Victoria highway project runoff clouds salmon-bearing river

The B.C. Ministry of Transportation says deficiencies have been corrected after runoff from a Victoria highway construction site cloudeda nearby salmon spawning river.

Last week, the Gorge Tillicum Community Association raised concerns about mud and heavy runoff coming fromthe site of the $85-million McKenzie Interchange project .

Rob Fleming, the MLA for Victoria-Swan Lake, said the river remained clouded with sediment when he viewed it Monday with members of the association.

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"What I didn't see is any apparent onsite monitoring, which was a real concern," Fleming said.

Fleming said there was also no sign of a replacement for the silt fence around the highway construction site that was breached by the muddy water.

Blasting and clearing has been underway for several weeks inthe area nearthe intersection of Admirals Road and the Trans Canada Highway.

B.C. Ministry of Transportation spokeswomanJanelle Erwin said the contractor has already addressed all the concerns about runoff from the site, including repair and addition of more silt fences, using straw to filter water running off the site and adding a second larger filtration pump.

"There's actually four silt fences that are now in place and in addition to that there's also some straw to in place to help control some of the siltation," Erwin said,"to keep water on the site and ensuring that water that does leave the site is clearwater."

Contrary to Fleming and the community association's claim of delayed response, Erwin saidround-the-clock monitoring of the site has been in place since the weekend.

Erwin said sampling last week after the turbidity was identified found the Colquitz River water to be within safety guidelines.

Rob Wickson, the president of the Gorge-Tillicum Community Association, said the runoffinto the river from the highway site continued after the ministry'swater testing.

Wicksonsaid the B.C. government had not kept its promises to residents.

"We were assured when construction began that the river would be protected, that they would mitigate and prevent this kind of thing from happening in the river," he said.

Fleming said the incident, happening so soon after work on the interchange project began, is a worrying sign.

"What we've seen so far, and it's very early days in this project, is a couple of failures where you've got sediment and material getting into the river at exactly the wrong time when salmon are making their way upstream," Fleming said.

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"It's been 25 years of effort from the community to revive a once extremely productive salmon run that had almost dwindled down to nothing and we're at a wonderful point right now where this river is productive and growing every year."

With files from Megan Thomas