Jump to content

      



























Photo

Gorge Swim Fest - Gorge Waterway Action Society


  • Please log in to reply
62 replies to this topic

#21 Holden West

Holden West

    Va va voom!

  • Member
  • 9,058 posts

Posted 14 August 2012 - 01:46 PM

For me, air temperature is Celsius, swimming water is Fahrenheit. Go figure. I'm considering taking the plunge but Mrs. West refuses, equating the Gorge with its toxic past.
"Beaver, ahoy!""The bridge is like a magnet, attracting both pedestrians and over 30,000 vehicles daily who enjoy the views of Victoria's harbour. The skyline may change, but "Big Blue" as some call it, will always be there."
-City of Victoria website, 2009

#22 Mike K.

Mike K.
  • Administrator
  • 83,184 posts

Posted 14 August 2012 - 04:28 PM

Mrs. West doesn't know what she's missing!

Know it all.
Citified.ca is Victoria's most comprehensive research resource for new-build homes and commercial spaces.


#23 G-Man

G-Man

    Senior Case Officer

  • Moderator
  • 13,800 posts

Posted 14 August 2012 - 09:40 PM

I would be game for a VV swim meet.

Visit my blog at: https://www.sidewalkingvictoria.com 

 

It has a whole new look!

 


#24 martini

martini
  • Member
  • 2,670 posts

Posted 15 August 2012 - 09:38 PM

Where exactly is Curtis Point? What's the current temperture? Cowichan lake was in the mid-seventies last week, great for swimming.


From the parking lot at Gorge Park...go left along the path all the way behind the condos. That's Curtis Point.

It's usually 70 plus.

Tonight we were there until sunset.

#25 JohnN

JohnN
  • Member
  • 2,172 posts

Posted 31 August 2012 - 03:11 PM

Is the Gorge actually safe for swimming?

ROB WIPOND
FOCUS ONLINE
SEPTEMBER 2012

Safety pronouncements for the waterway relate strictly to fecal coliform—but what about industrial chemicals?

My sense of place spins like I’m in a celebratory party version of Hitchcock’s Vertigo. Wow, I’m splashing in a Bermuda bay amidst California beach boys and Hawaiian dancing girls! No, my mind reminds me as I flutter about in warm ocean waters below a fervent August sun: This is downtown Victoria, British Columbia, and I just dove into the Gorge inlet.

It shouldn’t be so unexpected and disorienting. The Gorge’s shallow waters can take two months to turn over during dry summers, and so hover above a balmy 20 degrees celsius. But decades of unregulated pollution from industrial, sewage, boating, and urban sources transformed the once-popular swimming area into a liquid dump peppered with designated contaminated sites concentrated with lead, mercury, hydrocarbons, PCBs and more.

READ MORE:
http://focusonline.ca/?q=node/432
:)

#26 ZGsta

ZGsta
  • Member
  • 573 posts

Posted 31 August 2012 - 03:17 PM

VIHA: "We can't tell you if it's contaminated because that's up to the Ministry of Environment."
Ministry of Environment: "Yeah we can't comment on whether it's contaminated, you'll have to check with VIHA."

Classic

#27 martini

martini
  • Member
  • 2,670 posts

Posted 31 August 2012 - 09:57 PM

VIHA: "We can't tell you if it's contaminated because that's up to the Ministry of Environment."
Ministry of Environment: "Yeah we can't comment on whether it's contaminated, you'll have to check with VIHA."

Classic


The political Teflon in this article was a cross between entertaining and frightening.

#28 JohnN

JohnN
  • Member
  • 2,172 posts

Posted 01 September 2012 - 05:20 AM

Too bad Focus couldn't have printed the startling CRD Stormwater problem discharges map that CRD included in their Core Area 2007 Stormwater Quality report (page 5, Figure B map) - it would have made quite a "splash"!

Interesting that while the CRD report identified so many Gorge waterway stormwater discharges as having health and/or environmental concerns, the City of Victoria "Creation of a Stormwater Utility" in 2011 made no mention of the 2007 CRD report and only briefly noted that the CRD's sewage management committee (CALWMC) has some sort of responsibility for stormwater.

The incredibly costly and unnecessary CRD land-based sewage treatment plant will do absolutely nothing to reduce stormwater public health and environmental-issue discharges.
:)

#29 Bernard

Bernard
  • Member
  • 5,056 posts
  • LocationVictoria BC

Posted 05 September 2012 - 04:39 PM

The Gorge was never a location for any significant chemical contaminants - that was all below the trestle. There are few new pollutnats being added to the water in the Harbour so everything that one needs to worry about is buried in the sediment. What I have seen of the sediment testing in the Gorge indicates there are no issues to worry about.

As to the to stormwater problems identified in 2007, most have been dealt with in the Gorge

#30 Jacques Cadé

Jacques Cadé
  • Member
  • 932 posts

Posted 05 September 2012 - 05:13 PM

Five years ago I went kayaking in the Gorge and encountered several "Mr. Floaties" enroute. So until yachts are banned from the waterway, I'm sticking to lakes and swimming pools.

More reasons to think twice about Gorge swimming are at concerns. Sure, the pollution is mainly in the Inner Harbour, but most of the water in the Gorge washes through there.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to swim in the Gorge. But I'd give it another 20 years, combined with strict enforcement against all new pollution.

#31 JohnN

JohnN
  • Member
  • 2,172 posts

Posted 05 September 2012 - 05:33 PM

The Gorge was never a location for any significant chemical contaminants - that was all below the trestle. There are few new pollutnats being added to the water in the Harbour so everything that one needs to worry about is buried in the sediment. What I have seen of the sediment testing in the Gorge indicates there are no issues to worry about.

As to the to stormwater problems identified in 2007, most have been dealt with in the Gorge


- Very reassuring! Grateful for references you might have that support statements?

- Gorge never a location for chemical contaminants. Presume you don't mean fecal, human and animal contamination, but rather oils, heavy metals, PCBs, etc? Over the years, massive amounts of chemical contaminants have entered the Gorge waterway south of the trestle so what would stop some fraction of that contamination from migrating north with current when fresh water outflow is low, especially with disturbance of Working Harbour sediments by marine vessel activity?

- New contaminants being added might include (but not be limited to) the 1,000 litre home heating fuel oil spill into Colquitz Creek (thence into Gorge) in November, 2011. That single spill got into the newspapers because of its size and circumstances, but probably an equal amount of oils are seeping through ground and through storm drains into the Gorge every month without media coverage because the leaks are widely distributed throughout the Colquitz and Craigflower Creek watersheds, directly through the many storm drains and through non-point source runoff into the Gorge waterway.

- Top layers of waterway sediment bottom may be frequently being disturbed and entrained in flow through actions of harbour shipping, especially at low tide when propellers closer to bottom. As the Focus article noted, work on the Johnson Street Bridge (especially dredging around the bridge) has resulted in sediment disturbance.

- Sediment testing? When? By whom? If you are aware of a more-recent map showing improvement over the 2007 CRD health/envirornment problem map, grateful you share it? The 2007 Core Area Storm water report noted that there would be a 2012 annual report:
2011: the annual sampling program is restarted to survey stormwater discharges and determine public health ratings
2012: annual stormwater program reporting starts


- so we'll wait until that 2012 report is released to read that "...most have been dealt with in the Gorge"?
:)

#32 Bingo

Bingo
  • Member
  • 16,666 posts

Posted 05 September 2012 - 09:34 PM

The Gorge was never a location for any significant chemical contaminants - that was all below the trestle. There are few new pollutnats being added to the water in the Harbour so everything that one needs to worry about is buried in the sediment.


Before regulations were tightened, the old toxic bottom paint being removed from vessels at the shipyard would have gone into the sea, and carried up the Gorge on a flood tide.

I would guess that some of the current livaboards just West of the Selkirk Trestle do not have holding tanks, and if they do are being pumped over the side and flushed up the Gorge with the current.

Then there is the years of pollution sitting in Rock Bay that is going to take coffer dams and millions of dollars to clean up.

What about the recent installation of the new Telus duct just North of the Johnson Street Bridge? Anyone see precautions being taken at that time?

Contaminants do not immediately settle into the sediment, so could have being carried well up the Gorge before settling to the bottom.

#33 Bernard

Bernard
  • Member
  • 5,056 posts
  • LocationVictoria BC

Posted 07 May 2013 - 10:20 AM

The warm weather means the water in the Gorge was more than warm enough to go swimming yesterday.

VIHA sampling continues to show fecal coliform counts lower than the lakes in the region.

#34 JohnN

JohnN
  • Member
  • 2,172 posts

Posted 07 May 2013 - 10:36 AM

The warm weather means the water in the Gorge was more than warm enough to go swimming yesterday.

VIHA sampling continues to show fecal coliform counts lower than the lakes in the region.


Interesting - VIHA's Beach Reports don't appear yet, given that their idea of a swimming season would start later:

http://www.viha.ca/m...ach_reports.htm

However, CRD's sampling of health and environmental problems with storm sewer drainage into the Gorge appears to have improved marginally from 2007 to 2011, still showing some problem drainage points on the Gorge:

https://sites.google.com/site/sewageplantsvictoria/Home/crd-s-problem-storm-drains
:)

#35 Bernard

Bernard
  • Member
  • 5,056 posts
  • LocationVictoria BC

Posted 18 July 2013 - 04:43 PM

There is a Swing Fest for this year on August 11th

Here is a short video of a photo shoot being done as promo for swim fest

acD-0laf2Tw

#36 HB

HB
  • Banned
  • 7,975 posts

Posted 18 July 2013 - 07:13 PM

Quick!!!.
Somebody call the authroities .
These adults are letting innocent children swim in an area where residents claim the water is highly polluted with feces and urine and oil and all kinds of garbage that is being thrown off the dereclict boats in the background.
Someone on VV even claimed that there is a danger of these boats exploding or catching fire due to them having propane on board...

Why are these kids being aloowed to have fun in such a dangerous part of town?

Why in gods name are they having a swimfest in a water body littered with human dung??

The trestle may catch fire and a burning peice of creosote coated log may float towards these kids and stick to them,.


Ill tell you why....because there is no danger and there is no crap floating in the area.


this video sure doesnt do any justice to the nimbys' cause ...

#37 Bingo

Bingo
  • Member
  • 16,666 posts

Posted 27 February 2014 - 06:53 AM

A 50-year old man is dead after he was pulled out of the Gorge Waterway.

The man was pulled out of the water near the TillicumBridge yesterday afternoon and was rushed to the hospital in serious condition.

 

 

http://www.cfax1070....from-Gorge-dies



#38 VicHockeyFan

VicHockeyFan
  • Suspended User
  • 52,121 posts

Posted 19 December 2015 - 05:38 PM

A substance discovered in Gorge Creek Nov. 30 has been identified as kerosene.

 

While trace amounts remain near the outfall that feeds the creek, the cleanup is expected to wind down during the coming week. It does not appear that any wildlife has been affected, said Jeff Miller, Esquimalt’s director of engineering and public works.

 

“Our crews have been down there on a daily basis and we haven’t seen any animals in distress,” he said.

 

Esquimalt crews have traced the spill back to the Colville Road/Carrie Street area, and have determined it was caused by a one-time illegal discharge into a manhole.

 

- See more at: http://www.timescolo...h.GqNkH1JC.dpuf

 

 

Kerosene?  What are we, in 1922?


<p><span style="font-size:12px;"><em><span style="color:rgb(40,40,40);font-family:helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">"I don’t need a middle person in my pizza slice transaction" <strong>- zoomer, April 17, 2018</strong></span></em></span>

#39 Rob Randall

Rob Randall
  • Member
  • 16,310 posts

Posted 19 December 2015 - 06:02 PM

Kerosene?  What are we, in 1922?


Yep, whale oil is so 1921, chap.

The kerosene was probably being used as a degreaser.

#40 VicHockeyFan

VicHockeyFan
  • Suspended User
  • 52,121 posts

Posted 19 December 2015 - 06:32 PM

The kerosene was probably being used as a degreaser.

 

The old de-greaser trick eh?

 

If people would not over-grease in the first place, we would not have to clean up after the fact so much...


  • Daveyboy likes this
<p><span style="font-size:12px;"><em><span style="color:rgb(40,40,40);font-family:helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">"I don’t need a middle person in my pizza slice transaction" <strong>- zoomer, April 17, 2018</strong></span></em></span>

You're not quite at the end of this discussion topic!

Use the page links at the lower-left to go to the next page to read additional posts.
 



0 user(s) are reading this topic

0 members, 0 guests, 0 anonymous users