Chan Creek: The Creek Esquimalt Buried but Never Disconnected

 

Completed work breathes new life into Gorge Waterway in Esquimalt

Chan Creek: The Creek Esquimalt Buried but Could Never Disconnect

A story of two ponds, an old wooden drain, a school built over a vanished landscape, thirty years of community work, and pollution that kept finding its way to the Gorge

 

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.

Rock Bay Victoria BC: The Cleanup That Was Never Finished over 150 million wasted

 

Rock Bay: The Cleanup That Was Never Finished

A history of contamination, public investment, continuing stormwater pollution and one connected tidal watershed

Veins of Life Watershed Society

Dead Boats Disposal Society

July 25, 2026

Dead Boats Begone The Story of the Dead Boats Disposal Society

Dead Boats Begone

The Story of the Dead Boats Disposal Society

The Dead Boats Disposal Society is a British Columbia not-for-profit society dedicated to the research, education, inventory, assessment, lawful removal, remediation, recycling and safe disposal of abandoned vessels and marine debris.

Our work reaches from southern Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands to the Fraser River, the Sunshine Coast, central and northern Vancouver Island, and coastal communities extending toward the Alaska border.

Ode to Island Health: Because… Ahhh… Because - Why you can never get an answer from Island Heath about swimming in contaminated waters

 Ode to Island Health: Because… Ahhh… Because 

O Island Health,

guardian of public health,
keeper of the test kit,
master of the carefully limited answer.

You test for yesterday’s danger
with yesterday’s tools
and call it modern protection.

Bacteria.

Always bacteria.

Because bacteria are easy.

Esquimalt a Place of Shitty Waters - Esquimalt’s Environmental Debt: From the Gorge to Juan de Fuca

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

From a Rowboat on the Gorge to the Salish Sea

 

From a Rowboat on the Gorge to the Fight for the Salish Sea

The story of the Veins of Life Watershed Society, the Dead Boats Disposal Society, and the volunteers who refused to accept that polluted waters were beyond repair 

How a father-and-son cleanup on Victoria’s Gorge Waterway grew into VOLWS, Dead Boats Disposal Society and decades of Salish Sea restoration.

More than thirty years ago, a father and his young son climbed into a small rowboat on Victoria’s Gorge Waterway and started pulling garbage from the water.

TAXPAYERS SPENT $159 MILLION CLEANING ROCK BAY — VICTORIA’S POLLUTED STORM DRAINS POISONED IT AGAIN

  

                                     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

Ode to the Mayor of the Rising Sewage - A Retirement Tribute from the Gorge for Mayor Desjardin

 

Completed work breathes new life into Gorge Waterway in Esquimalt

Ode to the Mayor of the Rising Sewage

A Retirement Tribute from the Gorge

O Mayor Desjardins,
long seated upon Esquimalt’s municipal throne,
long enough to watch the pipes grow old,
the buildings grow tall,
and the sewage rise faithfully
with every winter rain.