VOLWS_SALISH_SEA
My blogs
| Industry | Environment |
|---|---|
| Occupation | Retired mechanic, welder, plumber and electrician; now employed full-time arguing with governments, rescuing watersheds and hauling dead boats from the Salish Sea. |
| Location | Victoria, British Columbia _ In the Salish Sea www.slaishsea.ca, Beautiful British Canada , Canada |
| Links | Wishlist |
| Introduction | Veins of Life Watershed Society and the Dead Boats Disposal Society are community organizations protecting and restoring the Salish Sea. Our work began in 1994, when John Roe and his son Wesley started removing garbage from the Gorge Waterway in a small rowboat. That effort grew into decades of restoration, youth training, pollution investigation, shoreline cleanup and abandoned-vessel removal. Our work now reaches beyond the Gorge to Victoria Harbour, Esquimalt Harbour, Juan de Fuca, the Gulf Islands and southern Vancouver Island. We document stormwater pollution, failing sewer infrastructure, contaminated sediments, endocrine disruptors, habitat loss and damage caused by abandoned boats and marine debris. Everything is connected: streets drain to outfalls, outfalls contaminate sediment, sediment affects forage fish and juvenile salmon, and Chinook feed Southern Resident orcas. Source control, intertidal habitat protection and enforcement remain central to our work. Our success belongs to volunteers, First Nations, tradespeople, businesses, scientists, young people and supporters who stood beside us. We continue because the Salish Sea cannot defend itself. People must do that. |
| Interests | Our interests are the protection, restoration and long-term stewardship of the Salish Sea and the watersheds that feed it. We focus on the Gorge Waterway, Portage Inlet, Victoria Harbour, Esquimalt Harbour, Juan de Fuca, southern Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands. Pollution and habitat loss do not stop at municipal boundaries. Our work centres on stormwater runoff, failing sewer infrastructure, cross-connections, contaminated nearshore sediments and the lack of effective source control. We are especially concerned about metals, petroleum hydrocarbons, PAHs, PCBs, dioxins and furans, PFAS, pesticides, plastics, tire-derived chemicals and endocrine-disrupting substances entering creeks, harbours and intertidal habitat. Through the Dead Boats Disposal Society, we work to prevent damage from abandoned, wrecked and sunken vessels. We support vessel inventories, assessments, salvage, removal, recycling, remediation and safe disposal before boats release fuel, batteries, fibreglass, sewage, metals and other contaminants. Habitat protection is central to everything we do. We support restoration of eelgrass, kelp, wetlands, streams, shorelines and intertidal areas, but only when pollution sources are identified and controlled. Cosmetic restoration cannot replace investigation, enforcement and cleanup. We are committed to youth training, volunteer action, public education, Indigenous partnerships, scientific research and transparent government. Governments and industries must be accountable under environmental law. Our ecological focus follows the food web: healthy creeks and sediments support invertebrates and forage fish; nearshore habitat supports juvenile salmon; Chinook salmon support Southern Resident killer whales. Protecting the orcas begins far upstream—at the road, catch basin, storm drain, creek and shoreline. Our interest is simple: stop pollution at its source, repair damaged systems, protect waters and leave a living Salish Sea for future generations. |
| Favorite movies | Pinky and the Brian son Wesley is the Brian and I am Pinky |
| Favorite music | Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa, and Old Country Blues |
| Favorite books | My favourite books are the sort most people use to prop up a wobbly table: environmental reports, engineering studies, government audits, sewer plans, old harbour maps, Fisheries Act decisions, CEPA regulations and several thousand pages explaining why nobody is responsible for anything. For light reading, I enjoy municipal council minutes—especially the exciting parts where a report is mentioned but never attached. Nothing keeps a man awake like discovering that Appendix C has vanished, the stormwater model is outdated and the pollution investigation has been postponed until the next budget cycle. I also read marine salvage manuals, watershed science, contaminated-sediment studies, Indigenous history, ship-recycling standards and anything involving pipes, pumps, boats, cranes or machinery that can be repaired with common sense and a large enough wrench. My fiction collection includes such classics as *The Municipality That Fixed Its Sewers*, *The Regulator Who Actually Enforced the Law*, *The Complete and Accurate Government Record* and the ever-popular fantasy epic *Source Control Before Landscaping*. I am also working through the advanced political series *How to Take Over the World One Storm Drain at a Time*. Volume One covers filing information requests. Volume Two explains how to survive committee meetings. Volume Three reveals the secret technique of asking the same unanswered question for twenty years. My favourite ending is always the same: the pipes are repaired, the pollution stops, salmon return, the orcas thrive—and somebody finally reads the report. |
Why does the taste of pennies remind you of losing a tooth?
Because both involve that metallic taste of blood—and your mouth remembers the Tooth Fairy’s cheapest payment plan.