Motor Vehicle Incident Osoyoos

Disclaimer:

• Information provided is based on reports received by Emergency Management and Climate Readiness (EMCR)
• Information provided is considered to be current at the time of posting, but is subject to change

Incident description

Incident Date	June 5, 2025
Name	DGIR: 252197
Source	MVI
Nearest Community	Osoyoos, B.C.
Spilled Content	Mixed Chemicals
Who is involved	Van Kam Freightways, Ministry of Environment and Parks (ENV), Ministry of Emergency Management and Climate Readiness (EMCR), Commercial Vehicle Safety and Enforcement (CVSE), Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC), RAM Consulting (RAM),  AIM roadway (AIM)

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Response phase details

The responsible person or spiller is legally required to cleanup or manage the cleanup of a spill.

In incidents where the responsible person is unknown, unable or unwilling to manage the cleanup, the Ministry of Environment and Parks (ENV) may assume the role. 

The updates below reflect the ministry’s oversight of the spillers’ actions. Details describe the spill response phase only and not the complete lifecycle of the spill. Visit the 'More information' page for other reports. 

Updates are in reverse chronological order with the most recent at the top.

Industry-specific language may be explained in the Glossary of Terms (PDF, 106KB).

Most recent updates

June 8, 2025 (Updated: June 11th, 2025)

The contents of the remaining totes have been successfully transferred to new totes and transported from the incident site by the response contractor.

The response contractor was also able to all move the wrecked trailer to a safe location for pickup and removal. The rest of the debris from the trailer was cleaned up and removed as well.

The Responsible Person's (RP) Qualified Environmental Professional (QEP) attended the incident site and sampled the creek at multiple points.

The ENV Response Officer (RO) assessed the creek south of the spill location with a property owner and met with various other neighbouring property owners to discuss the operations.

As the situation has stabilised and the RP is taking positive action to address the impacts from this incident, no further updates are anticipated.

June 7, 2025

The response contractor continued working throughout the day. An ENV Response Officer (RO) was on site and monitoring in person. The response contractor was able to:

• remove the side of the trailer to gain access to the contents
• remove 4 intact totes of ferric sulphate

Due to challenges with safely rigging the remaining 10 totes of sodium bisulphite, those totes remain in the trailer.

9 of those 10 totes appear to be full and 1 tote has lost an estimated 750 litres.

There is an unnamed creek in the proximity of the incident site. The Responsible Person (RP) has retained Stantec as a Qualified Environmental Professional (QEP) to evaluate the impacts from the spilled contents and develop a sampling plan.

Sodium bisulphite is a reducing agent commonly used to reduce chlorination in drinking water, and dilution of the spilled material in the creak would have likely occurred within minutes. Sodium bisulphite would react with compounds in the creek and breakdown into common compounds found in water.

The response contractor is planning to offload the remaining material into new totes tomorrow.

An ENV RO will be back on site to monitor operations.

Further updates will made once more information is available.

June 6, 2025

The response contractor was onsite today and was able to:

• improve access around the trailer containing the totes with the dangerous goods
• remove the main tractor and the second trailer (which was not carrying any dangerous goods)

The response contractor attempted to recover and remove the trailer with the totes. However with the the trailer's current orientation (on its side), it made the operation too much of a risk.

The trailer remains stable and response crews will return tomorrow to cut the side of the trailer open for direct crane access to the totes for offloading. There is no evidence of any product leaking from the totes or impacting the environment.

An ENV Response Officer was on-site today monitoring operations and will be back on-scene again tomorrow to monitor the offloading process.

Further updates will made once more information is available.

June 5, 2025

On the morning of June 5th, 2025, the Ministry of Environment and Parks (ENV) received a report of a motor vehicle incident (MVI) on the Crowsnest Highway, east of Osoyoos B.C.

The truck exited the highway and is currently in the ditch running alongside the highway. The truck belongs to Van Kam Freightways and was carrying totes of Ferric Sulphate and Sodium Bisulphite at the time of the incident. Both substances are classified as dangerous goods.

An ENV Response Officer (RO) attended the incident site today to assess the situation. The ENV RO did not observe leaks or spillage from the totes.

A response contractor is enroute to the incident site and is expected to have an initial assessment complete this evening. The response contractor anticipate offloading the totes on Friday morning.

An ENV RO intends to attend the site on Friday morning to monitor the offloading and care of the substances.

Further updates will made once more information is available.