Back in the early 90's a gold mining company on the South Coast of Newfoundland had a huge cyanide leak that ran into a salmon river called "Cinq Cerf". It did some serious damage to the river and the commercial inshore fishing grounds it emptied into. However, the salmon and trout have rebounded beutifully and the inshore fishery in that area is more prolific than in many of the other areas along the coast between Rose Blanche and Burgeo. Is this typical of the aftermath of spills? No...but I hope it gives you some hope and a will to fight for habitat remediation and better spill prevention.
The gold mining company in this story really stepped up and my friend is still getting flown in by helicopter once a month to do water quality sampling to ensure that the remaining tailings ponds left after the company moved on, are not leaking. If the folks responsible for this do the same, your creek may also rebound in relatively short order.

Brad