No one is happy to learn that poison is being dumped into local bodies of water buy Epcor, the company that manages Edmonton’s stormwater system, is using poison to kill invasive goldfish in strmwater ponds.
Goldfish are native to China, Japan, and Korea but sold as pets in North America. Sometimes, people get bored of these fish pets and release them into the wild
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That’s a big problem. Goldfish consume wild fish eggs, fish larvae, and aquatic plants, which can negatively impact natural streams and lakes.
In late July, Epcor informed Edmonton’s Glastonbury neighbourhood residents that the chemical rotenone would treat a stormwater pond in nearby Guinevere Park.
According to Epcor, the provincial government requires the company to prevent invasive species like goldfish from entering the North Saskatchewan River and other freshwater systems.
Epcor’s senior manager of wastewater collection operations, Angus Grant, says rotenone is Health Canada-approved and not harmful to humans if applied “in accordance with label rates.”
“At those rates, they have been identified by Health Canada to be safe,” he told CTV News.
However, some local residents aren’t buying it.
Is Rotenone Really Safe
After digging for information, local resident John O’Connor said he learned that rotenone has been banned elsewhere and that Epcor would be applying it in a solution of potentially carcinogenic hydrocarbons.
“It didn’t take much research to find out that it definitely is harmful and has been banned in many jurisdictions and restricted in others,” he said in an interview with CTV News.
Rotenone is a naturally occurring compound derived from the pea family’s roots, leaves and seeds. In the past, it was widely used as a household garden insecticide.
In 2008, Health Canada banned all insecticidal uses for rotenone. Still, it continued to allow it as a method for killing invasive gilled fish.
Parks Canada recently used rotenone to kill invasive brook trout in Margaret Lake in Banff National Park.
However, research has shown that at certain concentrations, rotenone is toxic to humans.
A 2015 scientific paper published in the journal Handbook of Clinical Neurology discusses evidence linking exposure to rotenone with Parkinson’s disease.
According to the report, “…it was previously believed that the short half-life in the environment and limited commercial use of rotenone reduced the potential exposure scenarios for the human population. However, recent epidemiologic findings suggest that, indeed, exposure to rotenone is a significant risk factor for the development of PD [Parkinson’s disease] in specific populations.”
Epcor started using rotenone five years ago to eradicate goldfish from stormwater ponds it manages.
The City of St. Albert has been using it for even longer.
Melissa Logan, the city’s environmental coordinator, credits an extensive communication plan for helping to alleviate resident concerns.
“We worked closely with Alberta Environment and Parks to ensure the information about the rotenone and the impacts of that were well-communicated and very clear,” Logan told CTV News.
Logan also said that stormwater ponds are not the same as natural ponds and that rotenone is an effective way of ensuring goldfish don’t swim into the environment where they can do real damage.
Back in Edmonton, Glastonbury residents like Gary Boehm want Epcor to pump the brakes until safety and health concerns can be answered.
“There’s no plan, there’s no follow-up, there’s no rehabilitation of the ecosystem to put it back in its natural state,” Boehm said.
Obviously rotenone would not need to be used at all if people did not release their pet fish into waterways.
The real solution is easy, but human behaviour is… well, complicated.
