The City of Victoria will not be closing beach areas in the Gorge Waterway after allegations surfaced on social media that a business in the Burnside-Gorge area has been dumping wastewater into stormwater drains.
On Wednesday (July 15) an anonymous Reddit user on the r/VictoriaBC forum wrote that they worked at a "semi-industrial" site in the Burnside-Gorge area, and claimed the workplace had dumped close to one million litres of "chemically altered water" and various chemicals down a storm drain outside of the workplace, which spurred investigations from multiple municipal governments, and provincial and federal government agencies.
According to an email from the City of Victoria, the city received results of water tests done in Cecelia Creek, a tributary of the Gorge, that were spur after photos posted on X on July 8 that showed the creek turned almost completely white, which the Reddit poster claimed that "it was most likely us as well."
"Island Health has informed us that there is no need to close beach areas, including the Banfield Park dock," noted the emailed statement from the city. "Further analysis of the test results will be coming from the [Capital Regional District] and Island Health in the coming days."
The city says no new visible spills have been reported since Tuesday, July 16, and the investigation continues to find the source of the spill.
