‘Raw sewage and burnt horse hooves’: Another toxic spill found in Hope Slough

Members of the Cheam and Sqwá First Nations said they discovered a pipe spewing industrial waste into the Hope Slough near Rosedale.

Toxic waste has ended up in a fish-bearing waterway in the Fraser Valley for the second time since September.

Members of the Cheam and Sqwá First Nations said they recently discovered a pipe spewing industrial waste into the Hope Slough near Rosedale.

In September, the Nations said a toxic spill in the same slough may have killed up to 1,000 juvenile salmon.

In this latest case, a thick and white foamy substance could be seen for kilometres along the waterway where adult coho salmon are currently migrating.

“This pipe is a permanent fixture which leads us to believe that this is not a one-time offence but an ongoing polluter to these environmentally crucial waterways,” the Cheam First Nation said in a statement.

The Nation said the Ministry of Environment declined to respond to the spill so it is covering the cost of the cleanup.

“It had a smell similar to raw sewage and burnt horse hooves,” Roxanna Kooistra with the Cheam First Nation Environmental Department told Global News.

“It was disgusting. You could smell it from far away. When they tested the water they were able to tell that the dissolved oxygen, which is what fish require to survive, was at zero. That means it would suffocate any fish in its path.”