Deformed fish found near Lac-Mégantic oil spill disaster

[A report by Quebec’s Environment Department concluded fish in Chaudière River near Lac-Mégantic were deformed, and nothing but the 2013 oil spill can explain what the scientists found in the river/Radio-Canada]

Scientists have found an “unprecedented” number of fish with deformed fins, tumours and lesions in the river near the Lac-Mégantic oil spill in Quebec. But the government says they can still be consumed.

A report for the provincial Environment Department says the scope and level of contamination in the Chaudière River near the site of the July 2013 disaster has decreased.

And tests done a year after the oil train explosion that killed 47 people and oozed crude into the Chaudière River found the same diversity of fish in the river.

But there was a marked drop in the overall number of fish and there remained areas with an “alarming” level of hydrocarbon contamination in sediment, in addition to abnormalities in as many as 47 per cent of fish in some of the most contaminated sites.

“The spill caused an unprecedented increase in the percentage of fish affected by external abnormalities… deformation, erosion of fins, lesion, tumour,” says the report that was released last November but only this week highlighted in an article in Montreal’s Le Devoir newspaper.

“At some stations, up to 35 and 47 per cent of fish [showed abnormalities] while the percentage of infected fish was often zero or low in the past.”

A 72-car train carrying 7.7 million litres of crude oil derailed in downtown Lac-Mégantic on July 6, 2013. Forty-seven people were killed in an ensuing fire and explosion at a downtown bar near the tracks.

An estimated 380,000 litres of crude spilled into the Chaudière River that originates in the lake.

Nothing but that oil spill can explain what the scientists found in the river, the report says.

Few fish were found dead in the immediate aftermath of the disaster but there were concerns about the impact of oil contamination on eggs, larvae and juvenile fish.

A year later, deformed fins were the most prevalent abnormality among the fish tested by researchers in the summer of 2014.

In some areas, the abundance of fish was down 66 per cent compared with historical data, researchers found.

They also looked specifically at populations of brown trout and flathead minnows in the Chaudière near the spill site and found a higher incidence of deformations of the spine in the larval stages of brown trout.

“This study suggests that long-term exposure of young stages of trout water in contact with the most contaminated sediment of the Chaudière River could induce an increase in malformations, posing a risk to salmon populations,” the report says.

Despite the high level of abnormalities and the sharp drop in fish biomass, tests did not show a significant effect on the level of contaminants found in the fish themselves and the report says the fish can still be eaten in accordance with fish consumption guides.

“It’s important to understand that these contaminants don’t accumulate in the flesh of the fish,” Frederic Fournier, spokesman for the provincial Environment Department, tells Yahoo Canada News.

“Despite these physical deformities… the test results show that the level of contamination in the fish was the same after the event as it was before.

“The fish are the same as we find in other areas of Quebec.

The report also pointed out that the state of the river has improved “significantly” since 2013 and that the drinking water supply remained safe at all times.

Work to rehabilitate the area of the spill continues, Fournier says.

“Contaminated sediment has been removed from this area and the results show that that has decreased much of the contamination,” he says.

Additional tests were conducted last summer and the results of those studies will be released in the coming months. More will be done this summer.

Though Quebec is currently embroiled in the controversy over the Energy East pipeline that would connect the Alberta oilsands to the East Coast, Fournier says the Lac-Mégantic disaster has no lessons for the province on the proposed project.

“This report is very specific to the event in Lac-Mégantic. There is no parallel to pipelines,” he says.