Whale Watching Above, Pollution Below Could contamination from Victoria Harbour and the Gorge Waterway be harming Resident killer whales?

 

Whale Watching Above, Pollution Below

Could contamination from Victoria Harbour and the Gorge Waterway be harming Resident killer whales?

The scientifically defensible answer is yes.

Pollution from Victoria Harbour and the Gorge Waterway could be contributing to the cumulative contaminant burden, immune stress and reproductive difficulties affecting Southern Resident killer whales.

That does not mean the evidence presently proves that a particular chemical found in a particular whale came from a specific Victoria storm drain. Governments have never completed the matched source-to-food-web investigation needed to make that determination.

Why British Columbia Should Take Back the Lead in Managing Its Fish, Shellfish, Waters and Aquatic Habitat

 

The Fisheries Bargain Has Failed

Why British Columbia Should Take Back the Lead in Managing Its Fish, Shellfish, Waters and Aquatic Habitat

For 155 years, Ottawa has held the authority. British Columbia has lived with the consequences.

When British Columbia joined Canada in 1871, it brought with it one of the richest fisheries systems on Earth.

Salmon connected the open Pacific to thousands of rivers and streams. Herring, eulachon and sand lance fed larger fish, seabirds and marine mammals. Oysters, clams, mussels, crabs, prawns and abalone supported food, trade, culture and coastal communities. Estuaries, eelgrass beds, wetlands and intertidal beaches formed the nurseries that kept the whole system alive.

Canada accepted responsibility for protecting and encouraging those fisheries.

 

Would You Swim in This?

Residential vehicle-washing wastewater, municipal storm sewers and the health of Greater Victoria’s beaches, creeks and marine waters

A person washing a car on a paved driveway may see nothing more than soap, water and a cleaner vehicle.

The receiving environment gets something very different.

Water running from a vehicle can carry road sediment, tire residue, brake dust, copper, zinc, petroleum hydrocarbons, oil, grease, detergents, surfactants, waxes and other cleaning chemicals. When the washing takes place on asphalt or concrete, the water receives almost no natural filtration. It moves down the driveway, across the gutter, into a catch basin and through a municipal storm sewer.

In much of Greater Victoria, that storm sewer does not lead to a sewage-treatment plant. It leads to a creek, beach, harbour, intertidal area or the Salish Sea.

The complete pathway is:

vehicle → impervious driveway → street gutter → catch basin → municipal storm sewer → outfall → freshwater or marine habitat.

The central question is simple:

Would you knowingly swim, wade, harvest shellfish or allow children to play where untreated vehicle-washing wastewater is being discharged?

The Economy Is the Environment— STUPID -- Stop Using Tariffs to Destroy Both

Are Tariffs Really the Whole Story—or Are We Being Sold a Bill of Goods?

I am getting tired of hearing the same story repeated by governments, corporations and the media:

The USA threatens Canada with tariffs, the economy is supposedly in crisis, prices must rise, government spending must be cut—and environmental organizations are once again expected to take the punishment.

I am not saying tariffs do no damage. They clearly hurt particular industries, workers and communities. Steel, aluminum, automobiles, lumber and other targeted sectors can face serious consequences.

But I am asking a different question:

Are tariffs really responsible for everything now being blamed on them?

Five Councils, a $7-Billion Sewer Bomb—and Our Kids Get the Bill

 

The Bill We Are Leaving Our Children

Five Councils, One Underground Bill

The Bill We Are Leaving Our Children

There is an enormous bill sitting underneath the streets of Greater Victoria.

It is not a theoretical future problem. It is not something that suddenly appeared because engineers started talking about climate change or asset management.

It is the accumulated cost of decades in which sewer and stormwater systems aged faster than they were renewed.

Across Victoria, Saanich, Esquimalt, Oak Bay and View Royal, the working replacement exposure for the public sanitary and stormwater systems alone is approximately $4.81 billion.

Add a realistic planning allowance for aging private sewer laterals and the number rises to roughly $5.3 billion to $5.9 billion.

If most or all of the approximately 52,500 listed laterals eventually require major renewal, the long-term exposure approaches $7 billion.

That does not mean every pipe needs to be dug up tomorrow.

It means the region has allowed an enormous renewal obligation to accumulate.

That is the difference.

The roughly $7-billion problem is not a forecast of something that might happen. It is the accumulated cost of infrastructure that has been allowed to age faster than it has been renewed.

And this is about more than money.

Out of Sight, Into the Harbour: The Core Area’s Unfinished Stormwater Problem

2025 Core Area Stormwater Quality Program Report.pdf [PDF/214.5MB]

Beneath the Surface

What the CRD’s 2024 Stormwater Report Reveals About Pollution Across Greater Victoria’s Core Area

An Independent Review of the 2024 Core Area Stormwater Quality Program Report

There Is No Magic Curtain in a Watershed From Elk and Beaver Lakes to Portage Inlet, the Gorge, Victoria Harbour and the Strait of Juan de Fuca, it is all one connected body of water

 

There Is No Magic Curtain in a Watershed

From Elk and Beaver Lakes to Portage Inlet, the Gorge, Victoria Harbour and the Strait of Juan de Fuca, it is all one connected body of water

Ballad of the Gorge, We tried— God, we tried— and it feels like waste.

      Beached orca in B.C. dies despite life-saving efforts

 Ballad of the Beginning

We started with our hands,
hauling garbage from the Gorge.
Tires, barrels, shopping carts—
rusted offerings to the tide.

We dove in black water,
came up with lungs burning,
arms straining against
the weight of a city’s neglect.

Each pile on the shore—
a strange monument.
Proof that someone cared enough
to pull the waste back out.

 

Why We Filed a CEPA Complaint—and Why Ordinary Canadians Need to Know This Process Exists

For more than thirty years, Veins of Life Watershed Society has worked in Victoria Harbour, the Gorge Waterway, Portage Inlet and the surrounding watersheds.

Everyone Is Responsible—So Apparently No One Is - Protecting a waterway should be simple.

 

Everyone Is Responsible—So Apparently No One Is

Protecting a waterway should be simple.

The Question No One Will Answer: Why Is the Gorge Water Quality Declining? Our FOI ADVENTURE

The Question No One Will Answer: Why Is the Gorge Water Quality Declining?

Freedom of information was never the objective. It became necessary because, after years of meetings, reports, telephone calls and emails, no government would give us a coherent answer.

The Water Does Not Know Whether You Are Working or Swimming, Swimming in the Victoria Harbour and Gorge Waterway

 

The Water Does Not Know Whether You Are Working or Swimming

Why the same contaminated shoreline can trigger strict worker protections—but almost no visible public-health assessment