Citizens and local officials are fighting to keep contaminated Reay Creek in the spotlight in the hopes this will spur clean-up action by the federal government.
Residents are staging a rally today from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the corner of Westbrook and Northbrook drives in Sidney. Speeches begin at 11 a.m.
“At issue is the cadmium and chromium that have been dumped in the creek from years of industrial activity at the airport,” said Bill Collins, spokesman for the group Residents of Reay Creek.
The state of the creek is a long-standing issue on the Saanich Peninsula.
Much of the contamination is believed to have originated from the airport lands over more than half a century.
A dam was built in the 1950s by a farmer and that formed Reay Creek Pond where some of the major pollution concerns are focused.
The Town of Sidney bought land in the 1980s and created a park that includes the pond.
Reay Creek’s watershed includes Victoria International Airport lands, owned by Transport Canada and leased to the Victoria Airport Authority. The airport authority has carried out an improvement project on Reay Creek to reduce contamination and has been implementing measures to reduce runoff from the site.
Transport Canada has announced it will “continue to work with other federal government departments to classify the Reay Creek site using the National Classification System for Contaminated Sites,” spokeswoman Sau Sau Liu said in a statement.
“Transport Canada is committed to managing its contaminated sites in a responsible manner.”
It assesses risks to human health and the environment and then sets priorities for allocating resources, she said.
A group created to tackle the problem includes federal, provincial, and municipal governments and the airport authority. A consultant’s report for Sidney found high levels of some metals in the pond.
Sidney Mayor Steve Price is attending the rally to speak in support of residents’ desire for the site to be cleaned up. “The neighbourhood would like to see it done sooner rather than later because it has dragged on for quite a while.”
Transport Minister Marc Garneau recently wrote Price stating that his federal department is working on the matter.
“So we are moving in the right direction,” Price said. There are a number of options for dealing with the contamination, he said. It depends on how much money the federal government is willing to devote to the project.
