Swan Hills Treatment Center: PCBs and PCDD/F in wild game and fish tissue (1999-2014)

The Swan Hills Treatment Centre (SHTC) is a facility for the safe disposal of special wastes located approximately 12 km northeast of the town of Swan Hills, AB. On October 16, 1996, a malfunction of a transformer furnace was discovered to have caused the release of a portion of process gases containing polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans (PCDD/Fs) into the ambient air. These chemicals can be harmful to human health. Therefore, in 1997 Alberta Health (AH) conducted a human health risk assessment study to estimate human exposure and to evaluate the effectiveness of public health interventions. As a result of the study, food consumption advice for wild game and fish taken within a 30 km radius of the facility were issued out of concern that PCBs and PCDD/Fs were accumulating in these locally caught foods. A long-term environmental monitoring and human exposure assessment program has been ongoing since 1998 to monitor concentrations of PCBs and PCDD/Fs in wild game and fish. The purpose of this program is to review the existing food consumption advice in the context of ongoing fish and wild game test results to protect the health of local residents. Eight fish and seven wild game follow up sampling campaigns were conducted between 1997 and 2014. This dataset includes the concentrations of PCBs and PCDD/Fs in fish from 2000 to 2014 and in deer from 1999 to 2014. For additional information, refer to four project reports that have been posted on AH’s website (1997, 2004, 2009, and 2013). In 2012, the wild game advice was revised from limiting the consumption of game collected within a 30 km radius of the facility to game collected within a 15 km radius of the facility. This change was informed by the ongoing tissue monitoring and decreasing levels of contamination in wild game.