Canadian Natives Not Told About Toxic Fishing For Two Years

by Mark Bourrie

The Quebec government has admitted it knew for two years that the people of the remote Cree community of Ouje-Bougoumou were eating fish contaminated with potentially dangerous levels of arsenic, lead, and mercury. The metals are suspected to come from tailings from three mines near the Cree settlement.

The government waited until Oct. 16 to tell the community children younger than six and women who are pregnant or trying to get pregnant should stop eating fish caught in two nearby lakes because they are contaminated by mercury.

However, officials said they began finding contaminated fish in Lake Chibougamau and Lake aux Dores in 1999. "Why didn't they tell anybody about it?" Paul Wertman, an adviser to the Cree, said in a telephone interview from the isolated community about 500 kilometers north of the city of Montreal.

Even the notice the government sent the Cree presented a somewhat cheery picture. It began: "Fish is an excellent source of protein and contains little saturated fat," before telling the 700 people of the community to eat no more than two fish a month.

For years, Cree fishers, who catch most of the community's food, suspected there was a problem with the three lakes that they use. They reported catching fish with strange defects, lacking fins and eyes.

The government did not admit to the pollution problem until the Cree tribal council hired U.S. researchers Christopher Covel and Roger Masters to investigate. The pair found high levels of arsenic, cyanide, lead, and mercury in fish caught by Cree fishers.

"The study confirms what we knew already," Quebec environment minister Andre Boiclair admitted at a press conference after the Cree released their findings. He said Quebec inspectors began finding contaminated fish in 1999 and continued their studies in 2000.

"This is a situation that we are taking seriously, but it is also a situation that is under control," the minister said. "We'll do whatever necessary studies that must be done, but before announcing any new measures, I want to discuss them with the representatives of the Cree nation. I want to respect their wishes and I want to make sure that we have a good understanding with the Cree nation."

The Cree have yet to decide whether they want the community moved or if they will demand financial compensation that will allow them to diversify their economy. Cree leaders said they are leaning toward a request that the community be relocated to a region where the fish are not contaminated. They also are demanding funding for an independent epidemiological study.

Covel and Masters laid the blame for the contamination on 50 years of unregulated dumping of toxic waste from three mines. Covel said the level of toxins was much worse than at the notorious Love Canal in Niagara Falls, New York, where high cancer rates were linked to the dumping of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and other carcinogens.

"What I found is staggering," Covel said. "It makes the Love Canal look like a dirty back yard."

There are another 27 mines in northern Quebec, Covel said, and all of them should be studied. Epidemiological studies of the Cree also should be carried out to establish a clear link between the contaminants and the deaths they have caused.

"I don't think it takes a scientist to know that arsenic and cyanide are lethal," Covel said. He speculated that a full study would conclude that the contaminants from the mining industry are affecting the environment of the whole region, an area of wilderness the size of France.

Covel found 101 milligrams of arsenic per kilogram in the sediments of Lake Chibougamau, where the Cree built their settlement and make their living by fishing. The Canadian environmental quality guideline for arsenic is 5.9 milligrams per kilogram.

In Lake aux Dores, the arsenic level was 243 milligrams per kilogram, or 41 times the allowable limit. The cyanide level was 40 times the allowable limit.

His study also found high levels of heavy metals in fish caught in the lakes and in hair samples taken from Cree residents. Covel consulted aerial photographs taken between 1953 and 1998. These, he said, showed mine tailings steadily washing into the lakes.

Sam Bossum, the community's chief, said he had long suspected the mines were polluting his community's food source.

"They just dumped it into the water," he said.