Saddened organizers of Sunday’s cancelled Gorge Swim Fest are hoping that as many as 1,000 would-be swimmers kept on land by unknown contamination will have a chance to take part in another mass swim in a couple of weeks.
For now, they’re waiting for Island Health test results from contamination samples taken from a creek under Craigflower Road that feeds into the Gorge Waterway.
“I’ve had better days,” Jack Meredith, president of the Gorge Swim Fest Society, said from the Banfield Park dock in Vic West on Sunday afternoon.
“It was really sad that we had to do it,” he said, as given the hot sunny weather, he anticipated a record number of participants swimming and getting out the message that the Gorge is clean. “We’ve had a couple of hundred people pass through and offer their condolences that such a beautiful waterway is at risk through somebody’s ignorance.”
The irony is that it happened on a weekend designed to highlight the cleanliness of the Gorge as a swimming place for the region.
Organizers learned Saturday night about 8 p.m. that there was “fairly significant” contamination to the creek, a scummy effect that extended for about 100 metres, Meredith said.
“The odour was very pungent,” he said, adding that sewage-like smells can arise from a number of anaerobic situations. He has no idea how long the situation has prevailed.
The decision was made to take no chances on anyone suffering ill effects from swimming. As far as Meredith knows, no one decided to jump in, given the warning signs posted.
“People have been very responsible,” he said.
Island Health spokeswoman Janet Shute said that results of samples taken at the contaminated site are expected as early as Monday. It is not believed to be the result of a major break in a sewer line.
Esquimalt’s engineering department has taken the lead on the issue, and has installed a boom across the creek to prevent leakage into the Gorge. Signs have been posted at the creek warning people not to use the water for recreation, she added.
Esquimalt is working in concert with the health authority and the Capital Regional District. Spill B.C. has also been notified, she added.
Last week, Meredith pulled a bicycle, a stereo and a discarded bear costume from the waterway, indications that many people think that the Gorge is dirty and therefore a dumping ground when the reverse is true. Such serious misunderstandings create pollution by leading people who don’t know any better to assume it’s OK to pour something down a drain rather than disposing of it in an environmentally safe way.
Whatever people put into the water will eventually work its way into the water system, he said.
“We’ve got to take care of the Gorge. It’s clean, and let’s keep it clean. Tell everyone you know that we’ve got to keep the Gorge clean.”
The major cleanup took place in the 1990s, and since then water-quality tests have shown good results. The Veins of Life Watershed Society was started in 1994 by John Roe and his son Wesley as a cleanup effort on the Gorge.
Meredith said he is looking into whether lifeguards can be arranged for a Sunday a couple of weeks from now, along with facilities such as a temporary dock from the Greater Victoria Harbour Authority to relaunch the annual swim.
Rob Wickson, president of the Gorge Tillicum Neighbourhood Association, was alerted to the contamination in Esquimalt Gorge Park, once known as Kinsmen Park, and contacted the swim’s organizers, who cancelled out of an abundance of caution.
“We posted signs at Curtis Point, the dock at Gorge Bridge and Kosapsum Park.”
“We don’t know where it comes from and what it is,” Wickson said.
The cancellation underscores the need to strengthen storm water regulations in the region, Wickson said.
“We really need to manage our stormwater better. Any time you have a rain, all the water goes into the Gorge from Victoria General Hospital to Elk-Beaver Lake,” he said. And that stormwater contains fuel oil or lawn fertilizers and other harmful substances that end up in the waterway, he said.
