CN donates $250,000 to Squamish salmon recovery

The Vancouver Sun

Steve Mertl and Jonathan Fowlie
Canadian Press; Vancouver Sun
Thursday, August 18, 2005

Less than two weeks after one of its freight cars dumped lethal amounts of chemicals into the Cheakamus River, CN Rail has made a sizeable contribution to the local watershed salmon-recovery program.

CN senior vice-president Peter Marshall announced Wednesday the Montreal-based railway will donate $250,000 to the Pacific Salmon Foundation to help kickstart work on the salmon recovery plan for the Squamish River watershed.

An official of the Squamish Watershed Society said the money will be very welcome for assessment and administrative work that's normally hard to fund.

With the milky-green Cheakamus flowing behind them, Marshall and foundation executive-director Paul Kariya stressed the money is not simply a one-time gift.

"I'm here to let you know that we are here for the long term," said Marshall, who is based in Edmonton and in charge of CN's western operations. "I've learned today there's a lot of work that has been done on the Cheakamus River."

The donation -- which more than doubles the watershed society's 2005 budget of $150,000 -- is over and above CN's undetermined costs for cleanup and remediation of the spill's damage, he said.

"We are looking to jumpstart the program," said Marshall. "This is not a short-term fix."

A CN freight train headed for Prince George derailed over the Cheakamus Canyon on Aug. 5. A tanker ruptured, spilling more than 40,000 litres of highly corrosive caustic soda into the river.

The spill immediately killed thousands of fish, as well as some animals that had eaten the carcasses. People were warned to stay away from the river and nearby residents were barred from using their wells for several days.

On Wednesday, a manager with the provincial Ministry of the Environment said the spill hit "every species and every age class" of fish in the river and that its effects could potentially be seen for as much as 20 years into the future.

For example, he said, three generations of steelhead that were heavily affected at the time of the spill should have returned to spawn in the Cheakamus river during 2008, 2009 and 2010.

"For about the next 15 or 20 years you are going to see this three-year slug going through where there is much less fish population going through, and that is what we have to look at," said Brian Clark, regional manager of environmental stewardship, explaining the lower populations for the three generations of Steelhead are likely to ripple throughout several cycles of local reproduction.

"How do you recover those species?," he asked, adding negotiations are still underway with CN to develop a specific cleanup and remediation plan from damage done by the spill.

Clark added the impact on other fish in the river is not expected to last for as long, but he said accurate estimates of the damage will not be available until at least late next month.

He also said that other animal and plant populations are likely to be affected as well, but said that too will not be clear until proper testing has been done.

The Squamish River system -- the Cheakamus is a tributary -- had been listed "at risk" even before the spill, because of habitat destruction and the impact of the Daisy Lake hydro dam built in 1957.

DEATH IN THE CHEAKAMUS

Experts say thousands of fish were wiped out after a CN tanker spilled more than 40,000 litres of highly corrosive sodium hydroxide into the Cheakamus river. These preliminary estimates show how the spill affected each species of fish that was in the river at the time. The scale runs from a low of 1 (almost no effect) to 10 (loss of up to 90 per cent of the population). The scale also takes into account how quickly each species will be able to regenerate.

1: Chum juveniles; Chum adults 2: Chinook juveniles, fall 2004 brood year 3: Coho juveniles, fall 2004 brood year 6: Chinook returning adults; Pink returning adults 8: Steelhead juveniles, spring 2003 brood year 9: Steelhead juveniles, spring 2005 brood year 10: Resident Rainbow (juvenile through adult); n Steelhead juveniles, spring 2004 brood year; Cottid

Source: InStream Fisheries research Inc.

Frank Myrskog, Vancouver Sun graphic

© The Vancouver Sun 2005