Eleven industrial tires, each weighing about four tons and filled with Styrofoam, were washed away near Campbell River, British Columbia, raising concerns for wildlife in the area.
Greenways Land Trust, a small nonprofit based in the Vancouver Island city about 150 kilometers north of Nanaimo, says it is trying to remove the tires but lacks the financial and technical capacity to do so.
“Everything we do is based on grant funding that we receive, and we’re not really in the beach cleanup business,” said Keely Dodds, management coordinator for the organization.
Dodds said he doesn’t know where the tires came from, but suspects they were part of a large dock or barge and came loose during one of the region’s recent wind storms.
Styrofoam would have been used to keep the tires afloat, Dodds said, but now it is likely to break into smaller pieces and be eaten by fish and birds.
“You don’t know if they’re ingesting all of these plastics and then it’s going to build up over time and be really harmful to them,” he said.
SEE | This is why Styrofoam can harm coastal wildlife :
There is also concern about chemicals that could be leaching from tires into the water, potentially harming area salmon.
Peter Ross, senior scientist and director of healthy waters at the Raincoast Conservation Foundation, says tires have been shown to release the chemical 6PPD-quinone.
“This is a tire degradation chemical that washes off our roads when cars and trucks drive by and kills up to 90 percent of the coho in any stream when it rains,” Ross said.
The chemical is also lethal to other species, he added.
‘Complicated point’ for elimination
Last week, nearly 30 volunteers cleaned up about 430 kilograms of waterlogged Styrofoam before another storm hit Vancouver Island.
But getting the tires off the beach will be difficult.
“They’re in a bit of a tough situation,” Dodds said.
“They’re pretty far from any beach access. There are just private residences back here and no good places to get in.”
Dodds said when three industrial tires washed up on the Campbell River beach last year, it took the organization seven months and $5,000 to remove them.
He is considering using helicopters to remove the tires, Dodds said, but he doesn’t have the money for that kind of expense.
The beach is just outside the town of Campbell River.
The local authority, the Regional District of Strathcona, told CBC News in an email that “the coastal zone is outside the jurisdiction of the local government and is regulated by the province.”
When CBC News contacted several provincial ministries, the Ministry of Environment responded saying “the ministry is aware of the debris and local efforts are underway to remove it from the marine environment.”
Ross, a scientist at the Raincoast Conservation Foundation, said more needs to be done to hold polluters accountable.
“Someone knows where they come from,” he said. “Therefore, someone should be held accountable for cleaning them up.”
