Chafer battle may harm salmon in the city

By Dan Hlborn
Published June 15, 2005


One of the most active streamkeepers in Burnaby is trying to stop his neighbours from using a popular chemical insecticide to combat a new scourge on city lawns.

Paul Cipywnyk, a member of the Byrne Creek Streamkeepers, said the use of the insecticide Merit to battle the European chafer beetle could result in the loss of spawning salmon in Burnaby's many creeks and streams.

"This kills bugs, and that's bad because that's what the fish in the creek survive on," said Cipywnyk, who lives in a strata title condominium complex adjacent to Byrne Creek.

While Cipywnyk has already convinced his own building management company not to use the spray, he is hearing reports that other buildings are unaware of the potentially deadly impact of the chemical on spawning salmon and may unknowingly use the spray.

"Last year was probably the best spawning year that Burnaby has seen in decades, and salmon are back in creeks where people haven't seen them in ages," said Cipywnyk, who notes that a record 91 coho and chum salmon returned to his favourite creek last year.

And, after nearly 20 years of environmental work by a variety of community groups, record salmon spawning returns have also been noted in other areas of the city. For instance, last year the Stoney Creek Streamkeepers found spawning salmon on Burnaby Mountain for the first time since the 1950s, while this spring, coho salmon fry were spotted in Beecher Creek, at the northwest side of Burnaby Lake.

Cipywnyk said coho salmon fry are especially susceptible to chemicals because they have to live in the local creeks for up to a year before they head out to sea.

The chemical Merit, which is manufactured by Bayer CropScience Inc. of Calgary, is a particular concern because its active ingredient, Imidacloprid, is water- soluble and stays active in the ground for up to 90 days. The chemical's label includes a warning that the spray is not to be applied within 30 metres of "environmentally sensitive areas such as lakes, streams, rivers or other aquatic systems."

Cipywnyk said Burnaby has an extensive network of storm drains that feed directly into the many salmon-bearing creeks and, if the chemical was to enter the storm sewer system, it could flow into the streams and kill salmon runs throughout the city.

Cipywnyk said officials at the federal pest management regulatory agency were taken aback by his claim that Burnaby's storm drains should be considered an aquatic habitat. And officials at the B.C. Ministry of Water, Land and Air Protection said chemical treatments to eradicate insects should only be used as a last resort.

"We don't have data to say if you spray, bugs will definitely die and fish will starve," he said. "But, judging from all these scary labels of what it can do to the water bugs, we're taking the position, why go this far when there are other measures that can be tried first to control the chafer?"

Cipywnyk also said that the City of Burnaby deserves credit for trying to promote the use of non-toxic methods to control the spread of the chafer beetle.

Yota Hatziantoniou, an environmental technician in the engineering department at Burnaby city hall, said she has been talking to local garden product distributors to inform them about the hazards of insecticides and to promote the use of naturally occurring biological agents to battle the pests.

While the chafer can be discouraged simply by maintaining a healthy lawn, Hatziantoniou said homeowners could plant more flower beds and vegetable gardens or take other steps to prevent the insect from establishing itself in a neighbourhood.

"If you want a lawn, it will require maintenance," she said. "But if you have the European chafer beetle, one thing you should do is look at alternatives."

Hatziantoniou said chafer beetles burrow into the shallow root systems of unhealthy lawns, where they lay their eggs which grown into larvae, which are in turn sought out by birds, particularly crows, which rip up the lawns in their zeal to eat the grubs.

Chafer beetles have been a recognized nuisance in New Westminster for at least three years and are now spreading their way across Burnaby. This year, they have been spotted in the northwest corner of the city for the first time.

Hatziantoniou said one of the easiest ways to foil the bugs is to allow the lawn to grow a little longer than usual, which makes it more difficult for the beetles to lay their eggs in the fibrous roots. "When you have a taller lawn, you also promote deeper root growth, which is more resistant to bugs," she said.

Another alternative that should be available at local garden centres over the next few weeks is nematodes - worms - which will eat the chafer larva, Hatziantoniou said.

"The city is trying to view this in a positive light," she said. "In a sense, the European chafer issue provides an opportunity to teach about healthy lawn techniques from an environmental perspective. ... It's kind of a good way to get the message across, and we're hoping people will follow some of those recommendations."

A pamphlet outlining alternatives to chemical use on local lawns was mailed out to every homeowner in Burnaby along with the city tax notices, and more information should be available at local lawn and garden centres before the end of the month.

Whoppers fight their way up creek

Spawning salmon return to Stoney Creek for the first time in 50 years
By Dan Hilborn
Published Nov. 10, 2004


Local Streamkeepers are ecstatic this week after discovering mature spawning salmon have made their way to the upper reaches of Stoney Creek for the first time in more than 50 years.

Spawning pairs of coho and chum salmon are now splashing their way past the culvert under the Lougheed Highway and are laying their eggs just metres away from nearby homes, schools and roads.

"This is incredible," said Jennifer Atchison, the head steward for the waterway and founder of the Stoney Creek environment committee. "Children from Stoney Creek school have been releasing coho into that creek for the past 14 years, and now we're finally seeing them come back."

However, Atchison is cautioning her neighbours to respect the fish and make sure that children, pets or others do not wander into the water, where they could disturb the fish and interfere with the salmon's ability to procreate.

"The fish down there are huge - 10 pounds or more - so I know people will be absolutely shocked when they see them," she said. "I want to make sure that people and their dogs don't go into the water. People have to learn to live with the fish."

Atchison said the revitalization of the creek is a long-term success story that started in the early 1960s when members of the Sapperton Fish and Game Club began their work to bring salmon back to the Brunette River.

By the 1980s, after fish began returning to the Brunette, local environmental groups turned their focus to the river's tributaries, such as Stoney Creek and the other streams that flow off Burnaby Mountain.

She credited the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), Burnaby city hall and the GVRD for working together to make a series of improvements to the waterway over the past 10 years that allowed the salmon to make the trip back up Burnaby Mountain.

The final obstacle in the fish's path was cleared last summer when a baffle was installed on the culvert under the highway, allowing the fish to make their way past the new secondary school and up Burnaby Mountain.

The fish have been spotted as far north as the Broadway connector, near the intersection with North Road.

Atchison said the return of the salmon is a phenomenal success story, especially considering all the new development in the neighbourhood over the past few years.

"When the high school went up and the SkyTrain was built we went looking for community partners and that effort paid off," she said. "In fact, the stream was actually maintained at its previous level or made better. We really worked hard to ensure that would happen, and it worked."

Maurice Coulter-Boisvert, the DFO community advisor on the north side of the Fraser River, said the return of the fish took years to accomplish, and pointed to the 1996 installation of a stone weir on the Brunette River as one of the major achievements.

Coulter-Boisvert also urged neighbours to use caution when viewing the fish.

"What we have here is a treasure worth preserving," he said. "For those who are not aware of the significance of this, it's a very important thing to a lot of people. Put it this way - if we don't have healthy salmon, it speaks to what we can expect as humans living in the same environments."

Local Streamkeeper Vladimir Soukhatchev, a fisheries biologist who conducts an average of 19 water quality tests on Stoney Creek each week, said the Stoney Creek environment committee is still concerned about high conductivity readings coming from two small tributaries flowing from the top of the hill.

While the main stem of Stoney Creek has an average conductivity level of 130 - which is more than adequate to maintain healthy fish - one of the small tributaries often has readings as high as 3,000. Soukhatchev believes the problem comes from the storage of road salt at an SFU maintenance yard.

Another small tributary coming from the centre of the SFU Discovery Park site has conductivity readings that are twice as high as the main stream, but that problem could probably be resolved with very little effort, he said.

"But most of the tributaries are good, and the main stem of Stoney Creek is unbelievably good, but we can still improve this," said Soukhatchev, who worked at the Novo Sibirks scientific centre on the Ob River in Siberia before moving to Burnaby five years ago.