A green dye seen in a part of Bower Creek on Friday was put in the water intentionally to test drain connections, says the District of Saanich.
The green dye was noticed Friday afternoon by a resident, who also found more than a dozen paint cans nearby.
That prompted questions about the origins of the dye and concerns that it was a pollutant.
The District of Saanich did not immediately respond to questions about the incident late Friday afternoon but said Monday that a contractor used green dye to confirm connections to the drain main.
The paint cans, which were unrelated to the green colour in the water, have been cleared away by Saanich crews, a district spokesperson said.
The green colouring came just days after spray paint cans and litter were found caught in branches in the creek near Haultain Street, about a kilometre away from Friday’s site, said Soren Henrich, director of the Friends of Bowker Creek Society.
In that case, small amounts of orange and white paint were leaking from the cans and swirling on the surface, Henrich said.
“It’s not good. We’re trying to improve the habitat in the creek itself. Having paint in the creek is definitely not going to be good for anything in the creek,” he said.
The society placed 38,000 salmon eggs in Bowker Creek in late January and they could hatch any day now, Henrich said.
They’re hoping to bring salmon back to the creek, “which would be a big deal, because they haven’t been observed in 70 years.”
Henrich asked anyone who sees pollution in the creek to report it to the relevant municipality to be cleaned up.
regan-elliott@timescolonist.com
