Vancouver is known for its beautiful surroundings. Take a walk along the seawall, gazing out across Burrard Inlet at the North Shore mountains, and you can see why. But imagine what this place was like before the concrete, before a massive port, before all the pollution.

“If you could have a time capsule from the 1750s to now, you’d think you’re on another planet or something, in a toxic wasteland,” Gabriel George, a member of Tsleil-Waututh Nation and director of the nation’s treaty, land and natural resources department, told me earlier this year. “This was an old-growth, ancient cedar rainforest.”

All the urban and industrial development of the past two centuries has taken an immense toll on the inlet — səl̓ilw̓ət as it’s called in the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ language.

It’s not just that cities have been built up around it, or that the natural shoreline has been destroyed in so many places. As I learned, pollution is pouring into the inlet around Canada’s busiest port every day.

There’s runoff from city streets, untreated sewage that still overflows from outdated sewer systems during heavy rainstorms — and then there’s the wastewater laced with everything from heavy metals to toxic chemicals that the B.C. government allows companies to release daily into the inlet. And that’s just the pollution we know about; over the course of this reporting I was sent a video by a source (who asked to remain confidential for fear of reprisal) of an unreported coal spill at one of the terminals along the inlet.

In recent years, Tsleil-Waututh Nation has worked with the province to establish new, more stringent water quality objectives that, if met, could set the stage for the nation to safely harvest food from the inlet once again.

Implementing those objectives — such as ensuring there is no grease or oil in the inlet — could prove challenging. Right now, four companies are authorized by the province to release a total of up to 629 kilograms of oil and grease in a single day. Put another way, that’s 100 bowling balls’ worth of the contaminants. (Oh, and there’s also the not-so-small matter of an increase in tanker traffic now that the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion is up and running.)

If you have 15 minutes, go here to read the full story on how Tsleil-Waututh Nation is pushing for change. Want only the big takeaways? We’ve got five things you need to know about Burrard Inlet pollution. And if you just want to explore which companies are allowed to pollute, check out this map.

Take care and keep an eye on polluters,

Ainslie Cruickshank
B.C. biodiversity reporter

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