To the Editor,
Re: What we know about the Mount Polley spill, Opinion, Aug. 21.
I read with great interest the Tom Fletcher column on the mine spill where he says only one trout was a fatality of the spill. I have worked in the fisheries consulting business and run the Stream Keepers stewardship society for the past 15-plus years after being a commercial fisherman. For him to say only one fish died as a result is, in my humble opinion, misleading to the general public. To clarify, there was sediment flowing all throughout the stream leading downstream to the lake, from my experience, unless that stream was bone dry then there would have been thousands of coho fry and other fish, trouts, sculpins, sticklebacks, etc. along with all the invertebrates that got wiped out when inundated with so much sediment that it totally filled the channel all the way to the lake.
As it reads, this columnist looks like he is an apologist for the mining company.
John Dunnvia e-mail