(CanWest News Service circulated the followings tory by Hanneke Brooymans on December 18.)
EDMONTON — The head of CN claimed Tuesday an Alberta lake is “better environmentally” now than before a train derailment dumped 800,000 litres of fuel oil into it two years ago.
CN’s CEO E. Hunter Harrison made the comments as he defended his company’s environmental record on CBC’s radio program The Current.
The August 2005 accident spilled fuel in and around Wabamun Lake, located 65 kilometres west of Edmonton.
Harrison called the accident “unfortunate,” but said his company stepped up to the plate and did what it said it would do to clean it up.
“The last time I checked, we and our insurers had spent $125 million-plus remedying the problems with Lake Wabamun. As I understand it right now, the lake is better environmentally than it was prior to the derailment,” he said.
When asked later in the day what this claim was based on, CN spokesman Jim Feeny would only say Harrison’s comments stand as is and they would not elaborate further on them.
Doug Goss, who headed a Lake Wabamun residents’ committee, was astonished by the claim.
“It’s preposterous to suggest that dumping hundreds of thousands of litres of oil into the lake is even remotely considered a good thing. I saw the dead birds. I saw the dead animals.”
The fact that $125-million was spent to clean up the lake did not sway Goss’s opinion.
“Even this year, the birds had issues nesting because of tar. I couldn’t possibly imagine how he could come up with that conclusion.
“If that was the case, I think Alberta Environment would be recommending we dump thousands of litres of oil into every lake.”
Alberta Environment declined comment Tuesday.
Last year, the department charged CN with one count of failing to take all reasonable measures to remedy and confine a spill. The maximum fine for this charge is $500,000. The trial starts Feb. 11, 2008.
One of the most recent items on the department’s website concerning Wabamun Lake was posted in March this year. It says, “At the end of the cleanup in 2006, it was evident that a quantity of oil remained in the lake, and could pose a threat to nesting migratory birds in the spring.”
A report from the Transportation Safety Board released in October said the train derailment at Wabamun Lake might have been prevented if a section of replacement rail used by CN had been as strong as the rest of the track.