Image Credit: Kent Simmonds / CFJC Today

By Dylana Kneeshaw

DERAILMENT UPDATE

TNRD waiting on water test results after aviation fuel leak into Kamloops Lake

Nov 6, 2025 | 2:45 PM

KAMLOOPS — The Thompson-Nicola Regional District (TNRD) is awaiting the results of water testing as it continues to monitor the fallout of last Saturday’s train derailment near Cherry Creek.

New estimates have measured a little over 80,000 litres of aviation fuel was spilled into Kamloops Lake, and the TNRD says those test results will help it determine if there are any impacts to drinking water.

“That’s a considerable increase from the original expectations,” TNRD Area ‘J’ Director Michael Grenier told CFJC Thursday (Nov. 6) morning “[It] heightens our concern for testing all the more — or the test results all the more.”

Seventeen train cars carrying fuel, gypsum and pulp came off the tracks around 7:00 p.m. Saturday night. Some cars went into the lake and others came to rest on a slope from the rail right-of-way down to the lake, where containment booms have been set up to capture the escaping sheen.

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“This is obviously a situation that is evolving very quickly,” TNRD Board Chair Barbara Roden added. “That said, we have been assured [after the estimate of] 80,000 litres, there is no more to come. The other fuel cars that were on site have had the fuel offloaded, so those cars are now empty.”

The results of water testing done earlier this week are expected late Thursday.

“We need this information right away. Our constituents need this information right away and if there’s any concern about the water quality, we’ll have to shut the system down and provide people with water,” added Grenier.

A Ministry of Environment and Parks update says the smell of fuel was reported at Frederick, a small neighbourhood across Kamloops Lake. Roden says those residents have been told to not draw water from the lake. Instead, the railway company has been providing bottled water, said Grenier.

The intake to the Tobiano water system – which is operated by Bluestem Utilities – has also been shutdown as a precaution and the community will rely on its own reservoir.

“They have a reservoir that can last them several days, and so that they have that capability,” Grenier said, noting that the test results would be known “long before they run out of water.”

The intake to the Savona water system – which is operated by the TNRD – is still flowing but that could change if the test results show anything amiss.

“That’s why we need to know the rate of the spread, the extent of the spread, and we need to know how long we can expect to be dealing with the effects,” added Roden.

CFJC has reached out to Interior Health for comment on the status of the water test results, but has not yet heard back from the health authority.

According to the Ministry of Environment and Parks, the responsible company – in this case CPKC – is legally required to clean up any spill. It noted that said the railway had found a shoreline cleanup professional who would be on site on Friday.

CPKC said in a statement that it remains fully committed to the cleanup of the site, and that two rail cars were “safely removed from the site on Thursday.

“CPKC environment crews remain on site working with federal, provincial, local and Indigenous responders on the cleanup of the spilled fuel and the removal of the remaining rail cars,” the statement says.

The railway has said there were no injuries, and the cause of the derailment is under investigation.

– With files from The Canadian Press