By Black Press

A small-scale steelhead hatchery will be used to help the Cheakamus River recover from last summer’s CN Rail chemical spill, Environment Minister Barry Penner says.

The ministry brought in fisheries biologist Marc Labelle to resolve a dispute between conservation groups and the government over restocking the river or letting it recover naturally. Penner said 40 adult steelhead will be captured from the river and held to produce 20,000 smolts for release, which is expected to speed up recovery of the stocks without weakening their genetic diversity.

Penner said hatchery costs and all other recovery bills are being forwarded to CN, which took over B.C. Rail operations before the incident. The August 2005 derailment in the Cheakamus Canyon dumped a carload of caustic soda solution into the river, which killed nearly half a million fish in 90 minutes before it was neutralized and diluted by the river water.

Many of the fish killed were steelhead fry and smolts, which would normally go out to sea and then return to the river as adults in 2009 and 2010.

© The Tri-City News 2006