Ignorance kills 1000 fish

A fish kill in Vancouver's last wild salmon-bearing stream is being blamed on ignorance.

Staff with the Musqueam First Nation say the incident happened in the last week of September as fisheries workers were checking discharge from a storm sewer on the edge of the reserve in southwest Vancouver.

Musqueam fisheries manager Richard Sparrow says the workers noted a strong smell of chlorine coming from Musqueam Creek and found more than 1,000 dead spine stickleback, coho salmon and rainbow trout.

The workers followed a hose back to a home in a nearby upscale development where Sparrow says the residents were pumping out their swimming pool, sending the chlorinated water gushing into the storm sewer.

He says it's difficult that negligence has set back years of restoration work on the creek and wants to emphasize the damage caused when household chemicals are dumped into storm sewers.

Environment Canada has been notified of the fish kill. (News1130)