Stormwater Runoff Pollution Prevention Aids Salmon

See how stormwater runoff pollution prevention and Mohr Oil water separators helped salmon survive up North. These colorful fish are sockeye salmon that spawn in the Adams River in British Columbia. They spend most of their life at sea, where they are silver, and when it is time to spawn, they enter the mouth of the Fraser River at Vancouver and begin changing color to the red and olive green shown in the photo to the left. They swim up the river to the Adams River, where they are hatched to spawn and subsequently die. This cycle has been going on for millennia.

The Fraser River. runs through much of the heavily populated area around Vancouver The river receives a great deal of stormwater runoff from parking lots, roads, service stations and other paved areas. It also receives stormwater from industrial facilities.

Over the last 30 years, many oil water separators have been installed along the Fraser River and its tributaries. These systems have helped capture parking lot washed off vehicle oil drippings. Local regulations require the rainwater to be treated to less than 10 or 15 mg/L (parts per million) of oil dependent on the regulatory body. Many of these separators were provided by Langley Concrete Group and utilize coalescing technology provided by Mohr Separations Research, Inc.

The new regulations and oil water separator systems worked! Salmon, like many other fish, are very sensitive to environmental pollutants, including oil. In 2010, the Adams River sockeye salmon run was the largest since 1913 and in 2014 it was again very, very large.

While we can’t take all of the credit for cleaning up the Fraser and thus helping the salmon to thrive, we think we have made a substantial contribution to help these wonderful creatures and plan to do even more in the coming years. Please contact MSR at 918-299-9290 or email us at info@oilandwaterseparator.com or email Dave Malm at Langley Concrete dmalm@langleyconcretegroup.com if we can be of any help with your project. You can read more about the salmon run HERE and HERE.