A spill of about a litre of melted ice and pigment from Port Moody arena into Noons Creek last Wednesday wasn’t toxic.
And it wasn’t the first time it has happened.
The spill occurred at 3:30 p.m. and was quickly spotted by a resident, who alerted arena staff, said Lesley Douglas, the city’s general manager of environment and parks. It was caused when a valve that is supposed to ensure there’s no spillage from a catchment basin where melted ice is dumped failed to close fully, likely because of trapped debris.
Douglas said staff capped the drain at the creek as soon as they were alerted, then cleared the valve so it could close properly. She said the pigment is not considered harmful by hazardous product regulations and the hazard communication standard. Still, the city did report it to Emergency Management BC “as a precautionary measure.”
Brian Wormald, the past president of the Port Moody Ecological Society, which operates the Noons Creek Hatchery just downstream from the arena, said this has happened before and, given the proximity of the arena to the creek, it’s an ongoing “complication.”
He said the city is “between a rock and a hard place” when it comes to disposing of the ice because it can’t afford to remove parking to accommodate a new location for the catchment basin.
He said “the incidents are rare enough that it has no lasting effect on the creek,” adding that vigilant observers are always quick to spot anything unusual in the water.
Still, Wormald said members of the society will keep an eye on the creek “over the next little while” to ensure there are no lasting effects from the latest incident.
Lafarge Lake spill not a spill
A minor spill on Lafarge Lake last Tuesday turned out not to be a spill at all.
Brad Lofgren, Coquitlam’s director of public works, said Monday the results of tests taken on water samples collected before city crews cleaned up the contamination showed the amount of hydrocarbons were below detectable limits. He said the sheen along the lake’s west bank that caught the eye of a passerby and prompted a response from Coquitlam Fire and Rescue was likely a byproduct of naturally decaying organic matter.
