Fishing pond reopens after oil spill
Restrictions remain at Gleniffer Lake
A pond closed due to an oil spill into the Red Deer River has reopened for fishing this spring, but restrictions remain for the rest of the affected area.
Last June, a Plains Midstream Canada pipeline leaked up to 480,000 litres of sour crude oil into the central Alberta river.
The Dickson Trout Pond, which had fishing conditions placed on it after the leak, was given the all-clear earlier this month by Alberta Health Services.
“There is no risk for human consumption of the stocked trout in the pond,” said an emailed statement from Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development.
As a result, spokeswoman Nikki Booth said, the pond was reopened April 1.
“People can actually go to the Dickson Trout Pond and fish,” she said, noting restrictions remain in other areas.
Further testing is needed, such as monitoring of contaminant levels in the Mountain Whitefish spawning area, and population studies to determine whether fish in the Red Deer River and Gleniffer Reservoir are healthy enough to eat. This is not expected to be complete until later this fall or early this winter.
“We’re basically making sure there is no residual levels of contamination and that they are safe for human consumption and that they are reproducing at a suitable level that harvest could occur,” Booth said.
She said the catch-and-release regulations are expected to remain on the flowing waters in the Red Deer River system above the Dickson Dam for this year.
The information, which was requested by the Herald in January and released by the province this week, came just days after Plains Midstream issued its latest update.
The company said it’s preparing a schedule for the spring inspection and monitoring activities along the Red Deer River and Gleniffer Lake.
“Regulatory agencies, along with Plains, will return to the area in summer 2013 to reinspect the cleaned sites and evaluate the effectiveness of the cleanup and restoration activities,” said the update.
Plains Midstream said it presented its summary of fish tissue sample results and aquatic monitoring results to Alberta Environment in December.
Water quality also continues to be monitored.
Information presented at a recent water conference in Red Deer suggested the spill was less catastrophic than originally thought.
Stewart Rood, a professor in environmental science at the University of Lethbridge who researched the spill, said the booms put in the reservoir did a fairly good job at containing the surface oil.
“Within a crude oil mixture, there are some substances that are water soluble,” he said in an interview. “Those materials then move downstream with the flowing water.”
Testing, however, showed there was no impact to downstream water quality.
“Keep in mind that this event coincided with a flood and, in fact, it was the physical erosion from the flood that exposed and then ruptured the pipe,” said Rood.
“The fortunate thing about this is, with a vast volume of water flowing, the dilution was fairly substantial.”
He added, however, that the June 7 spill into the Red Deer river was both significant and instructive.
Some of the other findings showed that the floodplain vegetation acted like a filter, contacting and collecting the floating oil; the coating became less oily and less sticky over the early weeks; the oil coating caused a temporary reduction in shoot growth; and, after 10 weeks, there was little contaminant left on the vegetation due to evaporation and oxidation.
His recommendations included: avoiding braided channels when building pipelines; shutting off flows on pipelines during flood events, which is current policy; and, limiting the amount of vegetation removed in floodplain zone since natural recovery will occur.