Hundreds of dead crayfish and coho fry have been found in Langley’s Nicomekl River, and a local biologist believes industrial runoff is to blame.
The spill happened Friday morning, said Jim Armstrong, a biologist who has worked with DFO, Metro Vancouver, and has worked with the Nicomekl Enhancement Society’s hatchery since 2009.
“There were hundreds of crayfish killed,” Armstrong said. Coho fry and young cutthroat have almost completely vanished, with hundreds thought to be killed.
Armstrong suspects the cause is an industrial plant upstream near Fraser Highway that might have washed cement into the creek.
The high pH chemical can burn the gills of creek life.
“It’s not good,” Armstrong said of the impact it will have on the creek’s health. A truck already spilled into one of the river’s tributaries earlier this year, causing a previous fish kill.
Now another major spill has killed an unknown number of immature fish before they could swim out into the Pacific.
“Four years from now, we won’t have the numbers coming back [to spawn],” Armstrong said.
The situation is so bad, Armstrong is considering not releasing any of the 400,000 fry the Nicomekl Hatchery usually releases into this stream.
“We’re going to have to look at other tributaries to release,” he said.
The Nicomekl River flows west through Langley and Surrey into Mud Bay.