More problems at Burnaby Mountain construction site

A pump hose failed Saturday morning at the Burnaby Mountain construction site where heavy rains had already swept water thick with sand and sediment into a fish-bearing creek.

Emergency crews were called to the site where crews had been rehabilitating a culvert that runs directly underneath Gaglardi Way and a Kinder Morgan pipeline.

It took them about an hour to contain a leak “from a blown-out pump hose,” according to James Lota, an assistant director of engineering with the City of Burnaby..

John Preissl, a local streamkeeper, has been watching the area carefully since the end of October when heavy rains first pushed silty water into Stoney Creek from a tributary, killing spawning Chum and Coho salmon and smolts. Sediment in water can smother salmon eggs and pack into the gills of smolts and spawning fish, said Preissl.