The Colquitz stream system – has turned muddy and murky steps from the McKenzie interchange construction project and right in the path of spawning Salmon. Colquitz river watershed advocate Dorothy Chambers tells CTV Vancouver Island she wants action. “We could see it running, it had made quite a circle out into the river,” said Chambers. “My concern with a large plume of sediment like that is that we currently have salmon that are passing in this area and swim right up this tributary…the sediment gets into the gills of the salmon and they can suffocate.”
The Ministry of Transportation and infrastructure say they believe an excavator, dug through an unmapped and unmarked underground storm drain and that caused an overflow which ended up in the storm drain. Janelle Irwin with the ministry said the broken pipe and heavier than anticipated rains are to blame. “Immediate steps were taken by our crew and construction folks in the field to make sure we were capturing this runoff, to ensure any water leaving the site was in fact clear and not causing an environmental concern,”
The ministry released a statement later Friday confirming testing of the turbidity found no immediate threat. Chambers says there’s still risk because this is the most fragile time of year for the river and Salmon
The $85-million interchange project is expected to be completed within a few years.