Glycol leaks from rail cars into Thompson Chemicals water soluble, biodegradable and should not harm fish, officials claim
Tim Lai, Vancouver Sun; with a files from Canwest News Service Published: Friday, July 04, 2008
LYTTON - Results from water samples taken from the Thompson River at the site of the train derailment near Lytton were expected today, but government officials confirmed Thursday that ethylene glycol had leaked from one of two submerged tank cars.
"The divers have determined that some [chemical] was released," said B.C. Ministry of Environment representative Kate Thompson.
"The valves were knocked off and there are some punctures in the tank car that is submerged in the river.
"We have no idea how much of it has been released."
"There's one car that's fully submerged and it's leaking," said Peter Milobar, chairman of the Thompson-Nicola Regional District.
"The other car is half submerged and it's not leaking."
Until early Thursday, Canadian Pacific Railway representative Mike LoVecchio maintained that there had been no leak and that a potential glycol leak would have very little impact on the water and surrounding area in any case.
"It's important to remember that glycol is water-soluble and biodegradable," he said.
LoVecchio said Thursday he was awaiting plans on CP's next steps.
Officials from the Village of Lytton, Lytton First Nation, as well as government agencies, the railways and environmental consultants met Thursday to develop a strategy to deal with the submerged tanks and the potential of future derailments.
"They can't remove the cars -- it's too heavy and the water is too high right now -- so they're going to go in there to drain them and refill them with water so that they can be stable," Milobar said. "When the river drops, they'll try to remove them.
"It's a concern throughout the regional district," he added. "When you think of the sheer volume and dangerous goods that comes through on a daily basis, it's quite a concern."
The meeting developed a protocol to test fish for contamination, an issue of great concern for the Lytton First Nation.
Lytton Mayor Chris O'Connor, who left the meeting early to find someone who would make wooden plugs for the punctured valves, said he was not concerned about the leak.
"It's already gone down the river," he said. "All of the background technical information suggests that even if they had a catastrophic failure of two tanks -- I believe it was 90,000 litres each for a total of 180,000 litres -- the volume of water currently in the river and the downstream dilution would be so great that concentration would be below reported toxicity levels of fish."
But O'Connor said he was worried about how to deal with the potential of future derailments.
"Going forward, how do we prevent this kind of stuff in the future? Should we expect (the railways) to put on more track patrols?" he asked. "This time it's ethylene glycol, which isn't an overly toxic substance, but what if it's sodium hydroxide next time or oil or something that has a much higher level of toxicity?"
Four CP Rail cars had jumped off a CN track around 7 p.m. Tuesday when the moving train was hit by a mudslide triggered by a heavy rainstorm. One remained partially on the track, while another, perched on the rock face above the river, was removed Thursday.
In July 2006, 12 cars, each carrying up to 100 tonnes of coal, plunged into the Thompson off a railway bridge just outside Lytton, near where it flows into the Fraser River. Environment officials issued a caution to residents eating fish from the river, but stated that there was limited risk due to low toxicity.
tlai@png.canwest.com
© The Vancouver Sun 2008
Overview of the Thompson River's path. Lytton is center-bottom-left on the mapChemicals in the Thompson River were said to be found after four Canadian Pacific Railway (CP Rail) cars containing chemicals derailed near Lytton, British Columbia, Canada on Tuesday night.

The derailment occurred just northeast of Lytton when a landslide hit in the middle of a freight train with about 100 cars at around 7:00 pm PDT (02:00 UTC) Tuesday evening. One car remained on the tracks, another was on a river bank, and two were submerged in the Thompson, one of them fully submerged and the other partially submerged. CP states that the cars were carrying the chemical ethylene glycol, commonly found in products such as antifreeze and windshield washer fluid. Glycol is water soluble and biodegradable but is causing concern to local fisheries and people dependent on aquatic life survival. Even though there is not enough chemical to be toxic after dilution in the water, there is still expressed concern that it may cause additional stress to aquatic life.

CN Rail's path across the North Thompson RiverDespite protective measures, like a protective double hull, investigations found that broken valves and holes are causing the chemical to leak into the river. CP Rail originally denied that any chemical was leaking, but is now driving efforts to plug the leaks.

The Thompson River is a tributary of the larger Fraser River. The area is sensitive to harm because migrating salmon pass through and are in already in dwindling numbers in recent years.