As debate rages over the expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline, a new study sheds some more light on the issue. The more and better science we have, the more useful the discussion will be.
The new research looks at the effects on salmon of the diluted bitumen or “dilbit,” the material that will flow through the pipeline. Despite years of investigation and argument, not enough is known about dilbit’s effects on the environment and its behaviour if it is spilled.
The study from the University of Guelph exposed four groups of sockeye salmon eggs to four different amounts of water-soluble dilbit. For eight months, the researchers followed the progress of the salmon after they had been moved to clean water.
“We found a whole suite of effects from delayed hatching to increased mortality, increased developmental deformities and changes in growth and energy stores in the fish,” said researcher Sarah Alderman.
Almost 50 per cent of the salmon that were exposed to the highest levels of bitumen died in the first two months. Those bitumen levels matched the amount of oil products found along the Gulf of Mexico after the Deep Water Horizon spill.
When the Federal Court of Appeal halted the pipeline project recently, it said the National Energy Board was wrong to exclude the marine shipping of bitumen from its approval process.
A study is already underway to gather more information on what happens to bitumen when it is spilled in water, a crucial question in evaluating how and whether it can be cleaned up.
The salmon study is another much-needed piece of evidence in the bitter dispute.
