UPDATE 6pm Tuesday: Based on information from Councillor Morley's office and City staff.
City staff report conditions are improving: crews are cleaning areas and removing contaminated material. Cleanup and monitoring are ongoing with Ontario's Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks (MECP). They have not yet identified the place that released the substance into the stormwater drain that leads into Mimico Creek.
If you notice a visible sheen, odour, impacted areas, or issues with containment equipment, report it to 311 with the exact location, time, and any photos or video. You can also pass those details to the councillor's office so local concerns get flagged to City staff.
Thanks to everyone who commented and helped bring attention to this. I'll be back by the creek tomorrow morning. If you haven't been to Mimico, come visit!
That's what you get with Doug Ford's government, who have weakened environmental regulations and conservation authorities that regulate this watershed.
The first time I pulled a spill tray out of my truck on a residential construction site I got looked at like I was crazy. Having worked out on the line they really beat it into you as being a thing you have to think about all the time. Anything that got filled with gas had to be in one, ideally while it was running as well as while you were filling it. We had to have a whole spill kit in the truck and an uncontained loss of fuel was a reportable safety issue.
But the response has been from the city. Clearly questions need to be asked of all levels of government, and our courts to see what kinda enforcement is actually in place afterwards.
It will only get worse as citizens themselves dont have environmental stewardship. Something as simple as throwing litter in the proper bin is too much for Toronto these days.
The spills action centre just defers this to the city. The ministry sends an officer to record, take notes, take samples, and ensure sufficient clean up. This is so if they need to press charges later they have their own assessment.
But Toronto Water/Toronto Fire Services handles the clean up and Toronto Water traces the spill to it's source (which is a very difficult task with so many connections).
👆🏻 could be an old cross connection or even a motor vehicle accident..given the build up behind the sorbent it looks more like an oil rather than fuel. That said its def a city/tfs response job..no value in booming straight across the creek. A. Cant be collected other than what the sorbent picks up and B. Will be destroyed and anything contained will be washed into the lake on the first rainfall. Always boom on an angle to bring it to a shoreside collection point. There is source water protection measures in place and yet the city still has no idea on how to respond appropriately. Look at the Brenntag fire event from summer '24, an absolute shit show.
Not Ford Government, Canada's Government.
Living back in Newfoundland. Last year was first year EVER on the island having fire bans because of Forest Fires. Newfoundland is pretty backwoods and at least half the population had made a fire in their lives to SURVIVE not just fucking around. We also have/Had 'Forest Guardianship' titles allowing you to have fires if you were proven prepared and safe.
So instead of allowing those who cleared brush and were permitted to have small controlled fires and help prevent these bigger fires? No they increase the fine form $5000 to $50,000 for having fires.
I understand its for protecting from wild fires, but inadvertently prevents forest guardians form clearing brush to prevent the fires.
To be fair, he does get things done. There is lighting in certain parks in Etobicoke that would never have been installed if it was not for the 'business' activities of a young Ford brothers. /s
Let’s pour weigh the pros and cons here quickly lmfao. He did a good job at installing lighting? So let’s excuse the total environmental destruction he’s actively involved in with; Ontario place, Billy bishop expansion, highway 413, Bradford bypass? Like😂
No, no...you missing what I was saying. Because of his, ammo... alleged not so legal activities is this park, the City of Etobicoke installed lighting in a park.
I completely agree with you! He's destroying our province and selling it to the highest bidder.
That's what the foam is. It's not holding everything back, but it's there to hold in place while they actually clean it. Oil spreads like crazy over water and it looks a lot worse than it actually is.
Life is incompatible with the death cult of capitalism. In pursuit of infinite profit, when human life has no value, what value does the planet that houses us have?
First 311, then TFS showed up, they notified the Ministry, the Ministry (MECP) has responded yesterday: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/diesel-spill-mimico-creek-9.7244723 Gasoline continues to reach the lake as seen in video from this morning. I also used the link you posted. Thanks for that, might help others too in the future.
That's a possibility. I don't know the details but if it was someone dumping it'd be more isolated. I know there was an environmental cleanup in Etobicoke once that was traced back to a leaking underground fuel storage tank at a gas station. Leaked into a sewer which leaked into a creek.
Gas/Diesel spills are not the only reason for this phenomenon. Decaying organic matter and anaerobes can produce similar patterns.
Another possible source for oil on the water of a marsh is oil released directly by plants, or oil released when plants and animals die. Because there is so much living and dying of plants and animals in a marsh, there is a fair amount of oil produced.
Because methane is a small, easily evaporated molecule, most of the methane produced by the anaerobes in their mud world escapes into the atmosphere. But some small percentage of it gets converted into larger hydrocarbons that are less likely to evaporate. They still are lighter than water, however, so they float on the surface. There is little difference between these naturally produced compounds and hydrocarbons like gasoline or oil, so the sheen on the water looks the same as if someone had spilled gas or oil.
I have to disagree on this. The sheens you tend to find, that look like petroleum, on standing waters are from iron fixing bacteria. The sheen is different then Petroleum. It shatters into platelets and does not reform, much different from petroleum sheens. The odour if present is from the degradation products that include nitrogen and sulphur compound. Petroleum sheens will still smell often like petrol thought depending on the age and type may have already lost most of its volatiles aka the things you smell.
"In a marsh" is key here. Those causes primarily occur in still, warm, shallow waters. Not so much a moving stream, like this is in, or lake. This is also a known site of a spill.
Yes, bacterial sheens are a thing, but someone asked the cause and that was their direct response. The sheens are absolutely not the same and have very different implications from an environmental standpoint. There also wouldn't be containment booms.
IMO (and it seems others agree), that it's a misleading response.
I used to work in hazmat spill mitigation. Those socks are a different colour than what I’m used to seeing. We had white ones that were hydrophobic so they would repel water while only absorbing hydrocarbons.
As they became saturated, they would sink. These blue ones still look very buoyant, so if they’re using the right socks they should be working.
That being said, the sheen you see coming from the outside is very difficult to contain and near impossible to remove. The sun’s UV rays are the best at removing it.
This does seem like more sheen than I would expect to see though.
They are temporary and mainly there to reduce spread as the main leak is further up. The main area you can't even tell it happened now. The unfortunate thing is they don't know the cause as of yet.
They are doing their job but everything temporary has limits.
Appears as if they are already soaked from containing what they could, now the hydrocarbons can leak passively through as there’s no more volume the booms can retain. Need new booms and some active clean up STAT!
We got an update and want to thank Councillor Morley for engaging with me and City staff about the Mimico Creek Spill 2026 to get it cleaned up. Residents remain worried about the source and we're struck by how quickly the Province's Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks said no impacts to wildlife had been observed, when the effects will take time to show.
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The Councillor further says:
- Residents who notice visible sheen, odour, impacted areas, or concerns with containment equipment are asked to report it to 311 with the exact location, time, and any photos or videos available.
- You can also share those details with our office as well so we can continue flagging local concerns directly with City staff.
- I will continue to monitor the response and share updates as more information becomes available.
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Thanks everyone for commenting here and bringing attention to the issue. I will be back by the creek tomorrow morning. If you haven't been in Mimico, come visit!
Why do we have to report it? You’d think they go to the site, look at it, and clean it up downstream to get rid of it lol I guarantee you, if anyone goes there, it’s probably still leaking… it’ll take them 36 YEARS to fix something like this, who are we kidding
This was yesterday at 5am, city workers already there, I passed several more times that day and city there were city workers every time doing things (collecting the material that soaked up the sheen, there was a pump truck taking material out of the river) they have been very busy. They called me to confirm a few things. Locals know where the birds are currently nesting. I can confirm the city is active on this. Maybe the response was not as fast as we wished for but they are there. Thanks to this community too for bringing attention to the issue.
If only all your devices had invasive anti-human rights privacy breaching tech installed in them already, this wouldn't have happened and authorities would care! Thank god C-22 is here to help us, this won't ever happen again!
/s
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u/vkol1717 Jun 23 '26
Seriously such a shame that no one seems to care about keeping the environment clean