The Peninsula Streams Society has re-launched its Keating Industrial Park Watershed Protection Initiative more than a decade after a successful effort to reduce pollution in the nearby watersheds introduced by stormwater run-off from businesses in the area.
The society ran a similar educational campaign in 2006 and 2007, which successfully reduced the amount of pollution in KENNES (Hagan-Graham) and Tetayut creeks, but the society’s continued water quality monitoring found pollution levels have risen in recent years.
“The levels have crept back up as business ownership changes, staff change, so this initiative is really about re-educating those businesses and use positive incentives to care about the watershed. It’s a really beautiful watershed, there are coastal cutthroat trout in the streams, and we really just want to raise people’s level of education about where water goes when it ends up in a storm drain, what kind of habitat is being affected,” said Hannah Grant, an environmental stewardship technician with the society.
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Justin Budyk, also an environmental stewardship technician, said individuals and businesses in the area are not polluting the watersheds intentionally, but their awareness of the impacts themselves and their businesses can have on the surrounding ecosystems can get lost in their day-to-day lives.
That’s why the education campaign is focused on “the carrot over the stick” – working with businesses in the industrial park to find best practises which will help the environment and reward them with things like stickers which can be displayed on storefronts, or even beer coupons from project partner and fellow business park tenant Category 12 Brewing.
“It’s about encouraging participation and hopefully change,” said Budyk.
The initiative will see the society mail out information pamphlets to businesses in the area, and invite them to fill out an online survey which will help the society get a sense of what businesses are operating in the area, reflect on how business practises might lead to stormwater run-off contamination, and help form new best practises which the businesses can use to reduce the chance of pollution reaching the watersheds.
Businesses will also have the option of scheduling a site visit by the society’s knowledgeable staff who can help provide more specific advice. They will also get a pamphlet encouraging them to consider participating in the society’s rain garden project, which would help them install one on their property. Beyond it looking good, rain gardens can also help filter storm run-off before reaching the watershed.
At the end of the survey period, a culminating report will confidentially present the results of the survey to encourage more discussion within the business community.
While they have not found much that needed to change about their business operations since they started participating, Category 12 Brewing co-owner Karen Kuzyk said she and her husband Michael Kuzyk were happy to join in.
“It’s about corporate responsibility and following that up with action,” said Karen. “It’s about motivating good behaviour and hopefully leading by example and not throwing terrible things down the drain … it’s a reflection on the community and the impact we can have on the waterways we have built over.”
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@JSamanski
justin.samanski-langille@goldstreamgazette.com
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