Thousands of young salmon were killed in Hyde Creek by a recent chemical spill, according to local volunteers who have been restocking the watershed. (Hyde Creek Watershed Society)

Someone dumping chemicals into a Port Coquitlam, B.C., storm drain may have killed thousands of Coho salmon fry in Hyde Creek, according to a local environmental group.

Ted Wingrove, president of the Hyde Creek Watershed Society, says thousands of fish have suffocated and burned after being exposed to some sort of unidentified toxic chemical which entered the watershed east of Vancouver.

"It's a little bit of a toxic soup in our creek. We think it maybe possibly came through the storm drain system," Wingrove told CBC News on Tuesday.

Adam La Rusic, an emergency response officer with Environment Canada, which is investigating the spill, confirmed a fish kill occurred, but said the government's estimated number of dead fish is much lower than Wingrove's.

"There indeed was a fish kill," he told CBC News. "I wouldn't characterize it as thousands of fish, but more than a hundred."

Wingrove disagrees with that count, but says the problem is not about the numbers. He wants to see the culprit found and charged and is calling for stronger enforcement of anti-dumping laws.

"These small storm drains that are in front of homes, apartments, businesses, etc. — they all flow to some sort of salmon or fish-bearing watercourses. We encourage people not to put anything down them — fertilizers, old paints, diesel fuels, whatever," he said.

Wingrove, who monitors the creek as past of his volunteer work with the group, said he's tired of seeing the work of salmon hatchery volunteers unraveled by the carelessness of neighbours.

"We're tired every year of picking up dead fish and transporting fish in our watershed," he said. "Just a shame to lose everything like that when you've worked so hard to build the stocks up and — boom — all of a sudden it's gone in a flash.