Historically, industrial man has been accustomed to using our waterways as a dumping ground for unwanted waste. Sadly this has led to our ocean becoming a toxic soup for animals and plants. Agricultural fertilizer runoff cause algal blooms. Inefficient or excessive garbage has caused many massive garbage (mostly plastic) islands to appear in the oceans and has had an adverse impact on seabirds and sea mammals. Chemicals are dumped down sewers and fish are killed immediately. In Burnaby Byrne Creek has had too many such incidents in the past few years; so many in fact that an initiative called “Stream of Dreams” was launched to educate the residents about chemical pollutants in drains.

Our Federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans has introduced a program where community groups can paint or glue a yellow fish marker on the storm drain on their street. The yellow fish indicates that the sewer water goes to an area where there are fish and other sealife and we should be vigilant about not dumping pollutants and garbage down the drains. These kits are available through the City of Vancouver. This program should be expanded so that every street in Vancouver has yellow fish on every drain and every resident knows that the yellow fish means no toxic substances in the drains, even if that means buying a green car-washing fluid.

http://www.pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/sep-pmvs/sci-icp/stormdrain-collecteur-eng.htm
http://www.streamofdreams.org