Victoria, Canada river mysteriously turns bright green

[MNeagle]

http://nationalpostnews.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/river.jpg?w=620

The water in Goldstream River, at Goldstream Provincial Park, Victoria, flows a bright green, Dec. 29, 2010.



VICTORIA — Horrified nature-lovers at Goldstream Provincial Park watched as the Goldstream River turned bright green late Wednesday afternoon.

The fluorescent green colouring appeared to start about 500 metres on the Victoria side of the entrance to the park and, over the course of an hour, the substance flowed down into the environmentally sensitive estuary.

By 5:30 p.m. the river, known for its dramatic salmon runs, eagles and other wildlife, was back to its normal colour.

Ministry of Environment teams were immediately sent to the area to investigate and members of Langford Fire Department collected samples for analysis.

No dead fish or animals had been found by early evening.

Earlier in the day a fountain beside Veterans Memorial Parkway in Langford also turned bright green, said Langford Fire Chief Bob Beckett.



http://news.nationalpost.com/2010/12/30/victoria-river-mysteriously-turns-bright-green/#ixzz1AB33u8MJ

[Twisted Titan]

St Patricks day starting early????

[Dogman]

Sort of sounds like someone is playing a prank, using dye.

[Ash_Williams]

The comments on that link have a likely answer:


easy answer to this:
My favourite artist, Olafur Eliasson.

He has done this to a few rivers around the world and watches and studies how the public and media react to the river.

http://www.olafureliasson.net/works/green_river_1.html

"Eliasson watches spectators [present and media forms] and studies their responses in a search for new ways of surprising them, of heightening their perceptions. When he talks about his Green River project, for example, it is mostly in terms of how the witnesses react. Green River involves dyeing a river green, and so far he has done it four times. In Tokyo, he says, ‘a lot of people stopped and looked… And of course they were stunned. I did it in a spot where the cherry blossom comes out a month later. It’s well known as a beautiful place. Actually the police came and. basically I ran away. And the police then put up posters asking anybody who had seen somebody suspicious to contact them. [He laughs.] I have a photograph of the poster.’


It is, as he puts it, ‘a kind of action’. He doesn’t seek permission (though he makes sure the dye is safe) and he doesn’t give notice; he also picks fairly small sites and it’s all over in two or three hours. ‘If you do it on a big stage the mediation of the project immediately becomes quite sensational. I’ve tried to avoid that spectacular approach.’ The purpose of the project is the response. ‘Los Angeles, Stockholm, Tokyo are places where the relationship between the water and the city is completely different, and the way people experience and refer to the water in their local setting is very different. It has been interesting for me to investigate that relationship.’"

Read more: http://news.nationalpost.com/2010/12/30/victoria-river-mysteriously-turns-bright-green/#ixzz1ABNYSoyY


Edit: I did a google search on rivers turning green. Any "journalist" with two minutes and an internet connection could have filled in this story with the most likely cause and mention where it had been done before.

[Santa]

Does it have electrolytes?

[MNeagle]

Does it have electrolytes?


lol Santa! I forced myself to sit through that dumb movie, and I'm glad I did. So many references to it everyday.

[SHTF2010]

i've been to the Island / Victoria twice
and if i remember right
Goldstream River is a great place to watch the salmon spawning

[keehah]

If I recall correctly that same river was turned green before several years back as well.
Its a beautiful spot right by a city. Every decade or so the highways department tries to straighten and four-lane the Trans Canada Highway the river shares the little canyon with. The canyon 'constricts' Victoria's sprawl via the highway up island (along the inlet), but so far it has remained protected.

http://historic.wildernesscommittee.org/sooke/reports/Vol18No08/paving/images/04_housing_developments.jpg

[SLV^GLD]

Reminds me of the time some pranksters threw some dishwashing liquid and some red dye in a rather large downtown fountain. Red suds at least a 100' in the air.

[Cobalt]

looks to be the same color as dye packs the navy used to issue for shark repellent and downed pilot locators

[keehah]

This one is real.

http://www.vancouversun.com/travel/4636063.bin

Vancouver Sun: Goldstream River environmental tragedy reminds us of the adage: ‘You don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone’ (http://www.vancouversun.com/travel/foolishly+take+magical+landscape+granted/4651686/story.html)

[April 21, 2011] Goldstream Provincial Park nestles in a cool, damp canyon about 17 kilometres from downtown Victoria. Right next to the Trans Canada Highway, it’s famous for moss-draped 600-year old trees, rare forest orchids, salmon runs that teem into the little river, a nesting population of bald eagles and easy access to these marvels from one of the province’s major cities.

Trails range from rugged to wheelchair accessible. Gentle paths meander with the river as it tumbles between giant maples and cottonwoods toward its estuary, a no-access ecological quiet area. But above the estuary, specially-designed observation platforms provide an unparalleled look at spawning salmon.

More than 600,000 people visited Goldstream last year, among them the school kids who raise salmon as class projects and release them on the spring freshets...

Judith Lavoie of the Victoria Times Colonist reported Tuesday that the gasoline spill is thought to have killed much of the river life downstream. Dead chum, coho, chinook, steelhead, cutthroat trout and small invertebrates have all been found by the federal department of fisheries and oceans and the provincial environment ministry.

Chief Wayne Morris of the Tsartlip First Nation told Lavoie that everything in the river below the spill was dead.

Further afield, clam and oyster harvesting in lower Saanich Inlet has been closed, a blow to five first nations — Tsartlip, Tsawout, Malahat, Pauquachin and Tseycum — which harvest fish, shellfish, waterfowl and plants from the affected area.

Nobody knows how long fragile ecosystems involved will take to recover, so this is far more than the transitory news item.
vancouversun.com/news/Driver+truck+that+spilled+into+Goldstream+Creek+su spected+drunk+driving/ (http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Driver+truck+that+spilled+into+Goldstream+Creek+su spected+drunk+driving/4638092/story.html)

VICTORIA - The driver of the fuel truck that smashed into a rock wall on the Malahat, causing 40,000 litres of gasoline to spill into the adjacent Goldstream Creek, is being investigated for drinking and driving. He is also accused of assaulting a police officer during his arrest.

The 33-year-old Nanaimo man was discharged from Victoria General Hospital without serious injuries shortly after the crash. When two Mounties arrived at the hospital to take the driver to the West Shore RCMP detachment for questioning, he assaulted one of the officers, spokeswoman Const. Julie Chanin said.

[Awoke]

Man, that's too bad. BC is so beautiful.

[osoab]

That sucks.

Is is possible for the water to be flushed enough prior to the salmon runs or have they already occurred?

[keehah]

Unlike say crude oil it should flush and evaporate out quickly.

Small stream life may work downstream from unaffected areas.

This years salmon run took a big hit.

Other year's salmon runs should see a recovered stream (perhaps less food?). So fish will be coming back to spawn.

Some of the future runs will be hit hard, perhaps less abundant species will be even less abundant after 'recovery.'

[osoab]

Unlike say crude oil it should flush and evaporate out quickly.

Small stream life may work downstream from unaffected areas.

This years salmon run took a big hit.

Other year's salmon runs should see a recovered stream (perhaps less food?). So fish will be coming back to spawn.

Some of the future runs will be hit hard, perhaps less abundant species will be even less abundant after 'recovery.'


The run for the next 2 to 4 years will really be impacted. That was this year's newborns. >:(
The biguns are 4-6 years in age I think.

[keehah]

Newsflash: Climbers scrub off the green!

A reality clip of some approaching sensation starved city climbers (I assume, I have never met them) with a fun attitude getting the spirit of the place.
You know who you are, if you like the thought of this little Goldstream canyon here is some crack from a little further north for you. 8)

http://www.youtube.com/v/N6vOY0-waJQ&hl=en_US
p.s. that rock is late cretaceous not jurassic (there were critters)

The more things change, the more our stories remain the same eh?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous

The Cretaceous ended with one of the largest mass extinctions in Earth history, the K-T extinction, when many species, including non-avian dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and large marine reptiles, disappeared...

On land, mammals were a small and still relatively minor component of the fauna. Early marsupial mammals evolved in the Early Cretaceous, with true placentals emerging in the Late Cretaceous period. The fauna was dominated by archosaurian reptiles, especially dinosaurs, which were at their most diverse stage. Pterosaurs were common in the early and middle Cretaceous, but as the Cretaceous proceeded they faced growing competition from the adaptive radiation of birds, and by the end of the period only two highly specialized families remained.

The Liaoning lagerstätte (Chaomidianzi formation) in China provides a glimpse of life in the Early Cretaceous, where preserved remains of numerous types of small dinosaurs, birds, and mammals have been found. The coelurosaur dinosaurs found there represent types of the group Maniraptora, which is transitional between dinosaurs and birds, and are notable for the presence of hair-like feathers.

During the Cretaceous, insects began to diversify...