Lorne Fitch, P. Biol.

A cult of ignorance has been cultivated on selenium released from coal mining, with the false notion that if you don’t monitor it in water or in fish, the problem doesn’t exist.

Enjoy the fishing — but don’t eat the fish

Fish contaminated by selenium were first recognized in tributaries of the Crowsnest River affected by runoff from the legacy Grassy Mountain coal mine. Subsequent research on fish in Crowsnest Lake indicated high levels of contamination from the legacy Tent Mountain coal mine. This should have warranted immediate advisories for people consuming fish. Instead the UCP dragged their collective feet, seemingly unwilling to advise people of the health risks, and only did so a year after the knowledge was evident.

Finding the public notification of health risks is difficult and even the provincial sportfishing regulations provide no warning. Instead, in true political spin, the angling advisory reads more like an advertisement than a warning: “Fish is an excellent source of lean protein, and provides essential nutrients like omega-3 fatty acids, zinc, iron, selenium and vitamins A, C and D.”

There has been a complete failure to complete the monitoring of selenium in fish for the remainder of the Crowsnest River and further downstream in the Oldman River.

There is speculation that the UCP is unwilling to undertake comprehensive selenium research before their Coal Industry Modernization Initiative is released. This is purported to provide new guidelines for coal development in Alberta. The only participant has been the coal industry, and they have been actively lobbying for an increase in selenium releases from coal mines.

It is evident the UCP has not proceeded with further watershed-scale selenium research and monitoring that might upset an Australian company intent on gaining approval for a coal mine.

As a result, an independent study of selenium contamination of fish was recently undertaken by Crowsnest Headwaters, a small conservation group (Analysis of Selenium Tissue Concentrations in Multiple Fish Species of the Oldman River).

This work was done downstream of the Oldman Dam, to assess the waterborne movement of selenium downstream from legacy mine sources and how that has affected contamination levels in fish lower in the watershed.

A summary of this research included this:

“Thirty-eight fish, from five species and representative of the fish assemblage of the Oldman River downstream of the Oldman dam, were analyzed for selenium concentrations in muscle tissue. Of the sportfish species (rainbow trout, brown trout, and mountain whitefish), 33 per cent of the fish exceeded Alberta’s threshold for the protection of aquatic life. This also has implications for people who consume these fish. Compared with fish in Alberta waterbodies not impacted by coal mining, the mean selenium species concentrations for Oldman River fish suggests a broader selenium problem for the Oldman ecosystem, both upstream and downstream of the Oldman dam.”

The results of the reconnaissance study by Crowsnest Headwaters points out that waterborne selenium has moved from upstream sources downstream to contaminate fish below the Oldman Dam. “There’s a one in three chance of eating a fish that has higher selenium levels than are good for you,” remarks Bob Costa, an angler and member of Crowsnest Headwaters.

This indicates a more systematic and comprehensive examination of selenium is urgently required to connect the dots between legacy coal mines and contamination of fish and aquatic invertebrates for the larger watershed. This should include, at a minimum, fish tissue analysis for selenium over the length of the Crowsnest River, the Oldman Reservoir, and the Oldman River downstream to Lethbridge. Sampling of fish populations in the Castle and upper Oldman rivers is necessary to provide baselines for comparison.

It should be evident to the UCP this information is necessary to understand the ecological and toxicological implications of selenium contamination from coal mining, past and proposed. It is equally important to provide robust notification to anglers, consumers of fish (including those on the Piikani Nation), and other water users in the watershed of the risks of legacy and proposed coal mines.

To do nothing is a flagrant disregard for human and ecosystem health, and a failure of governance. It is an indictment of this government when a small, unfunded conservation group has to shoulder essential monitoring in the public interest.

Lorne Fitch is a Professional Biologist, a retired Fish and Wildlife Biologist and a former Adjunct Professor with the University of Calgary. He is the author of Streams of Consequence, Travels Up the Creek, and Conservation Confidential.

Crowsnest Headwaters is a purely volunteer group of citizens committed to the protection and recovery of the Crowsnest/Oldman watershed from decades of coal mining and clear cutting. We rely on your donations to continue our work in the field, in the laboratory and in the courts. Please donate what you can by Interac eTransfer to funding@crowsnestheadwaters.ca

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Crowsnest Headwaters

Why We Need to Know about Selenium in Fish