One of the big reasons Salmon are not doing well.

OldBlackDog

Well-Known Member
Antidepressants can make smolts 'bold,' less afraid of predators, says Seattle toxicologist
Yvette Brend · CBC News · Posted: Aug 06, 2018 6:00 AM PT | Last Updated: 2 hours ago

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A Seattle expert in environmental contaminants who has linked sewage flushes into Washington state estuaries to higher juvenile chinook salmon death rates suspects human drugs found in fish put them at risk.

James Meador of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric administration (NOAA) said he believes pharmaceuticals found in the contaminated water — such as amphetamines and antidepressants — are in part to blame.

These drugs and chemicals pass through human digestive systems — and some are flushed directly down the toilet.

Meador tested fish from sewage-contaminated estuaries in Puget Sound on the northwestern coast of Washington.

"The fact that we detected these powerful medicines in fish is surprising," he said.

Studied fish for 40 years
He tested 49 fish for 150 pharmaceuticals, personal care products and industrial chemicals.

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A researcher uses a net with weights and buoys called a seine net to to gather fish for study at the Nisqually estuary in Puget Sound, Washington. (Andrew Yeh)
He found 42 chemicals at elevated levels in fish — and 81 of the chemicals in effluent.

Meador has studied the effects of contaminants on fish for 40 years and believes the effluent harms chinook during a critical period in their development.

"We suspect [the chemicals] affect their physiology and behavior, which could cause them to grow slower and act oddly. Those factors mean they are more likely to get eaten by a predator," he said.

The 2018 study looked at 241 fish from three contaminated Puget Sound estuaries — bodies of water where rivers meet the sea — on the west coast of Washington state.

These include the Sinclair Inlet, the Puyallup River and the less contaminated Nisqually River.

He found drugs like antidepressants in fish tissue, and even more drugs in the water.

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Chinook yearlings often grow in estuaries near shores, where contaminants that are rife in human sewage can concentrate. (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)
Chinook yearlings often grow in estuaries near shores, where contaminants that are rife in human sewage can concentrate.

In a 2016 study, Meador analyzed 37 years of data, which revealed that chinook developing in contaminated water had a 45 per cent lower survival rate thansalmon in clean water.

In his 2018 study he tried to examine why this happens.

But Meador never expected to find so many contaminants found in human sewage in the fish when he started testing water near pipes that pour into estuaries.

Water near those pipes had 10 times the chemical cocktail of water downstream.

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A 2018 study of the effects of sewage effluent on fish examined smolts from three Puget Sound estuaries — Sinclair Inlet and the Puyallup River (shown here) — which handle sewage discharge. Fish were also analyzed from a less contaminated estuary on the Nisqually River. (Andrew Yeh)
Samples revealed everything from cocaine to amphetamines and nicotine byproducts. He said drugs that pass through humans, such as diabetes treatments and antidepressants, affect fish metabolism and behaviour.

"[Antidepressants] can make these fish a little more bold so they really don't care as much about predators," he said.

He said the amounts found in fish though "significant" would not affect humans or predators.

What's in B.C. water?
Along B.C.'s salmon-rich Fraser River, there are three waste water plants.

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The Iona wastewater treatment plant sits near Iona Beach regional park in Richmond, B.C. (Metro Vancouver)
Last year, Richmond's Iona Island wastewater treatment plant discharged about 574-million litres per day of "under-treated" water, according to federal officials.

The primary treatment plant is slated for upgrade by 2030. Primary treatment of sewage mechanically strains the water of solids, but not chemicals.

Secondary treatment removes most contaminants of concern, according to Meador.

In 2017, the 450-billion litres of waste water pumped through Metro Vancouver plants were tested for many of the same chemicals that Meador studies.


Fraser River water quality "mostly met" guidelines, according regional reports.

However, a federal Environment official said contaminants sometimes are detected in the the Fraser River.

"Periodically, some chronic toxicity of effluent... was observed," said Marilyne Lavoie, a spokesperson for Environment and Climate Change Canada in an email.

She noted that the source of that toxicity needs more study.


The Early Edition host, Stephen Quinn, spoke with whale biologist Deborah Giles on why southern resident killer whales, which feed on chinook salmon, are struggling to reproduce. You can listen to the full interview below.

Whale biologist Deborah Giles
The Early Edition host, Stephen Quinn, spoke with whale biologist Deborah Giles on why southern resident killer whales are struggling to reproduce. 8:38

Read more from CBC British Columbia
 
As always the reason is cost, the solid they they get from metro Vancouver’s waist have to be transported to the interior of B.C. to be disposed of. By total weight this material is like 80% water even after it goes though a huge hydrolic compression.

As always it comes down to the all mighty cost who in metro Vancouver wants another property tax increase?
 
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Funding decline was for 2020, and yes main reason why was nobody wanted a property tax increase. Probably same people who blame farms for the decrease in salmon inventory.
 
One trillion litres of sewage leaked into lakes and rivers over last five years
Published 10 hours ago
Last Wednesday, a team of people from the Lake Ontario Waterkeeper environmental group descended on the Toronto harbourfront looking for any signs the previous night’s massive, flash-flood rainfall had caused the city’s ancient combined sewer system to overflow into the lake.

They didn’t need to dip a single test tube into the water to know it had.

There, in plain sight and floating around the docks and pedestrian bridges along the waterfront of Canada’s biggest city, was a toxic stew of used condoms, plastic tampon applicators and mounds of shredded toilet paper, along with a countless quantity of other, unidentifiable solids.

When water testing was done, the levels of bacteria “were off the charts,” said Krystyn Tully, vice-president of the national water advocacy group Swim Drink Fish.

Toronto, like the vast majority of Canadian cities, doesn’t monitor real-time data of sewage leaks into lakes, rivers or oceans. As a result, it’s unknown how much raw sewage flowed through overflow pipes when the storm overwhelmed the city’s treatment facilities.

Environment Canada does require municipal governments to report annually how much untreated wastewater is spilled, but settles for calculations that are based on computer models, rather than specific data of actual events.

Data provided by the federal government shows in 2017, municipalities reported 215 billion litres of raw sewage were spilled or leaked without being treated. Enough to fill 86,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools, that represents an increase of 10 per cent over the amount reported five years ago.

Over the last five years, the total amount is in excess of one trillion litres.

About two-thirds of the amount of reported in 2017 was purposely released when rains overwhelmed water systems that use a single pipe for both storm sewers and wastewater. When storms happen, the excess water can’t be handled by treatment plants and must be released into waterways to prevent basement backups.

The rest is usually the result of problems like power outages, system breakdowns or leaks. Tully, whose organization has monitored the Toronto inner harbour for the last three years, said whether it rains or not, “there isn’t a day that we’ve gone to the harbour that we haven’t been able to find some evidence of sewage contamination.”

The largest contributor to the national problem is British Columbia, where municipalities reported 77 billion litres of raw sewage that leaked or was spilled in 2017, followed by Nova Scotia at 39 million litres, Newfoundland at 29 million litres and Ontario at 22.8 million litres.

Those numbers are nowhere near the actual amounts being leaked, said Tully.

Data she obtained from Environment Canada said in 2016, only 159 of the 269 municipal water systems that are required to report sewage leaks actually did so. The agency is supposed to investigate every missing report, but Tully said the government is more focused on providing education and technical assistance.

Environment Canada also does not publicly report each spill, and very few cities do it themselves. Last year, the Ontario city of Kingston became the first in Canada to install monitors in its pipes to measure how much sewage is being leaked; the city now reports publicly in real time every time it happens.

When Kingston began using the monitors, it also found that its earlier calculations were significantly underestimating how much untreated sewage was actually being discharged, Tully said.

The municipality felt real-time monitoring was the best way to serve the public, said Jim Miller, director of utility engineering for Utilities Kingston. The eventual plan is to eliminate all its combined storm and wastewater pipes, but that will take time, he added.

“This is a long-term solution,” Miller said. “It’s not going to happen overnight, but in the long run it is the most effective solution.”

The cost to addressing the leaks is large and the projects take a long time to finish. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities estimates it will cost cities $18 billion to implement new regulations introduced by Ottawa in 2012 that toughened standards for treating wastewater. Those standards aren’t yet in effect; high-risk systems have until 2020 to meet them, while those deemed low risk have until 2040.

Those regulations do nothing to require cities to address the problem, even as the effects of climate change amplify the frequency of extreme rain events — a phenomenon that risks making flash floods like last week’s in Toronto far more common.

Several cities are taking on the challenge without regulation. Victoria, where decades of untreated wastewater being released into harbour prompted nearby Seattle to warn tourists from visiting, is spending $765 million to build a new treatment plant that will come online in 2020.

Toronto is embarking on a $3-billion, multi-stage project to build overflow pipes to store excess water during storms until the treatment system can handle the additional water, said Frank Quarisa, Toronto Water’s acting general manager.

But it will be 10 years before the first phase is expected to start operating, and as long as 25 years before the entire project is complete.

Tully said she thinks Canadians are appalled when they hear about the sewage, but that public reporting of the issue needs to be much more detailed and complete, with cities being required to actually monitor their leaks.

“The first thing they need to do is actually track what is coming out,” she said.

Environment Minister Catherine McKenna wasn’t available for an interview Friday. But she’s familiar with the problem: just days after becoming minister, she was forced to allow Montreal to purposely dump eight billion litres of sewage into the St. Lawrence River so it could fix a pipe.
 
The largest contributor to the national problem is British Columbia, where municipalities reported 77 billion litres of raw sewage that leaked or was spilled in 2017, followed by Nova Scotia at 39 million litres, Newfoundland at 29 million litres and Ontario at 22.8 million litres.

Those numbers are nowhere near the actual amounts being leaked, said Tully.
 
the BIGGEST PROBLEM.... It isn't the facilities . It is that the Ministry of Environment needs an overhaul at the top down. Until that is done you are not going see any improvements with industrial activities with salmon creeks or rivers. They have not enough staff to enforce anything , and until they actual do everything themselves instead of contractors ( under professional reliance model) it isn't going to change. Sorry to say.
 
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