OKANAGAN FALLS — Rhonda Mclean is sounding the alarm after finding 14 empty containers that were once filled with boat engine oil floating near a dam in Okanagan Falls.
“I’m livid,” says Mclean. “How could you just throw it out? And throw it in the water?”
It was too dark for her to recover the one-litre oil jugs Tuesday night, so she returned the next morning with a net.
She suspects it’s lazy boaters making this mess and wants the people responsible to face repercussions.
It was a shocking sight for Mclean. But it may also have long-term implications for the Okanagan salmon run.
Ryan Benson, a fisheries biologist with the Okanagan Nation Alliance (ONA), says there maybe lingering residues that have already contaminated the water.
“When they travel over the drop structures there, they could get perforated and leak out or even the residue on the side of the jug, it doesn’t take a whole lot to containment the whole water body,” explains Benson.
The ONA is already expecting a low sockeye return due to warming water temperatures and low stream flows. Consequently, many sockeye have died or are dying off before they reach the Okanagan basin.
“A few drops of oil may not cause acute toxicity in the fish, but it might be enough that they smell it and don’t bother coming up,” says Benson.
- Autism awareness: Vancouver International Airport, Canucks network host ‘Learn to Fly’
- London Drugs begins ‘gradual’ reopening of stores in Western Canada
- 1 arrested in Fraser Valley death; homicide investigation underway
- Brian White shining bright as Vancouver Whitecaps celebrate club’s 50th anniversary match
Mclean wants the people responsible to face repercussions.
“I don’t know why these people are doing it. I would like to know. I’d love these people to get caught,” she says.
Conservation officers say it would be difficult to recommend more than littering charges if they found the suspects because it would be difficult to prove they intended to pollute the water since the lids were closed on each container.
It’s unknown how long the jugs have been floating in the river and if this will devastate the sockeye return.
However, the ONA is estimating fewer than 25,000 sockeye will make it back to the Okanagan basin, which is about a quarter of last year’s number.
It says it doesn’t need the litter of oil jugs to jeopardize an already low return.
Comments