I’ve been digging around today to find out more about where this sludge came from. And, in spite of what Coast Guard told me, I can’t find any evidence of it having been derived from any dockwork in Tofino Harbour at all. I am wondering if there is some more natural source to it. (That still wouldn’t explain all the beer cans). The answer is not clear yet, though, so anything anyone has seen that could help solve it should be reported – either as a comment on this site, or directly to DFO. Please help!
I’ve talked to a few people who work on boats or near the docks and who tell me they saw the sludge drifting in. The sludge wasn’t really noticed against the docks in town until around midday, around high tide. But it had been seen already washing up on Tonquin Beach earlier, around 9am (i.e. when the tide was still flooding in), as well as in a patch around Deadmans Island around noon, just before the tide turned, and also in the harbour around Beck Island. All this makes it sound like it actually drifted in on the flood (or the SW winds) from somewhere to the south or west. I am wondering if some weird swell, coupled with the recent high tides, has washed it off the top of a beach or rock shelf or something and into the ocean.
Like I said, it still doesn’t explain the beer cans. If anyone has seen anything that can help resolve this – sludge drifting around elsewhere from possible natural sources, or any suspicious activity that could have caused this, please comment here (with place and date and time of what you saw) and/or report it to DFO.
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November 23, 2009 at 6:47 pm
Josie Osborne
I agree, Jackie, that it well may be natural.
I just looked at some samples at the DFO Field Office in Tofino. They had two different jars of it.
What I saw looks like casings of the tubeworm Spiochaetopterus costarum (no common name really but some call it jointed three section worm, jointed tubeworm, or cellophane worms). It’s the tubeworm with the chitinous tubes that often wash ashore on open sandy beaches, like Chesterman Beach, because they live just below the low tide line on sandy bottoms. During heavy surf, the tops of the tubes break off. The worms is safe because it retreats into the buried part of the tube, and the tube eventually grows longer again. To eat, these critters strain water through special mucus bags. Every 30 seconds to 2 minutes, they form eight mucus bags, sieve the water for suspended organic particles, roll up the bags, eat them, and form new bags. But that is perhaps a “biological aside.”
The sample I saw at the DFO office was mostly these chitinous tubes, but they were dark green as if covered with microscopic algae (I haven’t looked at them in a microscope yet). I have not seen exactly where the samples came from, but I am wondering if the incoming tides have been bringing these floating tubes in around Esowista Peninsula (which have been released by all the storm activity) and began accumulating on the beach or amongst the piers where the sample came from. This is entirely plausible – I have often seen the tubeworm casings on the north end of the mudflats and I know they have come from around the other side of the peninsula. We have also been having extremely high tides which could assist in the accumulation and could even have dislodged a large chunk of them.
Over some days – weeks – months, it’s conceivable that these tubes have accumulated in a thick layer (along with other stuff, like beer cans) and would develop algal growth. As they begin to decay, if part of a thick mat of these exoskeletons becomes devoid of oxygen, or anoxic (e.g., bacteria eating the chitin and/or algae have used up all the oxygen), then sulfur loving bacteria can take over and they will leave a black sludge that stinks like sulfur. This is the same as when one digs into the mudflats and finds a layer of anoxic mud which is black, slimy – almost greasy, and stinky. The sample I smelled did not smell strongly sulfurous but it did have a vague bit of a sewer smell – this is congruent with sulfur bacteria (hydrogen sulfide (H2S) is constituent of sewer gas).
So this is not to say that the samples were not contaminated with oil or fuel – I can only comment on what I saw. I am hoping to talk to more people to get an idea of whether anyone smelled something more oily or petroleum based, or creosote smelling (which would not be surprising around piers and pilings). But it is also easy to understand that if people saw a whole bunch of this sludge they would be alarmed, and I am thankful that people have their eyes open and are reporting what they see.
It’s great that samples were taken quickly so we could try to get to the bottom of it. That’s really important. It is also good to keep in mind that we should all have open channels of communication because we are all the eyes and ears on the environment.
Let me know if you have any questions – if there are still concerns about whether this sludge is something else, do let me know. It might be helpful if we could just find out what they did at the site to release the material, or if they did nothing at all, which means it is more likely to just have been the tide and/or swell.
November 24, 2009 at 7:18 am
Adrienne
Did someone actually see sludge on Tonquin? I was there about 9 am and I saw large drifts of the tubeworm casings that Josie mentions above. I didn’t see any sludge, but the tide was quite high so perhaps it was elsewhere on the beach. The worm casings were black (or perhaps a very dark green as the ones Josie mentions).
Still, the video sure looks like an oily sludge doesn’t it? I’m going to Tonquin again this morning so will have a closer look.
November 24, 2009 at 7:21 am
Adrienne
I should have read the post previous to this one! (And comments.) The photos mostly look like the black worm casings, but one looks a bit oily but it’s hard to tell from the photos if it’s just watery sheen on the sand. I will double check today and get back to you!
November 24, 2009 at 11:42 am
greg b
Re natural causes, has anything like this been noticed before? Also (not to open another can of tubeworms) i wonder whether Tofino’s sewage discharge might have something to do with this.
Below are the tide heights for Tofino, taken from the DFO website, for Tue. and Wed. preceding the sludge slick day (Thu.) and the day after. Looks to me like the highest tide, that could have lifted deposits off the beach, occurred at 1 p.m. on Wednesday. I don’t know the local tide and current patterns, but given the wave activity lately, it seems unlikely the stuff would have washed around in the open ocean all night without being sunk or dispersed. So it would have washed into the calmer inside waters that night, then been noticed on the way out the next morning.
2009-11-17 (Tuesday)
PST (m) (ft)
00:53 3.3 10.8
06:18 1.6 5.2
12:12 3.7 12.1
19:08 0.4 1.3
2009-11-18 (Wednesday)
PST (m) (ft)
01:35 3.2 10.5
06:56 1.7 5.6
12:49 3.7 12.1
19:46 0.5 1.6
2009-11-19 (Thursday) — Sludge Day
PST (m) (ft)
02:17 3.2 10.5
07:35 1.8 5.9
13:25 3.6 11.8
20:23 0.6 2.0
2009-11-20 (Friday)
PST (m) (ft)
02:59 3.1 10.2
08:14 1.8 5.9
14:03 3.4 11.2
21:00 0.7 2.3
November 24, 2009 at 11:58 am
jwindh
That’s pretty interesting, Greg – yes, you are right, if it was lifted off by the tide (and I’d think it would have to be a combination of tide+swell, either an unusually high wave(s) at high tide, or maybe just some unusual swell direction that knocked it out of wherever it was…) then it would have been drifting around for some 24 hours or more.
And all the beer cans in it still intrigues me – why they would still be floating around with all of that stuff 24+ hrs later.
Jason from Atleo Air said that he figures that also the SW winds played a part in it all – he says that SW winds (as opposed to our more normal NW or SE) tend to drift all sorts of stuff into the harbour.
It’s still a mystery… I am really glad, though, that it is appearing to be more of a natural cause than something as outrageous as industry dumping stuff…
It would be really helpful, though, if anyone has info to share, to please do so. Did anyone see this sludge mass floating around or coming to shore anywhere else, or at any other times, than have been reported here?
November 24, 2009 at 2:46 pm
Adrienne
Nothing untoward on Tonquin this morning. They were all tube casings that I saw and this is a totally natural phenomenon — you see them on the beach all the time; some time in large drifts.
Your video from the harbour, though, seems different. Did anyone touch it? Was it oily?
November 24, 2009 at 5:54 pm
ukeedog
Sewage Discharge – I was wondering if that had something to do with it too… but wouldn’t this have come up before if sewage was the cause? Unless someone disposed of something illegally through the sewage system.
November 24, 2009 at 6:46 pm
jwindh
Thanks for your comment Ukeedog – would really appreciate it if you’d use your name next time just because I don’t want this website ever to turn into one of those anonymous mud-slinging kind of things… thanks!
Yes, our sewage discharge is definitely an issue here – but I doubt that that has much to do with this particular one, just because of the composition (mainly worm casings and beer cans…) then there is the unidentified black stuff, but that could just entirely be decomposing organic matter, we don’t know yet…
Adrienne – I didn’t touch it, but Billy Martin did. It wasn’t “oily” in general, but in some places you could definitely see an oily sheen on the surface of it. But it was not anything close to what I would call an “oil slick”. What I saw floating in the harbour was definitely mostly worm casings, but there was this thick black sludgy matrix to it – and that is what seems to have disappeared with time (either dissolving or sinking I suppose).