Dear editor,

With springtime in the Comox Valley comes spring cleaning, lawn care, cleaning of vehicles and maintaining our homes, each having the potential to impact our streams and waterways.

Please be aware that all city storm drains in Courtenay and Comox flow directly into the streams, rivers and the ocean, which are all part of what makes this area so amazing.

This means products we use to maintain our lawns, clean our vehicles, pressure wash our siding or driveways, kill moss on our roofs, toss onto our roadways, etc., will likely end up flowing into storm drains and into the stormwater system, which then flows, untreated, into our waterways, resulting in contamination and degradation of the streams, and everything that lives in them, including salmon and trout.

Salmon fry have recently emerged from the gravel in many of these streams, and are extremely vulnerable to contaminants, so please be mindful of what we use to clean, and properly dispose of all cleaning products, paint and chemicals.

Even biodegradable soaps can remove the protective layer of slime from these tiny salmon, greatly reducing their chance of survival.

Moss killer applied to roofs and then washed into gutters and downcomers with the next rain flows to the same stormwater system, and often results in fish kills - especially the tiny coho salmon fry that reside in the many small streams in our Valley.

Let鈥檚 all do our part to keep our streams and fish healthy.

Michele Roy and Leon Fisher,

Courtenay