City to crack down on False Creek marinas
Facilities must provide sewage pump-out for vessel owners or face a $1,000 fine
Marinas in False Creek have until next January to provide sewage pump-out facilities for boat owners, and Vancouver is backing its bylaw with a stiff $1,000 fine for non-compliance.
The city will spend $75,000 to bring back a free mobile pumpout service to service live-aboard and recreational boaters — probably from May to September — to discourage sewage dumping and promote awareness of practices that have long fouled the waters of False Creek.
The changes expand the city’s ability to issue tickets to marinas and include a broader definition of prohibited waste, according to Margot Davis, manager of environmental services.
Boaters that cause, permit or allow discharge of any “polluting substance” into the water will be subject to a fine up to $10,000.
As housing in the region has become increasingly expensive, more people appear to be living aboard their boats full time.
A staff report from 2015 suggested “a primary contributor to E. coli contamination in False Creek is sewage dumping from marinas and recreational vessels (e.g. live-aboards not connected to the sewer system, fishing boats, pleasure crafts).”
Marinas in False Creek provide moorage for about 2,800 vessels.
At the time of the 2015 report, the east end of False Creek tested positive for a staggering 2,226 E. coli/100 mL, more than 10 times the limit for swimming. Levels above 200 E. coli/100 mL are deemed unsafe for swimming.
Dive inspections under marinas confirmed “evidence of sewage over extensive areas of the seabed,” according to a city report.
Since then, the city and the park board have stepped up enforcement on sewage dumping and offered free pump-outs at Heather and Burrard civic marinas, in addition to a pilot mobile service that ran last August through October.
The mobile service attended to 169 vessels and took in 22,000 litres of waste.
Live-aboard boater Shawn Wilson has used the mobile pump-out service several times and rates the experience as “great.”
He worries that not enough boaters at the city’s civic marinas are taking the time to dispose of waste properly.
“Many either don’t have or don’t use their holding tanks and pump (sewage) into the water,” he said.
But Wilson says the city itself is a major contributor to the sewage problem.
“The anchored live-aboard boaters usually get the flack, even though there is raw sewage flowing into False Creek,” he said.
The city is working to remove cross-connections between the city’s sewage system and the storm service pipes, and to better manage run-off, but may fall short of its stated goal to make False Creek “safely swimmable” by this summer.
“There are three combined sewer overflows that go into False Creek and two of the three systems are 95 per cent separated,” said Davis.
The third system is shared infrastructure, which is being addressed jointly by the city and Metro Vancouver.
E. coli levels can be “quite sporadic,” but there is a sense that all of the actions taken together are having a positive effect on the health of False Creek, said Davis, noting that marine wildlife has been observed on Habitat Island near the Olympic Village.
In a Vancouver Coastal Health 2017 beach water quality report, East False Creek measured 606 E. coli/100 mL. It notes that False Creek is not considered a swimming beach and maintains a wash-hands advisory. Nonetheless, council remains determined to rehabilitate the False Creek basin for waterfront recreation with an eye to establishing a swimming beach and/or a floating pool.
Many either don’t have or don’t use their holding tanks and pump (sewage) into the water.