Fish are thriving again in streams around the former Sydney tar ponds in Cape Breton, once one of Canada's most notorious toxic waste sites, CTV News reports.
Cape Breton University biologist Katherine Jones studied mummichog fish in Coke Ovens Brook, Muggah Creek and Wash Brook and found their health had rebounded markedly, with no bone deformities or fin rot and improved symmetry, a sign of less stress during development.
Donnie Burke of Build Nova Scotia, which monitors water quality, said trout fry and gaspereau had been seen and that people had reported sea bass in the channel. Pollution from steelworks and coke ovens built up from the late 1800s, and at one point more than four million litres of sewage entered the area each day.
The $400 million cleanup finished in 2014, and the site is now Open Hearth Park, with sports fields, trails and a dog run.
Source: CTV News Canada