EPA: Amount of white liquor in Columbia River 'very limited,' safe to swim and fish

Added: 2026-06-02

[00:00:00]Um, for one, uh, it's our understanding that, uh, there was a little bit of white liquor that reached the Columbia River in the first minutes of the response.

[00:00:10]But, that outfall that where that, uh, white liquor escaped was immediately shut off.

[00:00:15]So, our understanding, and we don't know the exact volume that was released, but we it's our understanding was it was very limited in the initial hour of of the in the incident.

[00:00:26]It is safe to swim and fish in the Columbia River right now. There's no There are no warnings or advisories at this time.

[00:00:33]So, um, and we'll get to get all of your questions.

[00:00:36]>> What are the short-term and long-term impacts of the contamination that's already occurred in the slough water and wherever else?

[00:00:42]>> Yeah, I mean, it's hard to tell when you're you're really just try focused on containment first and and protecting people, um, but we understand the short-term impacts, when you're talking about a caustic liquid, a liquid with high pH, is that it's going to be, uh, deadly with fish. And we have observed that there are some dead fish in the, um, the ditch network. We're we're seeing that and we expect to see more of it.

[00:01:08]Um, long-term, we're evaluating that right now with some of our our fish and wildlife agencies to see what that might be. I think we believe that, uh, uh, impact, but we we may not know everything. We're still looking at it at a couple of I don't We don't know have all the answers at this time.

[00:01:35]>> Thank you. Can you guys