By Scott Simpson

Salmon and other fish species in the Cheakamus River will take 50 years or more to recover from a devastating toxic chemical spill last summer, according to reports obtained by The Vancouver Sun.

The government-written reports say more than 500,000 adult and young salmon, steelhead, trout, lamprey and other species died of suffocation from "severe burns" to their gills from a "concentrated pulse" of caustic soda after a CN Rail car derailed and dumped its contents into the river north of Squamish.

Nearly all fish were killed along an 18-kilometre stretch of the Cheakamus, while effects were also noted in the Squamish River downstream of its confluence with the Cheakamus.

"The effects of the [Aug. 5] caustic soda spill on the fish community in the Cheakamus was immediate, severe in nature and will be persistent for many generations" says one report co-written by provincial and federal fisheries biologists.

The authors note the role of salmon as a keystone in the Pacific Northwest ecosystem food web and say it is "possible and probable" that the impact of the spill will also be felt by birds and animals that rely on Cheakamus salmon for food.

Public outrage is building toward a confrontational pitch in Squamish, where fishing-related businesses are suffering and anglers complain that neither CN nor government agencies are moving quickly enough to deal with a situation that is described by one expert biologist as the worst spill of its kind in British Columbia's history.

"I have two young sons who may never be able to fish the river," laments fishing guide Dave Brown. "When the accident happened I was sick to my stomach and just devastated."

CN and government agencies have struck a committee to study the effects of the spill, and a public meeting will be held Wednesday night in Squamish to discuss the committee's plans for dealing with the long-term effects of the spill.

CN spokesman Graham Dallas said the railway is committed to supporting the river's recovery and said CN is encouraging the public to participate in discussions about the future of the Cheakamus.

But Brown accused the railway and government agencies of discouraging public involvement.

"They could make a huge success story out of it. They've got a number of community and fishing groups that are concerned enough to support a recovery effort, but all the messages we've been getting suggest that they just want to sweep this under the carpet."

For example the Squamish River Watershed Society was informed two weeks ago in an e-mail from CN that it was being fired as organizer of public consultations on the spill because it did not meet CN's expectation for "unbiased, objective communications."

Society member Edith Tobe said one of her group's biggest concerns is that there has been no apparent progress towards a recovery of the Cheakamus in the six months since the spill.

The streamkeepers want answers from CN about the immediate and future impacts that reduced salmon and trout populations will have on fish as well as on the wide range of predator species -- including bears and the world's second-largest winter population of eagles -- that use the Cheakamus as a source of food.

"It is an ecosystem and once you remove one part of that everything else is dramatically affected," Toeb said.

"To my recollection, I don't think there has ever been in B.C. a more serious spill than this one," said retired B.C. fisheries branch biologist Peter Caverhill, president of the B.C. Federation of Fly Fishers.

Caverhill said steelhead and some of the salmon were already at a conservation concern level.

"I guess one would have to ask if it's being treated seriously enough by all and sundry. Certainly it is by the public, who are jumping around wondering what the hell is going on, but it's a little hard to know from the outside if the province and CN are adequately dealing with it."

The operator of a local tackle shop that may face financial ruin warns that the situation is already damaging British Columbia's international reputation for pristine wilderness.

Rios Sdrakas, owner of River's Edge Fishing in Squamish, is already losing business and laying off staff.

At a recent trade show in Las Vegas, he said, U.S. anglers told him they had heard fishing around Squamish is no good because the river is polluted -- although the 41,000 litres of toxic chemical was quickly flushed from the stream.

Sdrakas said the situation will become particularly acute in February 2010, if tens of thousands of international visitors and media heading to the Winter Olympic Games in Whistler learn that the river running alongside the Sea to Sky Highway is closed because of the long-term effects of a major fish kill.

The Steelhead Society of British Columbia concurs.

"This spill will constitute an Olympic-sized blot on Canada's reputation," said society vice-president Poul Bech, a former B.C. fisheries branch technician.

"In 2010, the world should be travelling along a wild, fish-filled Cheakamus River on their way to Whistler. Now they'll be driving by one of our most endangered streams. We need an extensive, balanced, well-funded recovery plan, and we need it yesterday."

Within three weeks of the spill, CN announced a $250,000 contribution to the Pacific Salmon Foundation for salmon recovery in the Squamish Watershed -- although tackle shop operator Rios Sdrakas described that as a token amount in light of a $38 million settlement Southern Pacific railway paid out for a chemical spill that devastated trout populations in the Sacramento River in 1991.

Meanwhile, the Sun has learned that CN will announce today that it is increasing its contribution to the Pacific Salmon Foundation to $1.25 million over five years.

In a statement obtained by the Sun, foundation executive director Paul Kariya lauded CN's contribution to one of the province's most significant salmon systems.

"With the announcement of this long-term commitment, CN has demonstrated its responsibility and dedication to the recovery of Pacific salmon in British Columbia. PSF is confident that, with the support of our partners, we have the ability to recover Pacific salmon in the Squamish River watershed," Kariya said. One of the reports was undertaken by BC Hydro and its consultants -- Hydro has a dam on the upper Cheakamus and operates a fisheries recovery program that has dispensed $545,000 for that system since 1999.

The other report was prepared by a consultant working alongside two of the Lower Mainland's top fisheries biologists, Greg Wilson of the B.C. fisheries branch and Matt Foy of Fisheries and Oceans Canada.

CN spokesman Graham Dallas described the latter report as a "draft" document and said the railway won't be commenting on it until the public release of the final version some time in the coming weeks.

ssimpson@png.canwest.com

DEADLY CHEMICAL SPILL KILLED FISH:

Fish in the Cheakamus River were hit with a deadly wave of toxic chemical that caused severe burns and other effects, says a report on a spill of 41,000 litres of caustic soda into the river last summer.

The report was co-authored by biologists with provincial and federal fisheries agencies and was not intended for public release, according to a memo from B.C. fisheries branch biologist Greg Wilson on a Pacific Streamkeepers website.

Wilson was previously contacted by The Vancouver Sun and declined to discuss details of the report, which included first-hand reports of the deadly effect that the spill from a Canadian National Railway derailment had on adult and juvenile fish along an 18-kilometre section of the Cheakamus last August.

"Virtually all free swimming fish occupying the Cheakamus River at the time of the spill were killed," says the report titled Assessment of the CN Rail Caustic Soda Spill, August 5th, 2005 on the Fish Populations of the Cheakamus River.

"The effects on fish were immediate and observed as skin burning, and gill hemorrhaging resulting in suffocation," says a report co-authored by Wilson and a federal and private-sector biologist.

"It is also likely that chronic effects on immediate survivors [eye damage, reduced respiratory function, digestive track damage and external mucus damage] would have occurred.

"While over 4,500 dead fish were collected, examined and archived, the numbers killed were clearly much greater, with estimates as high as 500,000 fish killed."

The report says rearing juvenile steelhead and rainbow trout were hit hardest, with approximately 90 per-cent mortality in four age classes, as well as multiple age classes of coho and chinook juveniles.

The report says trout and steelhead fry, which were found to be concentrated in a series of attractive habitats along the river prior to the spill, were almost entirely missing in tests conducted two days after the spill and that only nominal numbers returned to those spots in the weeks that followed.

A second report, prepared for BC Hydro and the BC Habitat Conservation Trust Fund, says steelhead are not expected to recover until at least 2050.

© Vancouver Sun 2006