Hope Slough spill kills thousands of salmon near Chilliwack, B.C.

First Nations in B.C.'s Fraser Valley say a large spill in the historic Hope Slough waterwayon Monday has led to the death of thousands of salmon and other fish.

The Cheam First Nation said in a Tuesday statement that the spill was discovered on Monday when community members went out to the waterway to check on years-longrestoration effortsled by the Cheam andSqw First Nations.

The nations say thousands of fish including juvenile coho salmon, trout and the endangered Salish sucker were killed.

The nations say the exact source of the spill has not yet been determined. The spillcould mean that spawning coho stockscould be wiped out for a year, they say.

"I almost broke out in tears becauseI could see dead coho ... the little ones that were all lined up along thebank here," said Eddie Gardner, a Sqw First Nation councillor who was one of the first to discover the spill.

"It's very sad for us because we consider ourselves as salmon people. We consider them as our relatives.

"To see a coho kill, you know, in the stream where we've been making every effort to make this a good and healthy place for the salmon ... is very, very disturbing."

The Hope Slough,which has beengiven the traditional name of Sqwa:la by local First Nations,flows into the Fraser River.

Gardner says the First Nations have been trying for many years to restore salmon stocks and clean the waterwayas they have been part of the nations'culturesfor centuries.

"We need to pull out all the stops, you know, tomake sure that our salmon relatives don't go ...the way of the buffalo, so they don't go extinct," he said ofrestoration efforts.

'Heartbreaking'

Roxanna Kooistra, who works for Cheam First Nation as an environmental stewardship manager, thinksthe spill resulted from somekind of organic matter that flowed from upstream.

In its statement, the Cheam First Nation says the spill may be related to agriculture and farming activities upstream, with Kooistra sayingthe nation had deployed drones and people on foot to locate the source of the spill.

"We've tested approximately 10 kilometres down the slough, and as far as we know all salmonids are dead as far as 10 kilometres downstream," she told CBC News.

"There's people fishing, there's likely children playing in the area, and this water is now toxic for them," she added."We need to get the word out as soon as possible."

Kooistra said the nations have been working to educate the community that the Hope Slough is a salmon-bearing waterway, andit has been difficultto break through people's preconceived notions that it is not an active stream.

"To come here and know that potentially tens of thousands of litres of toxins were releasedjust because someone didn't feel like paying to dispose it, it's heartbreaking, it's crushing, it's disheartening for the community," she said.

A spokesperson for the province's Ministry of Environment saidministry staff were on site Tuesday monitoring the oil spill.

"An Environmental Response Contractor has been retained to begin mitigation and cleanup actions," they wrote in a statement.