Rail Car Leaks Toxins Into the Thompson Near Lytton

A rail car that was knocked into the Thompson River by a rock slide is leaking a toxic chemical, provincial officials told a public meeting in Lytton, B.C., Wednesday night.

An Environment Ministry official said there is no doubt some of the ethylene glycol in the double-walled railway car has ended up in the river.

"Well, there has been a release. There's no doubt about it. We have three holes in one tank — they're small holes," Dennis Redford said.

Four Canadian Pacific Railway chemical cars were derailed by the rock slide on Tuesday evening about 100 kilometres southwest of Kamloops.

Two cars loaded with ethylene glycol, which is used to make antifreeze ended up partially submerged.

Officials held a public meeting in Lytton on Wednesday evening. (CBC)
The news of the leak came shortly after CPR spokesman Mike LoVecchio said there were no leaks.

"No visible leaks have been observed. Nor have any breaches been observed," LoVecchio said around 5:30 p.m. PT.

Ninety minutes later at a community meeting in Lytton, Redford told residents that when the cars rolled into the river, three valves broke off.

'Slow release' is being measured
But Redford said the amount of the chemical leaking into the river is minor since two of the holes are only five centimetres in diameter and one is 10.

"It'll be a slow release of that product, which we're really assured that we won't even be able to measure," Redford said .

The ministry is calculating how much ethylene glycol could have been released, and a water quality monitoring station has been set up downstream, Redford said.

Four railway cars were derailed on Tuesday by the rock slide on the banks of the Thompson River. (CBC)
Many of the residents' questions at the public meeting focused on whether people or fish were at risk.

Kevin Houle, a CPR environmental engineer, told the crowd that even if all the chemical leaked into the river, the impact would be minor.

"There's two things working in our favour here. One is there is a significant amount of waters, really high flows in the river, therefore we have a significant amount of dilution," Houle said.

"The second thing is ethylene glycol is very biodegradable. So downstream, the maximum concentrations you would find would be below anything that would cause any environmental impacts."

First Nations leaders at the meeting said a spill of a different chemical could have been much worse. They want a meeting with CPR and CN to discuss emergency planning in the event of a major spill in the Thompson or Fraser rivers.

Lytton residents were also dealing with a major forest fire south of town that led to the closure of the Trans-Canada Highway on Tuesday. The highway was reopened to single-lane alternating traffic on Wednesday afternoon and officials said they had most of the 130-hectacre fire under control.