Canadian National Railway has settled charges arising from a major spill caused by a derailment at Wabamun, Alberta, in August 2005, and another spill two days later near Cheakamus, B.C.

The railway said today it will pay $1.8 million to resolve the cases. Most of the money will go to environmental and emergency response programs in Alberta and British Columbia

CN said it and its insurers spent more than $132 million on remediation and compensation following the Wabamun Lake spill.

The railway agreed last September to pay $10 million to the Paul Band over the derailment, which dumped almost 800,000 litres of bunker oil and wood preservative into the lake west of Edmonton on August 3rd, 2005. The spill killed birds and fish, polluted shoreline and forced authorities to truck drinking water into the area for 18 months.

Canadian National said monitoring now shows only a minimal solid tarball presence on the lake floor, which it said poses no risk to humans or wildlife.

The August 5th, 2005 incident near Squamish, B.C., spilled 40,000 litres of sodium hydroxide - caustic soda - into the Cheakamus River. CN said the river quickly returned to natural conditions but remediation work is ongoing to rebuild fish populations.

More than half a million fish were killed after nine cars derailed on the Cheakamus Canyon bridge, and reports have said stocks of salmon and other species may take decades to recover.