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[bkk]

Some time this morning there was a massive chemical spill of caustic soda into the Cheakamus River due to a train derailement in the Cheakamus canyon. Estimates are a 151 000 litres into the river ( 4 railcars). Fish kill is very large with adult chinook, pink ,steellhead (rainbow trout) and juvenile coho, steelhead, trout, chinook, lampreys and sculpins all found in a brief survey near the North Vancouver Outdoor School. There is evidence of lots of dead fish in the margins of the river along with many juveniles which are stressed and most likely damaged. PH reading's taken were off the scale at above 8. Very toxic. More info to follow.

[Fish Assassin]

That's not good news.

[pepsitrev]

bummer news 

[DragonSpeed]

Ouch. 

I hope nobody on the train was injured. 

That's nasty.  At least it's a bit early for the Pinks.  If it had been in about a month, the Squamish would have an alternating year Pink run too

[Rodney]

FYI: Caustic Soda is known as sodium hydroxide, used in pulp bleaching process. At 10% concentration it can burn the skin. Paper mills etc use it at 50% concentration or highe (pH 14). It causes severe corrosive damage.

[DragonSpeed]

I'm hoping the naturally acidic environment there, will help to neutralize it quickly.   That, plus the high flow rate of the Cheak.

[lunker]

I was just in Squamish yesterday, checking up on the pink run and thinking to myself that it is one of my favorite places to fish and explore.  CN had better get off their butts on this one, the Cheakamus is a great river and so much work has gone into bringing it back, this is just a slap in the face.  Like DS said, thank god this did not happen 3 weeks from now.  From what I understand the sodium hydroxide gets flushed fairly quickly and does not linger in the system, so thank god for that.  However, if the ph of the cheakamus is altered for a period of time is there a possibility that it will mess up the "guidance system" of the returning pinks?  I think ph is one of the indicators salmon use to find their spawning grounds, and since under normal conditions the difference from stream to stream is small, then even a slight change in ph may prevent returning pinks from finding the spawing grounds.  This is just thinking aloud, but I wonder if this is a possible threat to the cheakamus pinks that are about to move into the system.

[Fish Assassin]

Only time will tell. Let's hope it doesn't.

[cohobud]

Just heard on the radio that the PH level is back to normal. Not causing anymore damage

[rob.l]

Damage is already done. The kill off of thousands of juvinile fish will be felt for years to come.

[gumboots]

 Flyfished the   Squamish from morning to afternoon. , must have hit the tide right this mornin' cause I sure got into lots of pinks, so they are in..slowed down later afternoon.  did see a few pinks foating bye belly up possibly a result of the chem. spill up river. silty color, about  1 ' vis.  What a blast getting pinks on the fly rod.  lotsa action for awhile.

[rob.l]

Unfortunatly many of those fish willl die due to contaminated water comming down. CP need to step up to the plate on this one

[calfisher]

From my post on another site.

Unfortunately a similar event happened on July 31, 1991 on the Upper Sacramento river near Dunsmuir CA (Cantara). We were driving back home to Vancouver and an hour after we passed through they shut down I-5.

See http://www.fws.gov/contaminants/Documents/cantara_web.pdf

The ramifications were significant. The Upper Sacramento flows into Lake Shasta which is a water source for Northern and Central California. It took years and millions of dollars to recover. As I stop at Dunsmuir on my annual trip to California (it is exactly 12 hours from Vancouver and I can get to Ted Fay's fly shop in time to pick up my 10 day license) I can confirm the fish are now back and plentiful.

Cal

[Coho Cody]

that really sucks . I saw it on the news last night and it showed all the fish that were killed. Tons of salmon and steelhead smolts and a few springs belly up...I say sue them , lol! This is really bad news, especially for the years to come  

[Rodney]

Some updates:

By now I am sure all of you have heard of the spill of Caustic Soda 51,000l of 73% conc Sodium Hydroxide) to the Cheakamus.
 
First of all I can not understate the effect this has had on fish populations on the Cheakamus and lower Squamish.
 
ph readings taken today during the height of contamination were 14+ if there is such a thing. ph is back down to 7 as of mid afternoon.
 
Today a number of people spent a very hot afternoon collecting more dead fish than I care to think about (yes I am a little emotional about this).
 
I am trying not to be over dramatic but I would say a very high percentage of fish in the mainstem Cheakamus and lower Squamish are dead. The juvenile steelhead have most likely taken the hardest hit as three year classes (2003, 2004 and 2005) juveniles were affected, this is not to underestimate the effect on other species i.e pink and chinook adults who are currently in river to spawn). For example in a 105m stretch of river edge chinook and pink adults, rainbow adults, dollyvarden adults, steelhead and rainbow juveniles, coho juveniles, chinook juveniles, sculpins (better known as bullheads) and lamprey (adults and juvenile) the later two species only die when things are pretty tough in my experience.
 
Anyhow now that I have given vent to my feelings, here's how you can help. Under the direction of Provincial fisheries biologists we would like to collect as many of the dead fish as we can. We will be processing these fish at Tenderfoot Hatchery and will be meeting at 8:30 Saturday or come by later if you wish as someone will be there to direct you all day, so please come and give us a hand. Bring waders and rubber gloves.
 
Thanks
Caroline
 
 Hi

Further to lastnight's e-mail here are few of the many photos I took yesterday. As you can see in the picture GuagePool 9 the fish were trying  to escape the water, while photo Gauge Pool 23 is one dipnet full of fish  taken from the bottom aprox 8m offshore.  Other sites from near the canyon to below the confluence with the Squamish were also surveyed yesterday with similar results.

I just want to reitereate that this disaster should not be diminished, the reprucussions for the ecology of the lower Cheakamus are huge. As I stated last night a high percentage (maybe 90+%) of all the species of fish in  the Cheakamus are dead and the three fish I saw alive yesterday did not look happy, not to mention the effect on the inverterbrates which we hope to assess today. Any help in making sure wide public awareness of this event  is realized will ensure advocacy as we try to recover this precious
watershed.

I will try to keep everyone up to date on what is happening as we assess.Caroline Melville