Atlantic salmon at the site of a 600-litre diesel fuel spill off northern Vancouver Island could still make it to your plate.
Or maybe not. That remains to be determined.
The diesel spill occurred at a Cermaq Canada fish farm, when staff were transferring fuel from one tank to another and left a nozzle unattended, Brock Thompson, regional production manager and special project manager for Cermaq Canada, said Monday.
Thompson said the company will do extra monitoring for this batch of fish, but didn’t say they would be automatically taken off the market. He said the fish have exhibited normal behaviour since the spill.
“Under normal conditions, they all go through contamination-monitoring programming. We test for a number of contaminants and we’ll heighten that to ensure there isn’t any safety or human health risk,” Thompson said.
The company also avoided feeding the fish, which would draw them to the surface where the fuel was concentrated, Thompson said.
Fisheries and Oceans Canada did not say whether it would test the fish specifically, but said federal regulators ensure food is safe for human consumption.
The spill occurred Saturday night and in the early hours of Sunday morning. Cermaq reported the spill to the Canadian Coast Guard at 5 a.m. Sunday, Thompson said.
Coast Guard crews from Port Hardy, 70 kilometres away, arrived on scene Sunday morning and were joined in the afternoon by Cermaq Canada’s contractor, Western Canadian Marine Response Corporation.
They contained the site with booms and recovered most of the fuel within the fish farm’s pens using absorbent pads, Fisheries and Oceans Canada said.
However, some of the fuel, which includes about five per cent biodiesel, escaped and continues to spread beyond the farm. The rainbow sheen cannot be cleaned up, the federal Fisheries Department said.
While Cermaq initially said up to 1,500 litres of diesel spilled, the estimate dropped to about 600 litres by Monday afternoon. About 70 litres remained outside the containment area and is expected to evaporate.
Bob Chamberlin, elected chief councillor of the nearby Kwikwasat’inuxw Haxwa’mis First Nation, said he was told, during a teleconference with responders on Monday morning, that the sheen had reached a radius of three nautical miles.
Chamberlin said he’s worried the diesel will reach some of the 50 beaches in the Burdwood group of islands that are vital to clam fisheries — culturally, economically and as a food source.
Clam-digging is the primary income source for the community, he said, and is also a food staple, especially when wild salmon aren’t in the area.
The First Nation deployed its own boats and a helicopter to monitor the spill, about 45 kilometres east of Port McNeill in the Broughton Archipelago.
“I looked at file notes from a number of our people who have been there monitoring the situation and the reports I’m getting are pretty dismal, in terms of the company’s response. They didn’t have all the necessary equipment to contain it and government acknowledged there was a 150-metre section where there was no boom to contain the oil. So that’s a big, significant window for the oil to progress out into the environment,” Chamberlin said.
Chamberlin also said it shows the province doesn’t have the “world-class” spill response promised by Premier Christy Clark. In an industry where a spill is possible, every company should have the training and equipment to contain a spill when it happens, he said.
“We’re fortunate there wasn’t much wind in the area yesterday. But even without wind, it was a very substantial slick that emanated out from the fish farm,” he said.
Sensitive shoreline areas are being mapped for priority protection, Fisheries and Oceans Canada said. But in response to concerns that the fuel would contaminate shellfish, it said many areas were already closed to harvesting because of biotoxin concerns.
The Ministry of Environment is also monitoring the situation.
Independent biologist Alexandra Morton said the spill could have been worse, since juvenile pink and chum salmon — which eat insects from the surface — will soon pass through the area.
“We’re very lucky this didn’t happen in a few weeks, when all the juvenile salmon have just come out of the river in exactly that area in the Burdwood Islands,” she said.
