Aquatic Impact Assessment, Burnaby Lake Derailment Spill

On January 11, 2014, a Canadian Pacific (CP) train derailed on the Canadian National Railway in Burnaby, British Columbia. This derailment resulted in the partial release of metallurgical coal from three rail cars in, and adjacent to, Silver Creek, and ultimately into Burnaby Lake. Following the derailment and subsequent spill, CN, in discussions with regulatory agencies, opted to follow a ‘precautionary principle’ risk management approach, and removed the majority of the volume of the coal from the spill site. In order to evaluate any residual impacts from the unrecovered coal downstream of the spill area, CN retained Borealis to develop, conduct, and report on an Aquatic Impact Assessment of the potentially-affected receiving aquatic environments in Silver Creek and Burnaby Lake. The results of this study are included in a journal article in the Water Quality Research Journal of Canada (see Publications in this website for more details).

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