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INSIDE

| | NORTH SHOR

NEWS photo Stuart Davis

Good, but not good enough

EMERGING B.C. Lions star Doug Flutie hands off to Lorenzo Graham at
Monday’s game against the Hamilton Tiger-Cats at B.C. Place Stadium. The
night was supposed to be perfect, as Lui Passaglia set a pro football scoring
record of 2244 points in his carreer, but the Lions lost the momentum, losing

36-34 to Hamilton.

EK

COMPLETE WEEK’

WEDNESDAY

Hundreds run

for charity
SPORTS: Page 13

August 22, 1990

: 60 pages 25¢

a :
NEWS photo Cindy Goodman

HUNDREDS OF fish in Lynn Creek died following a bleach spill
from North Vancouver's industrial area. The Department of Fish-
eries is building a case to press charges against the as yet

unidentified polluter.

Fisheries officers single out
business as creek killer culprit

FISHERIES OFFICERS believe they have located the
culprit responsible for a Lynn Creek bleach spill Thursday

which wiped out huadreds

of juvenile salmon and

destroyed virtuasly all life downstream from where the tox-

ic dumping occurred.

The Department of Fisheries is
building a case against the North
Vancouver company suspected of
causing the spill in order to press
charges.

“We have the suspect company.
We're putting a case together right
now,"’ said Lee Nikl, water quali-
tv biologist. with Fisheries and
Oceans.

While Niki declined to identify
the company, he said the spilled
substance, sodium hypochlorite,
commonly known as bleach, is
typically used by companies selling
pool chemicals or washing chemi-
cals.

Both Fisheries and Environment
Canada were alerted to the spill
after receiving calls from alarmed
area residents who had spotted
dead fish in Lynn Creek.

According to Nikl, the bleach
entered Lynn Creck south of
Bridgman Park through a culvert
just below Hunter Street on the
cast side of the creek.

Directly below the culvert,
which is fed by several storm
sewers, all fish were dead. But
just above the culvert, Nikl saw
several healthy juvenile salmon.

The company suspected as being
responsible for the spill was
located by tracing a trail of bleach
through the area storm sewer
system, Nikl said.

ZoAnn Martin, a volunteer with
the sahmonid enhancement pro-
gram of nearby Lyanmour Com-

By Elizabeth Collings
News Reporter

munity School, said she saw hun-
dreds of dead coho, steelhead and
bultheads when she came to the
creek to examine fish released
from her own project.

“There was one area that |

6h We had established a
natural (salmon) run in
Keith Creek and it may
have been wiped out. And
that’s six years of
work,
— ZoAnn Martin

looked in the water and there were
20 dead fish just under one rock,”’
Martin said, adding that there
were so many dead fish that peo-
ple could see them while walking
along the shore.

The dead fish ranged from 2*°
to 7° in size, she said.

Martin said it was impossible to
estimate how many coho survived
of the 6,000 she and fellow volun-
teer Kevin Layton had released in

See Pollution Page 3

She

STINGS: 36