Elisabeth Heslop
If someone were to mention fermented barley and several inches of foam, the corresponding mental picture might be a golden pint with a towering white head.
Try, instead, to picture a small creek flowing through Rainy River First Nations, with white foam floating amid expanding bubbles of gas and clumps of rotted grain.
The problem began in mid-March when 13 cars of an eastbound CN freight train jumped the tracks at the reserve.
Some of the contents spilled into Bear Creek, which flows through the middle of the community and empties into the Rainy River.
The 13 cars were filled with grain, according to CN spokesperson Frank Binder.
But Kiley Hanson, co-ordinator of the Rainy River First Nations watershed program, said innocent-sounding grain has become a problem.
She noted that with the high amount of precipitation the area has received this spring, “Rainy River is actually backwashing into our creek, so the creek isn’t flowing out. It’s basically like a stagnant pond at the mouth of it.
“All the grain washed down to the lower level of the creek . . . and for the past eight weeks it’s been rotting and fermenting under water.”
Fortunately, Bear Creek usually dries up during the summer months. That means there shouldn’t be a significant impact on local wildlife, Hanson said, although she added some fish might spawn at the mouth of the creek and so be affected.
Besides the aesthetic downside to having the local creek imitate a distillery, Hanson said a significant concern is the decrease in the dissolved oxygen levels in the water.
The fermenting grain is using a lot of oxygen, she explained, and the fact that the creek isn’t flowing properly means the oxygen isn’t being replenished.
Hanson said they’ve noticed some unfamiliar algae growth that she hopes won’t be a continuing issue.
“We consider our creek to be polluted,” she said. “I expect to see some long-term effects in our creek, but what they will be I’m not even sure yet.”
CN, meanwhile, is actively working to clean up the mess, Binder said, by “shooting air through a compressor into the bottom of the creek which forces the grain at the bottom of the creek to rise to the surface, where it is collected and disposed.”
He added the collection methods range from vacuum trucks to snow shovels with holes in them.
Binder didn’t want to comment on a timeline for the clean-up, but did say the company won’t be dropping the ball on this.
“We’ll be there until it’s finished,” he pledged. “Whatever time it takes, we’re responsible, we’ll clean it up.”
