Brooks Secondary School’s Coast Mountain Academy students are learning about the area’s creeks to determine their overall health.
Under instruction and guidance of The Pacific Streamkeepers Federation, a non-profit society based out of North Vancouver, the students ran tests on Willingdon Creek and the stream below Laburnum Avenue. They tested the quality of the water, checked its oxygen content and ran a count on the approximate amount of life in the runs.
The overall goal is to determine which streams and creeks need protection and which are in need of restoration. Zo Ann Morten works with Streamkeepers and came to the community to work with the students and impart her knowledge of streams. She said protecting streams is cheaper, easier, more effective and potentially more important than restoring streams, and programs such as this work toward that end.
Running tests for pH balance, oxygen content and temperature the students found that both Willingdon Creek and the stream near Laburnum Avenue are in very good health in terms of water quality for animals. Students also looked at features of Willingdon Creek to determine if it is a suitable location for salmon spawning. To do this they checked the number of pools versus ripples, determined the relative size of stones and wood in the creek and investigated whether the creek is a suitable habitat for bugs.
“It’s really nice water,” said student Michael Brinton, grade 12. “I didn’t know that each different bug tells you something a little bit different about the water. If they’re there, certain bugs will tell you how clean it is and other ones will tell you the pollution in the water.”
Math came into play as the students calculated how many bugs can be found in a square metre of the creek. Bugs are essential for the waterway to be able to sustain fish. Again, the students found Willingdon Creek to be in relatively good shape and that mayflies, stoneflies and midge flies are present, all of which indicate high water quality and a healthy ecosystem for fish. They estimated 794 bugs live in each square metre of the creek.
The stream below Laburnum Avenue received a clean bill of health. The temperature of the water was an ideal nine degrees, its pH balance was a healthy 7.1 and it had a 105 per cent oxygen content, which was right where it should be. Not many bugs could be found in the creek but academy instructor Ryan Barfoot recently spotted cutthroat trout in the stream, a promising sight.
By showing the health of local streams, the students hope to remind people that everything going down a storm drain ends up in a waterway. Morten said some might see the stream below Laburnum Avenue as a ditch but with these tests it can be seen as a healthy and viable habitat for life.
All it takes is one person dumping paint thinner down one storm drain to compromise the quality of the water in a stream and have a negative impact on life in that waterway.
