boats Disposal Society
- The Veins of Life Watershed Society
- "Over 30 years of cleanup and restoration have taught me one truth—if you don’t stop the pollution at its source, you’re just sweeping sand in a windstorm. Source control, source control, source control. Then, and only then, do you restore."
— JR Roe. Amen- oshaku shushaku—mistake upon mistake compounds to become the sum total of one's knowledge.
- “Lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets” — i.e., nature (healthy ecosystems) is real wealth, not a trade-off against wealth.
Canada stays strong by standing united—defending democracy, rejecting division, and leading with truth, justice, and integrity. We fight tyranny with resilience, compassion, and an unwavering commitment to a better future.
Public Recreation in Contaminated Waters: A Practical Question from Heavy Industry Experience
I have spent much of my working life in heavy industry. I have worked as a welder, commercial diver, mechanic, supervisor, factory worker, and tradesperson in settings where materials, chemicals, contaminated surfaces, waste streams, and exposure pathways were treated seriously.
In those workplaces, we were trained to read and understand MSDS/SDS sheets. Before handling materials or working in a potentially contaminated environment, we were expected to understand what we were dealing with, what the exposure risks were, what protective equipment was required, how materials could move through air, water, soil, or sediment, and how cleanup and disposal had to be handled. If we worked on land or in the water, the same basic principle applied: identify the hazard, control the exposure, protect the worker, and prevent the contamination from spreading.
That is why I am struggling with how public use of contaminated rivers, lakes, estuaries, beaches, and tidal waters is currently treated.
In public recreation, the discussion often seems to stop at fecal-indicator testing. Agencies talk about E. coli, enterococci, fecal coliform, beach advisories, and whether bacterial numbers are above or below guideline values. That information matters, but it is not the whole picture.
Fecal indicators are warning lights. They do not identify everything in the water or sediment. They do not tell the public whether there are viruses, pharmaceuticals, endocrine-disrupting compounds, metals, PAHs, PCBs, dioxins/furans, hydrocarbons, contaminated sediments, stormwater contaminants, or legacy industrial pollutants. They also do not answer what happens when sediment is disturbed by construction, cable placement, dredging, prop wash, anchoring, or public activity.
In heavy industry, a known contaminated area would not be treated as safe simply because one narrow indicator passed on one day. A proper hazard review would ask what contaminants are present, how they can be disturbed, how people may be exposed, what protective measures are required, and whether the area should remain open during or after disturbance.
The public system often appears to apply a much narrower standard. A waterbody with historical industrial use, stormwater outfalls, known sediment contamination, sewer cross-connection risk, and active construction may still be treated as suitable for public recreation unless fecal-indicator testing triggers an advisory. That creates a serious gap between industrial exposure-control practice and public recreational-water management.
The concern is not that every beach requires full chemical testing at all times. The concern is that in known contaminated urban waterways, fecal testing should not be treated as a complete public-health assessment. Where there are contaminated sediments, outfalls, legacy industrial activity, and disturbance, a broader human-health and environmental risk review should be completed before public swimming or other direct-contact recreation is encouraged.
The practical question is simple:
Has the area been assessed for all reasonable recreational exposure pathways, including contaminated sediment, stormwater contaminants, fecal contamination, chemical contaminants, and disturbance-related resuspension, or has the decision been based mainly on fecal-indicator testing?
From my experience, society has not fully connected industrial contamination practice with public recreational exposure. Workers are protected through hazard identification, SDS review, PPE, exposure controls, decontamination, and disposal procedures. The public, including children, swimmers, paddlers, shoreline users, and people entering urban tidal waters, should not receive a weaker standard of care in areas already known to be contaminated.
Fecal-indicator compliance is not the same thing as a contaminated-site recreational exposure assessment.
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