Victoria is angling for $12 million in infrastructure money. Before another dime is handed over, the city should face its dirtiest secret: storm sewers that continuously flush toxics and sewage into our harbour and the Gorge.

Federal and provincial reports have been blunt: Stormwater is the ongoing source of PCBs, PAHs, heavy metals, dioxins, and fecal bacteria that re-contaminate harbour sediments.

Rock Bay alone cost taxpayers over $150 million to dredge and cap, yet City outfalls 626, 626A, and 627 still dump 55 tonnes of polluted solids into the narbour every year. By 2021, dioxins and metals in those discharges were already exceeding Canadian sediment guidelines two to three times over.

Cecelia Creek, draining into the Gorge, still carries copper, zinc, aluminum, and E. coli at levels far above safe limits.

This is not just an environmental embarrassment. Families paddle, fish, and swim in waters the City knows are contaminated. Salmon runs are being suffocated, seabirds poisoned, and orcas carry Victoria’s PCBs in their tissues.

Source control isn’t glamorous, but it is essential. Stop the re-contamination before talking about daylighting Bowker Creek or new swimming pools.

Fix your storm sewers first, then come back for money.

John R. Roe

Veins of Life Watershed Society

Victoria

Reading about the Walbran Valley, original lowland rainforest, is very sad.

Thousand-year-old trees being cut for $3 million stumpage.

Tree Farm Licence 44 has been contentious for decades, for good reason; very little remains.

It’s not replaceable. When it’s gone it’s gone. As for climate change, I took a UVic forestry course back in the 1980s and toured the area.

Clearcuts were patched, roasting hot. Walk into the old growth and the temperature dropped 10 degrees – cool and damp even at the height of summer.

Take a handful of wood from a fallen giant and you can squeeze water from it!

Fire is not part of the regime here on the rain coast; that is why these trees grow so enormous and old.

Original forest has been left as fire breaks. Cutting the upper Walbran is shortsighted. There must be another way.

Heather........

© Times Colonist