State-of-the-art facility for aquatic science opens in Burlington

Research is anything but dry in the newly constructed $4.6M Aquatic Life Research Facility at the Canada Centre for Inland Waters (CCIW). Jointly funded by Environment Canada and Fisheries and Oceans Canada, this facility dramatically increases the scope, capacity and energy efficiency of aquatic research at CCIW, allowing researchers from both federal departments, as well as external partners, to pursue important new projects.

Key Laboratory Improvements

The Aquatic Life Research Facility replaces an older wet lab built in the 1970s and has features that greatly improve the way research is conducted.  The main experiment room supports four times the number of aquaria as the original wet lab: 260 50-L aquaria on racks with full temperature and lighting control to ensure fish are provided a controlled environment for toxicant and stressor exposures.

Fish holding tank capacity has also been significantly extended, featuring four banks of three holding tanks able to support over 200 kg of fish, a large improvement over the previous facility’s 55-kg holding capacity. Impressively, these tanks are on a recirculation system that re-uses at least 80% of the water. This will provide significant cost and environmental savings by reducing the amount of water used and waste produced and also by conserving energy needed to modulate the temperature of incoming water.  The recirculation system features a filtration system to remove ammonia and particulates; UV sterilizes the water.  It is estimated that the recirculation system will save almost $400K per year.

The new facility expands the type of research than can be carried out by including two additional rooms: one segregated from the main areas where fish brought in from the wild can be tested for food chain and stressor experiments without allowing pathogens to pass into the laboratory-raised fish and another of environmental chambers that will support testing of stressor effects on a variety of aquatic life, including amphibians and turtles.

Upcoming research scheduled for the Aquatic Life Research Facility

Municipal waste water effluent (MWWE) exposures

MWWE contains a large variety of compounds and toxicants including ammonia, oils, metals, brominated flame retardants, as well as pharmaceuticals and personal care products. This project is designed to assess the combined effects of these mixtures on fish through lifecycle exposures; fathead minnow eggs will be hatched in the effluent and allowed to grow to adulthood and then breed in the effluent.  Data gained from this study will help to predict what will happen to wild fish exposed to these effluents and to determine at what concentrations the effluents become problematic.

Pulp mill effluent (PME) exposures

Juvenile fathead minnows will be exposed for one month to PMEs at several concentrations to evaluate effects on the size of fish ovaries and testes.  This research is part of a larger investigation to determine which compounds in PMEs are responsible for causing small gonads in fish, as well as part of a collaboration with the pulp mill industry to develop methods to remove these compounds from effluent.

Oil sands testing

Past research has shown deformities occurring in larval fish exposed to oil sands. This project will expand knowledge of the effects of exposure to oil sands sediments and overlay water to ascertain the health of the Athabasca River and tributaries in Alberta, helping to determine the best course of action for remediating oil sands tailings ponds.

Chemicals Management Plan (CMP) testing

Projects are being scheduled in support of the CMP, including testing exposure to several dyes and pigments that have been seen to cause toxicity at only very high concentrations.  Data from this research will be used in risk assessments to determine whether these dyes are safe to use, based on low environmental toxicity.

Randle Reef sediment exposures

Randle Reef in Hamilton Harbor is listed as one of North America’s Areas of Concern and is significantly contaminated by organic chemicals and metals. This project will expose rainbow trout to Randle Reef sediments and will allow researchers to conduct gene expression analysis on the fish to examine which genes are switched on or off in the presence of sediment-borne contaminants. With this knowledge, it may be possible to identify toxicity pathways switched on due to contaminant exposure, and to eventually develop in vitro screening tests based on the differentially expressed genes.

Meet some of the EC scientists using the Aquatic Life Research Facility

	Dr. Joanne L. Parrott, Research Scientist - Section Chief Priority Substances Effects
	Dr. Derek Muir, Senior Research Scientist - Section Cheif Priority Substances Exposure
	Dr. Patricia L. Gillis, Research Scientist - Freshwater Invertebrate Ecotoxicology and Immunotoxicology
	Shane R de Solla, Wildlife Biologist - Ecotoxicology
	Dr. Amila O. De Silva, Research Scientist - Environmental chemistry of persistent organic pollutants including fluorinated compounds

For more information, click here to visit the Aquatic Life Research Facility’s web page.