Title

The Mid-Canada Radar Line Environmental Contaminants Project

Fiscal Year

2005-2006

Community/Region

Ft. Albany First Nation, Ontario

Principal Investigator

Dr. Leonard Tsuji (University of Waterloo)

Community Project Lead

N/A

Project Members

N/A

Project Summary

Military radar stations were constructed across North America in the 1950s as a result of the cold war. Stations along the James Bay were later abandoned but not properly decommissioned, resulting in the contamination of the ecosystem and food chain by PCBs, lead, asbestos, hydrocarbons, and pesticides such as DDT.

In order to address the concerns of the Fort Albany First Nations community, samples of leeches, whitefish, moose, caribou, sturgeon, walleye, and bird species were collected and analysed for total PCBs and other organochlorines. In addition, community presentations were conducted to share the study findings.

The results showed that organochlorines were quantifiable in caribou, walleye and sturgeon, but concentrations were orders of magnitude less than the Canadian Environmental Protection Act guideline limits for fish or poultry. None of the moose samples were found to be above the detection limit for organochlorines. However, since sample sizes were small, these study findings should be interpreted with caution until a larger, more comprehensive study is carried out.