On Thursday, Sept. 24 at approximately 1:50 p.m. the Society was contacted by a resident who saw a couple dumping paint into a street storm drain northwest of the hatchery. The City of Coquitlam was alerted by that resident.

A Society volunteer went to the creek to check for spillage and white paint was found by the footbridge on Hoy Trail off LaSalle Place south. Paint was coming in through an inflow side channel and pooling in an area before the main stream where coho salmon fry like to find refuge.

A City representative was on the scene shortly after and placed an absorbent boom down just in time to catch most of the paint before it seeped into the main stream.

The Society reported the incident to the provincial government.

The Society was advised by the person reporting that the storm drain was on Michigan Drive which is northwest of the affected creek area. This area was canvassed by Society volunteers in the summer of 2019 after a large fish kill in the creek and hatchery earlier that year.

The City of Coquitlam has reported that they have investigated the issue and have been in contact with the Ministry of Environment. Enforcement measures are pending at the moment.

The public is urged to be mindful of storm drains, which are meant for rainwater only, and are not for refuse disposal. Individuals observing a dumping or a fish kill in our streams, or the presence of any other possible pollutants are encouraged to immediately report the event to the authorities. Contact numbers are provided on our website’s contact page.

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The BLACK frame is the area of storm drains that flow into Hoy Creek to the area where the paint instream was discovered on Sept. 24. The GREEN is the storm drain system.