Legally, oil spill response appropriate: maritime lawyer

[agentaqua]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/briti...esponse-appropriate-maritime-lawyer-1.3029124

Legally, oil spill response appropriate: maritime lawyer

Toxic fuel spilled out into the waters of English Bay in Vancouver on Wednesday

By On the Coast, CBC News Posted: Apr 11, 2015 9:30 AM PT| Last Updated: Apr 11, 2015 9:30 AM PT

A spill response boat monitors a boom placed around the bulk carrier cargo ship Marathassa after a bunker fuel spill on Burrard Inlet in Vancouver, B.C., on Thursday April 9, 2015. (Darryl Dyck/Canadian Press)

Maritime Lawyer on Vancouver oil spill 7:08 http://www.cbc.ca/news/maritime-lawyer-on-vancouver-oil-spill-1.3029131

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■James Moore fires back at 'political jabs' over Vancouver oil spill
■Toxic fuel spill in English Bay is wake-up call for port, says marine expert

There have been a lot of questions about the official response to Wednesday's oil spill and a legal expert says that legally, the response unfolded exactly as it should have.

On the Coast host Stephen Quinn spoke to Shelley Chapelski, a partner at Bull Housser, who specializes in maritime law.

Legally, who is in charge?

There are two organizations: Transport Canada and the Canadian Coast Guard. Transport Canada organizes the overall framework of oil spill response, but when there is an incident it is the Canadian Coast Guard.

What role does the province and the city play?

It's a matter of shipping and navigation, which under the Canadian constitution, falls within the federal jurisdiction. Other than being claimants if they suffer damages per se, the city and province do not have a direct role.

Even though the bunker fuel is washing up on the beaches of a couple of municipalities?

The ship has the ultimate responsibility for paying for all claims and paying for all of the cleanup and will probably face a fine.

Are there any circumstances under which the city of Vancouver could hold upper levels of government responsible for damage to its shoreline?

The city would have to show that the federal government was responsible for having caused the damage in the first instance. The cleanup organization, the Western Canada Marine Response Corporation, has to abide by time response guidelines established by Transport Canada in consultation with provincial governments and other organizations.

The WCMRC maintains an incredible amount of equipment, vessels; they have a core full-time staff and up to 500 volunteers available to respond to a spill. Transport Canada established certain response deadlines which they are supposed to meet, and that is six hours for a spill this size. They can identify the resources they need, marshal the resources and volunteers, get the equipment on the water to respond.

People sit on the shore at Vancouver's Sunset Beach, in the West End, after bunker fuel leaked from the cargo ship Marathassa, upper right, beginning April 8, 2015. The ship is seen here anchored in Burrard Inlet April 9. About two metric tonnes of toxic fuel leaked into English Bay — double initial estimates — creating a slick 15-20 centimetres deep in places, coast guard officials said.

Staff at from the Vancouver Aquarium found these globs of oil on Ambleside Beach in West Vancouver on Friday morning.

Signs warn people avoid the water along the shore of Vancouver's English Bay, following an oil spill on Wednesday from a cargo ship.

Officials said Thursday the fuel spill was 80 per cent contained but that a slick had reached the shore in West Vancouver. Bunker fuel, which leaked into English Bay Wednesday night, is toxic and should not be touched, the City of Vancouver warned.

A Vancouver police boat and a spill response vessel were on the scene early Thursday. Cleanup efforts overseen by Transport Canada were underway, involving the coast guard and West Coast Marine Response Corp.

A sailboat cuts through the oil sheen created by leaked bunker fuel in English Bay on Thursday. Oil has already reached several beaches in Vancouver's West End and the edge of Stanley Park, the CBC's Farrah Merali reported.

A spill response boat monitors a boom placed around the grain ship Marathassa. A Port Metro Vancouver spokesperson said the fuel may have spilled from the ship.

The coast guard's environmental response team was sent to the spill on Wednesday. The ship had been loading grain.

Toxic bunker fuel has created a sheen on the water in English Bay. City of Vancouver officials warned people not to touch the fuel.

Bunker fuel is commonly used in marine diesel engines and is extremely dangerous for the marine environment, according to a data sheet recorded by Shell Marine Fuel Oil in 2013.

Vancouver Fire Department boats have been deployed to assist with spill operations.

When a spill does occur, how does the investigation into what happened unfold?

Coast Guard will look into what occurred. Transport Canada, which is responsible for ship safety and the seaworthiness of the ship will look into it. The Transportation Safety Board will also conduct an investigation if the spill is significant enough and there may be safety lessons to learn.

If a ship denies responsibility, what happens?

In this case, the ship did not immediately take responsibility, but subsequently the ship owner publicly acknowledged that the bunker fuel came from its vessel..... In circumstances when no one takes responsibility, investigations will be undertaken by the Coast Guard and Transport Canada. In situations where there may be multiple vessels in a marina that may be the source, they'll take samples of the fuel in the water and the fuel in the vessels to see if they can match it. Often times they can find where the fuel is coming from the vessel.

Ultimately, if it cannot be proven which vessel is responsible for the pollution, Canadians can rely on the Ship-source Oil Pollution fund to indemnify them for any cleanup costs

Is compensation complicated if it is a foreign vessel?

Not at all. In order to enter Canadian waters, vessels need to carry certificates of financial responsibility to deal with these types of circumstances and if the government had any concern about the ship's commitment to pay costs, they can demand security before the vessel leaves port.

Could Canadian maritime law be improved to prevent incidents like this from happening again?

International shipping is an integral part of our economy. Shipping cannot be conducted without some degree of risk. All we can do as Canadians is minimize the risk and ensure that when the risks turn into realities, there is a response prepared and in position to minimize the impact of the incident.That is exactly what happened in this particular case. Relatively speaking, it's a non-event.

To listen to the full interview, listen to the audio labelled Maritime Lawyer on Vancouver oil spill

 

[Clint r]

Thank god it wasn't a real cluster f&@k. Can you imagine if the weather was bad. Or if there was a major spill. Not sure how anybody can say response time was adequate.

 

[agentaqua]

for sure Clint. Once it hits the water - anywhere - it is too late. On an "easy" clean-up day - maybe you can retrieve 10-15% of the spill. Any winds over 35 kts or so and/or currents over 3 kts - and the oil booms are ineffective at best. From there on - it's just a PR game - with the spill clean-up a temporary make-work game.

 

[steelmadness]

Has anyone been out to see the oil today ? Would like some eyewitness opinions.

 

[trophywife]

how long did it take a paid company "burrard clean" to respond?

 

[dougthefisher]

tick tock tick tock........just how long until there is a big spill? any bets how bad it will be? how bad it will get?

 

[agentaqua]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/briti...guard-defends-cleanup-response-time-1.3029785

Vancouver oil spill: Coast Guard defends cleanup response time

Coast guard says it notified proper agencies within minutes, but message not passed on

CBC News Posted: Apr 12, 2015 9:56 AM PT| Last Updated: Apr 12, 2015 10:53 AM PT

The Canadian Coast Guard says its response time to a major oil spill in English Bay was 'exceptional.' (Richard Lam/CBC)

After widespread criticism of its oil cleanup response effort, the Canadian Coast Guard has issued a detailed timeline outlining the sequence of events immediately following the detection of a major oil spill in Vancouver's English Bay.

Coast Guard Commissioner Jody Thomas said, in a statement released Sunday, the agency was first notified by a recreational boater of a slick around the bulk grain carrier Marathassa at 5:10 p.m. PT Wednesday.

'80 per cent of the spill was not only contained, but was recovered within 36 hours. The Canadian Coast Guard's response to the Marathassa spill was exceptional by international standards.'

- Canadian Coast Guard Commissioner Jody Thomas

Within four minutes the coast guard says it had notified its emergency management partners whose job is to inform local shore-side authorities including municipal governments and First Nations.

At 5:38 p.m. PT, the coast guard said a harbour vessel for the Port of Vancouver had assessed the spill as minor and unrecoverable, but the coast guard's own assessment, an hour later, determined the spill was more serious.

Thomas said the Western Canada Marine Response Corporation was tasked with the oil's cleanup and arrived on scene at 9:25 p.m. PT.

Contrary to criticism that nothing was done until the next day, Thomas said crews went to work that night.

"Our partners carried out skimming in the dark and completed securing a boom around the vessel by 5:53 a.m PT. Even before most British Columbians woke up, the boom was completely surrounding the suspect vessel," she said.

"[Eighty] per cent of the spill was not only contained, but was recovered within 36 hours. The Canadian Coast Guard's response to the Marathassa spill was exceptional by international standards."

However, during a morning news conference, Assistant Coast Guard Commissioner Roger Girouard said that even though the Coast Guard sent out the proper notifications, there was a break-down in the communications chain.

"There were some human factors in a number of organizations where the relay of the intent of the alarm was not always received or passed on," he said. I can tell you that the coast guard as an organization passed the message on. I can also tell you that the alarm bell did not particularly make it to the mayor of Vancouver."

Girouard declined to specify where the communication breakdown occurred, but said all agencies are reviewing the chain of events to come up with a simpler, faster notification that would be more widely broadcast.

"We thought we had a sophisticated system in place. Something went awry," he said. "We will fix it."

Thomas said cleanup over the next several days will be focused on the shoreline.

Now that the Marathassa is confirmed as the source of the pollution, she said the vessel's owners will be responsible for covering the costs of the operation.

 

[agentaqua]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/briti...oil-spill-affects-at-least-30-birds-1.3029584

Vancouver oil spill affects at least 30 birds

Affected birds found mainly in Vanier Park pond

CBC News Posted: Apr 11, 2015 6:25 PM PT| Last Updated: Apr 11, 2015 6:25 PM PT

One of at least 30 birds covered in oil following a major spill of crude in English Bay April 8, 2015. (Wildlife Rescue Association)

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■Vancouver oil spill reaches West Vancouver's Sandy Cove
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In its latest public update, the Canadian Coast Guard says there are approximately 10 litres of bunker fuel left in English Bay after an estimated spill of 2,800 litres Wednesday.

In a separate release the City of Vancouver says all the oil that can be removed from the ocean has been recovered. Now an assessment will determine how much bunker fuel from the April 8 spill has sunk.

Meanwhile at least 30 birds have been found covered in oil.
■Seawall, Stanley Park closures needed for Vancouver oil spill clean-up

About 40 kilometres of shoreline around English Bay, and in North and West Vancouver have been assessed for oil. So far only 1.5 kilometres have been deemed clean.

"We're not done yet and I don't think we'll be done, certainly not this weekend," said Roger Girouard, assistant commissioner with the Canadian Coast Guard. "We'll be here until we get this done."

Girouard says for now, the south shore has been assessed as clean, but that could quickly change if more bunker fuel washes ashore.

A major effort is now being made at Sandy Cove in North Vancouver, where fuel has washed up.

The city says work is underway at Siwash Rock in Stanley Park as well. Contamination was also found at New Brighton Beach near the Second Narrows Bridge, which will need more cleaning.

In its latest public update, the Canadian Coast Guard says there are approximately 10 litres of bunker fuel left in English Bay after an estimated spill of 2,800 litres Wednesday.

Vancouver continues to deploy trained volunteers to monitor the city shoreline to "ensure we can utilize the federal resources available for clean-up."

oil spill worker scrubbing rocks
A worker cleaning rocks at Second Beach uses a special cloth to remove oil. (Richard Lam)

The Coast Guard and the province are defending why it took so long for the shoreline cleanup to begin.

Both organizations say an assessment of fuel in the water needed to be done first. Now that much of the spill has been accounted for, they say the clean-up of beaches and shoreline has begun in earnest.

Wildlife experts are also busy trying to capture and clean 30 birds, most of which were found in a pond at Vanier Park.

"Why in a pond?" said Girouard. "Well they're out in salt water, got some oil, brought it back to the pond and have been sighted by concerned citizens and in fact we've got wildlife [workers] looking at that now."

"That's not a quick capture, you don't just tell the bird come here I want to give you a shower and so the professionals are doing the things they have to, to get those birds into the clean-up process that they require."

Girouard says he expects the numbers of wildlife impacted by the spill to probably increase.

Oil ring on Marathassa
The Canadian Coast Guard says it's trying to figure out how to remove the oil-soaked boom from around the Marathassa in English Bay. (Richard Lam/CBC)

Meanwhile, crews are also trying to figure out how to remove the oil-soaked boom from around the Marathassa.

​The hull has a bath-tub ring around it. It's black oil," said Girouard.

"She remains wrapped in what is now a soiled boom and we're going through the process of looking at that site, the hull, the boom...as the wind comes along there is actually oil that comes off that boom and moves along."

The Coast Guard and its partner agencies are also considering the use of divers or submersibles to search for bunker fuel that may have sunk in English Bay.

The Coast Guard and the City of Vancouver are asking the public to allow professionals to conduct the cleanup, but do want residents to report oil or affected wildlife they find.

 

[agentaqua]

http://www.straight.com/news/429136...gn-heats-over-english-bay-oil-spill-Vancouver
Public relations campaign heats up over English Bay oil spill in Vancouver
by Charlie Smith on April 11th, 2015 at 6:53 PM

Richard Lam

Many Vancouverites are quite rightly enraged by the sight of oil-soaked birds struggling to survive around English Bay.

First Nations worry about the impact of the M/V Marathassa fuel spill on the fishery.

For environmentalists, the recent accident confirmed their worst fears about the dangers associated with the proposed Kinder Morgan pipeline project. If approved, it will triple shipments of diluted bitumen from the Alberta oilsands to the Lower Mainland and bring a massive increase in tanker traffic to Burrard Inlet.

The pipeline-loving Conservative government looked utterly incompetent when it took 13 hours to notify the City of Vancouver about the spill.

It didn't help the Conservatives' image that they're the same folks who eliminated the Kitsilano Coast Guard base. It's about five minutes from where the M/V Marathassa had dropped anchor.

After suffering a public-relations drubbing in the first 48 hours, the federal government has come firing back. It's hoping to contain political damage and save the seats of Conservative MPs.

Two of the most vulnerable are the North Shore's Andrew Saxton and John Weston. However, a large enough backlash against the spill can also undermine Conservative hopes in Vancouver Quadra, Vancouver Granville, and Burnaby North—Seymour, to cite three other ridings that the party is targeting.

The Conservative counter-offensive started with Industry Minister James Moore trying to claim that the Canadian Coast Guard has done an outstanding job because 80 percent of the oil was contained.

Since then, the feds have been putting Roger Girouard, an assistant commissioner of the Canadian Coast Guard, out in front of the media for regular briefings. He upped the ante by claiming there are just six litres of oil left in the water.

Stephen Harper's spin doctors know that their political opponents will be less likely to condemn a guy in a uniform than any politician, including Moore.

Today, the feds ramped up the p.r. campaign by sending high-quality images of cleanup efforts.

The photos were taken by Richard Lam, whose client list not only includes many newspapers, but also Industry Canada.

The government news release asked that Lam be given a credit. This makes the images appear like news photos rather than public-relations shots.

The feds' news release also calls it the "Marathassa spill", shifting attention to the vessel and away from the government. Notice how the photo below also shines a spotlight on the boat.

Richard Lam

Meanwhile, Green Party of Canada Leader Elizabeth May has been interrupting the Conservative message track by highlighting how federal government cuts led to the lengthy delay in notifying city officials. And pictures of oil-drenched birds on the television news are hardly reinforcing confidence in the Conservative government's stewardship of our shores.

Of course, the federal government didn't include a single photo of birds or any other wildlife in its 27 images released to the media today.

Instead, all we saw were Lam's well-composed pictures of hard-working guys ensuring that our beaches are being kept clean.

That's how public relations works these days.

Richard Lam

Follow Charlie Smith on Twitter csmithstraight.

 

[Clint r]

Between this and the stall in the LNG program, Christie must be having a coronary. Now all we need is all those unemployed oil workers to "come home to BC" and we'll have a provincial unemployment rate of staggering proportions. Just what the Lie...er Liberals need before an election. Myself I hope it happens. This government needs some lessons taught on a grand scale.

 

[Reel Time]

Not a fan of Harpers conservatives anymore, seemed easy for them when oil prices where high, the Liberals had balanced books with low oil prices without detriment to the environment. But who to vote for? Anyone but Harper.

 

[OldBlackDog]

After widespread criticism of its response, the Canadian Coast Guard has issued a detailed timeline outlining the sequence of events immediately following the detection of a major oil spill in Vancouver's English Bay.
Coast Guard Commissioner Jody Thomas said, in a statement released Sunday, the agency was first notified by a recreational boater of a slick around the bulk grain carrier Marathassa at 5:10 p.m. PT Wednesday.

'The Canadian Coast Guard's response … was exceptional by international standards.'<cite class="pullquote-source" style="border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(220, 220, 220); color: rgb(89, 89, 89); display: block; font-size: 0.786em; font-style: normal; padding: 6px 8px 8px;">- Coast Guard Commissioner Jody Thomas</cite>​

Within four minutesthe coast guard says it had notified its emergency management partners whose job is to inform local shore-side authorities including municipal governments and First Nations.
At 5:38 p.m. PT, the coast guard said a harbour vessel for the Port of Vancouver had assessed the spill as minor and unrecoverable, but the coast guard's own assessment, an hour later, determined the spill was more serious.

• Vancouver oil spill affects at least 30 birds
• Oil spill response by coast guard blasted by Vancouver mayor, B.C. premier
• Vancouver spill: was the response fast enough?
• Dramatic photos of Vancouver oil spill spark pipeline outrage on social media

Thomas said the Western Canada Marine Response Corporation was tasked with the oil's cleanup and arrived on scene at 9:25 p.m. PT.
Contrary to criticism that nothing was done until the next day, Thomas said crews went to work that night.
"Our partners carried out skimming in the dark and completed securing a boom around the vessel by 5:53 a.m PT. Even before most British Columbians woke up, the boom was completely surrounding the suspect vessel," she said.
"[Eighty] per cent of the spill was not only contained, but was recovered within 36 hours. The Canadian Coast Guard's response to the Marathassa spill was exceptional by international standards."
[h=2]Communication breakdown, new oil[/h]However, during a morning news conference, Assistant Commissioner Roger Girouard said that even though the coast guard sent out the proper notifications, there was a breakdown in communications.
"There were some human factors in a number of organizations where the relay of the intent of the alarm was not always received or passed on," he said. "I can tell you that the coast guard as an organization passed the message on. I can also tell you that the alarm bell did not particularly make it to the mayor of Vancouver."

Assistant Canadian Coast Guard Commissioner Roger Girouard says partner agencies didn't fully communicate the extent of the spill Wednesday and as a result the mayor of Vancouver was not notified. (CBC)

Girouard declined to specify where the communication breakdown occurred, but said all agencies are reviewing the chain of events to come up with a simpler, faster notification system that would be more widely broadcast.
"We thought we had a sophisticated system in place. Something went awry," he said. "We will fix it."
Girouard also revealed the coast guard had discovered some new oil near the vessel.
The oil was likely either "flushed out of an outlet" or was washed by waves off a soiled boom, Girouard said.
Girouard said the oil was contained and there is no chance of it escaping or coming to shore. He said the old boom will today be replaced with a new one.
[h=2]Cleanup on shoreline[/h]He also disputed claims from former Kitsilano Coast Guard personnelthat their old base, which was shut down by the federal government, would have provided a faster response.
"Kitsilano was never manned with environment response experts," Girouard said. "Kitsilano, should it have been in place, would not have been called upon for environmental response in this scenario."
Girouard said the oil booms the base possessed were for containment of their own spills.
Cleanup over the next several days is now focused on the shoreline. The coast guard is still asking the public to stay away because the oil requires professional disposal.
He said there are still no signs of distress among marine mammals due to the spill. So far between 12 and 30 oil-covered birds have been rescued and treated.
Girouard asked people to report oil-fouled birds and not try and help. He said if people approach birds, they could scare them back into the water, in effect "killing them with kindness."

 

[Cuba Libre]

From the "Sun"

According to the London-based International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation, even in ideal conditions in oceans around the world, only 10 to 15 per cent of oil is likely to be recovered.

On Dec. 23, 1988, the Sause Brothers barge Nestucca released about 874,000 litres of bunker oil off Grays Harbor, Wash. The oil drifted north with the currents, including up to the west coast of Vancouver Island as far as Cape Scott. The oil washed up on beaches, and up to 56,000 seabirds are thought to have died. Crab, shellfish and herring were affected along with First Nations fishing practices. Washington and B.C. cleaned up an estimated 11 per cent of the oil.

lpynn@vancouversun.com

 

[agentaqua]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/briti...eers-to-monitor-oil-spill-pollution-1.3030495

Vancouver to organize volunteers to monitor oil spill pollution

Coast guard officials are asking the public not to attempt to clean up toxic fuel themselves

CBC News Posted: Apr 13, 2015 8:31 AM PT| Last Updated: Apr 13, 2015 8:31 AM PT

Oil found on Second Beach in Vancouver by Dr. Peter Ross from Vancouver Aquarium. (Vancouver Aquarium)

Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson says the city is putting together a volunteer program to monitor the effects of the oil spill in English Bay last week.

So far more than 4,000 residents have called the city seeking to volunteer, says Robertson, but the coast guard has told people to stay off the shores and leave the clean-up to the professionals.

Officials said on Sunday that all of the oil on the water's surface had been removed and that the next step was to assess how much residual oil had made its way underwater.

Robertson is hoping to have a plan in place shortly to mobilize volunteers to monitor the shoreline.

"I expect to hear back from our city manager on Tuesday at our report to council on what the volunteer program will look like and how we will have eyes and ears on the beaches here and we are making sure the waters are being watched."

Robertson has criticized the fact it took 13 hours for the coast guard to notify the city about the spill.

The city is working with Vancouver Coastal Health to determine when it will be safe to re-open public beaches that were closed as a result of the spill.

Officials have confirmed that about 2,700 litres of bunker fuel was accidently discharged from the cargo ship M/V Marathassa last Wednesday afternoon.

A few dozen birds have been rescued by wildlife teams.

 

[agentaqua]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/briti...in-real-time-says-vancouver-s-mayor-1.3029992

Vancouver oil spill alert needed in 'real time' says Vancouver's mayor

Coast guard says it notified proper agencies within minutes, but message not passed on to everyone

CBC News Posted: Apr 12, 2015 5:52 PM PT| Last Updated: Apr 12, 2015 5:57 PM PT

Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson has softened his criticism of the response to a fuel spill in English Bay, but insists Vancouverites still should have known what was going on in real time. (CBC)

Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson has softened his stance after criticizing the time it took for the city to be alerted to a bunker fuel spill in English Bay on April 8th.
■Oil spill response by coast guard blasted by Vancouver mayor, B.C. premier

Speaking at a news conference on Sunday, Robertson says he's happy with the work that's been done since then.

"The mistakes and gaps happened early on and there's been a big improvement since then," he said.

"It's good to see that there's been a strong response, these last two days on the clean-up side. Crews have been in action, I don't think we see any signs in the water of the oil spill."

Still Robertson says Vancouver residents deserved to know about the spill and the response to it in "real time."

Canadian Coast Guard Assistant Commissioner Roger Girouard said that even though the coast guard sent out the proper notifications, there was a breakdown in communications.

Canadian Coast Guard Roger Girouard
Assistant Canadian Coast Guard Commissioner Roger Girouard says partner agencies didn't fully communicate the extent of the spill Wednesday and as a result the mayor of Vancouver was not notified. (CBC)

Robertson says he is confident those mistakes will be corrected and that the city will be involved in future incidents like this from the beginning.

Even though the city does not have the capabilities to contain an oil spill, he says it is nimble in a crisis.

"We're right here and we deal with critical incidents wherever they happen in the city on an hourly basis," he said. We're on top of it. That's not a strength of some of the federal and provincial agencies."

The coast guard's acting commissioner declined to specify where the communication breakdown occurred, but said all agencies are reviewing the chain of events to come up with a simpler, faster notification system that would be more widely broadcast.

4,000 ask to volunteer

Vancouver city staff are expected to present a report to council on Tuesday about the oil spill response, and about how to engage the more than 4,000 residents who volunteered to help clean up oil.

Robertson says a program will most likely be developed so that citizens can watch for and report more oil or fuel appearing on shore or in the water, from this spill or any future one.

Tony Toxopeus former kits coast guard base coxswain
Captain Tony Toxopeus, a former coxswain at the Kitsilano Coast Guard base, says the oil spill should be the catalyst to reopen the station. (CBC)

"We're going to need eyes and ears here on our beaches for weeks and potentially months ahead," said Robertson.

The mayor also revisited the issue of the Kitsilano Coast Guard station.

"I don't think that closure was warranted. We need to have a Coast Guard base with the equipment to deal with a situation like this right here on False Creek and into Burrard Inlet on English Bay. That's not available right now and I think the Coast Guard stands by their decision to close that base, but ultimately that was a political decision."

However, on Sunday the coast guard disputed that saying personnel at the former Kitsilano base would not have been sent to the spill because the base was never manned with environment response experts.

Robertson says the city is working withe Vancouver Coastal Health to determine when it will be safe to re-open public beaches that were closed as a result of the spill.

 

[agentaqua]

http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2015/04/1...eadlines&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=130415

Vancouver's Preview of a Spill from Hell

After this week's mess, does anyone still think bitumen tankers pose no risk to our coast?

By Mitchell Anderson, 10 Apr 2015, TheTyee.ca

Cargo ship in English Bay, three days before the bunker fuel spill. Photo by Sally T. Buck in Your BC: The Tyee's Photo Pool.
Adrift: How a Stricken, Fuel-Laden Cargo Ship Nearly Ran Aground on Canada's West Coast

Vancouver just got a small whiff of what a sevenfold increase in tanker traffic could mean for a place aspiring to be the world's greenest city. On a calm afternoon in English Bay this week, a grain freighter at anchor apparently started leaking bunker fuel into the scenic waters off Stanley Park.

Local residents and their municipal government were not informed for 13 hours. The Coast Guard was ostensibly in charge of the cleanup, but its private sector partners at West Coast Marine Response Corporation took six hours to start skimming the oil and nine hours to put a boom around the leaking vessel.

Making matters worse was the apparently invisible response from the federal government. While the Vancouver Aquarium staff and police boats were doing what they could to pitch in, where were Transport Canada and Environment Canada?

Years of federal downsizing and program cuts have come home to roost. The Environment Canada Environmental Emergencies office in Vancouver was closed by the federal government in 2012 and moved to Montreal. Sixty staff nationwide specifically trained to deal with oil spills lost their jobs.

The Harper government also mothballed the Kitsilano Coast Guard station in 2013 that used to be one of the busiest in the country. This life-threatening decision to local mariners saved Ottawa the whopping sum of $700,000 per year. Coast Guard officials gamely maintained that the closure had no impact on their reaction to the spill. However, a former commander at the station told a local radio station that had the station been operating, the response time would have been six minutes instead of six hours.

Meanwhile, Ottawa is cheerleading virtually every pipeline proposal in the country while gutting the National Energy Board to the point that citizens are now suing Ottawa for denying them due process in public hearings.

The bunker fuel now fouling the shores of English Bay is the barely refined dregs of crude oil and highly toxic. While officials maintain that almost all the oil has been recovered, the fact is that even a successful oil spill cleanup often recovers only about 15 per cent of what is spilled. Two days later and we still don't know what exactly was in the oil, so residents and volunteers are being told to stay away from their beloved beaches, even to try to clean them.

A far worse scenario

Obviously, a larger spill would have catastrophic consequences for one of the most iconically beautiful cities in the world. Visitors from around the world are drawn to Vancouver's magnificent waterfront, injecting some $4 billion into local businesses each year.

While bunker fuel is bad, diluted bitumen is far worse. Kinder Morgan wants to massively scale up tanker shipments through Vancouver of this hazardous mixture of volatile solvents and tar from Alberta's oilsands.

A major difference is that bunker fuel floats, and bitumen typically doesn't. A relatively small spill of diluted bitumen from an Enbridge pipeline into the Kalamazoo River in 2010 proved to be one of the most expensive inland clean up efforts in American history. Why? Because conventional recovery equipment designed for floating oil proved useless in recovering the thick bitumen that quickly sank once the toxic “diluent” began off-gassing in surrounding area.

This brings us to the second scary difference between bunker fuel and diluted bitumen. More than two-thirds of residents near the Kalamazoo spill began experiencing headaches, nausea, and dizziness after inhaling the toxic fumes from volatile solvents used to thin the thick tar so it can be pumped through a pipeline. Local health authorities declared a voluntary evacuation zone for people within a mile of the spill. What would be the public health implications of a diluted bitumen spill in the Lower Mainland, home to more than two million people? AFRAmax tankers now transiting through the region 60 times per year carry more than 30 times the volume of what spilled into the Kalamazoo River. Kinder Morgan wants to scale up these shipments to more than one per day if its TransMountain pipeline project is approved.

Rather than merely sitting at anchor in English Bay, these tankers must squeeze through the narrow shallow Second Narrows channel with less than two metres of under-keel clearance during a slack-water high-tide window lasting less than 20 minutes. What could go wrong?

Plenty. If a tanker ran aground or struck the pilings supporting the CN railway bridge, the results could be catastrophic for human health, the environment and our economy. Where could two million people flee if a cloud of toxic carcinogenic chemicals began filling the confined airshed of the Lower Mainland? I predict a several sailing wait at the BC Ferries…

Take a deep inhale

Exactly this kind of accident is what a group of local marine experts are worried about. In a letter to the National Energy Board, they estimated a one in 10 chance of a spill more than 8.25 million litres over the 50-year lifespan of Kinder Morgan's project. That is about 2,500 times larger than the 3,000-litre spill that just happened in English Bay.

The chances of containing an accident like that are essentially zero, as evidenced by the bungled response to a relatively minor spill of comparatively benign bunker fuel. A large bitumen spill due to a bridge collision would quickly be carried out into the Strait of Georgia, propelled by a five-knot tidal current. This would be devastating for abundant local marine life. Just last month, a pod of orcas was spotted hunting off the Stanley Park seawall.

Worse still, Kinder Morgan is refusing to release details of its emergency response plan even to local governments, citing “personal, commercial and security reasons.” Naturally, our federal regulator sided with the company when the City of Vancouver petitioned the National Energy Board for this critical information.

While pipeline projects are portrayed as an economic imperative, an oil spill would be economically disastrous if it closed Canada's busiest port for a protracted cleanup. Parts of the Kalamazoo River remained closed three years after the Enbridge spill as crews dredged the sunken tar from the river bottom.

Anyone who still thinks that bitumen tankers pose no risk to our coast, or that Ottawa sincerely cares about protecting our environment should go down to English Bay and inhale deeply. That could be the smell of our oily future.

 

[agentaqua]

http://thetyee.ca/News/2015/04/10/V...eadlines&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=130415

Vancouver Toxic Fuel Spill Flags Questions about Shipping Regs

'Maybe this one will be enough of a wake up call,' muses marine lawyer.

By David P. Ball, 10 Apr 2015, TheTyee.ca

Vancouver fuel spill

A news helicopter flies over ships at the centre of a toxic spill in Vancouver's English Bay. Photo by David P. Ball.

While a toxic spill fuel in Vancouver's English Bay on Wednesday evening raises questions about tanker traffic off B.C.'s coast, experts are also warning that some international shipping companies may be making our waters more unsafe by legally registering vessels in countries with worse safety records than Canada's.

The Coast Guard alerted local authorities to a long slick of leaked fuel in the waters off Stanley Park early Thursday morning, after spending the night trying to contain it.

Authorities confirmed the spill was bunker fuel, a heavy fuel oil product that Environment Canada warns is a likely cancer-causing toxin known to concentrate in aquatic animals. The Coast Guard estimated the spill to be roughly 3,000 litres.

"We did see a film of pollution coming onto the beach," Vancouver councillor Geoff Meggs told reporters on Thursday, adding that "this is obviously something that no one in Vancouver ever wants to see, this kind of contamination of our beaches and our sea waters."

Environment Canada warns on its website that bunker fuel presents "a high hazard to human health" and poses a risk of "inherent toxicity to aquatic organisms" including bioaccumulation, the process by which toxic compounds are concentrated up the food chain.

The fuel is the same type of hydrocarbon that raised alarm last October, when a Russian ship loaded with 400 tonnes of bunker fuel lost power and drifted within nine kilometres of Haida Gwaii. It was later rescued by private and Coast Guard vessels.

For Dana Miller, a researcher at the University of British Columbia's Fisheries Economics Research Unit, the spill "gives us an idea of how much damage could be caused" if oil tankers were involved. The number of such tankers in Burrard Inlet is expect to increase seven-fold if Kinder Morgan's TransMountain pipeline is approved.

"If one of those vessels were involved in a spill, there's a much, much greater risk than this," Miller said in a phone interview.

But she cautioned that a larger issue is shipping companies, which might be attempting to skirt international safety regulations.

Despite being owned by a company in one country, ships plying international waters can register as being based in a different country. It's a legal manoeuvre known as flying a "flag of convenience," and is permitted if proper paperwork and regulations are followed.

The Coast Guard could not "definitively say" where the fuel spilled from, but emergency responders set up a boom to contain the oil around a single ship, the Cyprus-flagged bulk cargo ship Marathassa. The ship's crew has denied it was the source of the spill, but the Coast Guard said that the oil flow ceased once the ship was surrounded.

According to the ship-tracking website Vessel Finder, there are currently 10 bulk carrier ships or oil tankers currently in English Bay, all of them flagged to countries overseas.

Flag-flying to reduce costs

Some shipping companies fly flags of convenience to reduce the taxes they pay, as some flag-offering countries are also tax havens. Countries also vary in their degrees of regulatory red tape, labour laws and the speed of processing applications.

"Some countries don't do as well as others in enforcing the minimum standards of safety as other countries," Miller said. "They might reduce operating costs by flying the flag of one of these countries."

In the past 10 years, for example, Canadian authorities have detained 16 vessels bearing the Cypriot flag for a variety of "deficiencies" -- everything from unpaid wages to main engine problems, "cracking ballast, fuel and other tanks" and the corrosion of bulkheads -- for more than 70 days, cumulatively, according to public records on Transport Canada's website.

Nonetheless, Miller said Cyprus has a "fairly good" record of complying with international standards and agreements when it comes to inspecting visiting ships. But the ease of obtaining its flags does raise questions about a number of countries that, like Cyprus, are well-known flags of convenience.

"We need to be careful about making sure all port states are doing a good job of inspecting the vessels that visit, and that flag states are doing a good enough job of enforcing the regulations," she said.

That's little comfort to West Vancouver-based marine lawyer Jay Straith. While stringent marine safety regulations govern any ship visiting port in Canada, Straith said the problem is that the rules are subject to "political interpretation" by the government of the day.

Transport Canada, which regulates marine safety, could not be reached for comment by publication time. On its website, the federal department states that under its Port State Control program, foreign vessels entering Canada's waters are boarded and inspected to ensure they comply with international maritime conventions.

"I would want all hydrocarbon carriers coming in and out of Canadian waters to be either Canadian-flagged or under the flag of a nation receiving the hydrocarbons," Straith said. "I can live with Chinese flags, because they'd be subject to the same regulations. But you shouldn't have a Cypriot freighter hauling oil between Canada and the U.S. or Canada and China."

The spill drew parallels to and criticism of bitumen-bearing tanker ships, which pose what Straith called "low-likelihood, high-consequence" risks.

"If this one causes everybody to wake up as to how serious this could get, we may be getting off lightly," Straith said. "If what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, maybe this one will be enough of a wake up call, particularly politically: we're going to gauge how we do with this one, and how 'world class' the response is."

 

[SpringVelocity]

Here we go again Ottawa again having no concept of anything except what happens in Ontario... And as usual taking big defensive and trenching in . Why fight about it you can't sit there and say thats OK... What a gong show.

The cutting back in funds to get the job done on coast is really showing. Epic fail again.

 

[agentaqua]

Totally, SV. I don't blame the CG locally. They are doing what they can with what they have.

It's the legislation that I have a problem with.

The oil shipping Industry has not paid a dollar into Canada's domestic Ship-source Oil Spill Fund (SSOSF) since 1976, but USED TO pay a levy of 44.85 cents per metric tonne of "contributing oil" imported into or shipped from a place in Canada in bulk as cargo on a ship. The total SSOSF funds available are only ~$162 million. See the graph below to see how that compensation has been eroded in recent years. The Conservatives got into a minority government in 2006, and a majority in 2011.

Scope of Compensation

Compensation is payable for the costs of reasonable operational measures taken during oil spill recovery at sea. Also, for the costs to clean shorelines and dispose of collected oil and oily wastes. Absolutely NOTHING mentioned about loss of employment for many years, loss of life style, loss of ability to harvest wild foodstuffs, etc.

http://www.ssopfund.ca/en/international-conventions/the-canadian-compensation-regime

 

[agentaqua]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/briti...fires-back-at-criticism-of-response-1.3030722

Vancouver oil spill: Coast guard fires back at criticism of response

Leak in hull of grain ship Marathassa pinpointed as cause of fuel spilling into English Bay

By Lisa Johnson and Vivian Luk, CBC News Posted: Apr 13, 2015 9:53 AM PT| Last Updated: Apr 13, 2015 12:17 PM PT

Commissioner Jody Thomas says the Canadian Coast Guard responded 'very quickly' to the oil spill in English Bay last week. (Doug Trent/CBC)

Coast Guard CEO defends English Bay oil spill response 8:50

The Canadian Coast Guard is continuing to defend its response to the oil spill in Vancouver's English Bay last Wednesday, despite criticism from city and provincial officials.

Commissioner Jody Thomas said she was "enormously pleased" with the progress of the cleanup, and called the co-ordinated effort "unprecedented" while giving an update on the situation Monday morning.

The coast guard has been criticized for what was perceived as a slow response to the bunker fuel spill discovered last Wednesday around 5:10 p.m. PT. Many are also questioning why it took roughly 12 hours for the City of Vancouver to be notified.

But Thomas rejected that assessment, saying it took time to identify the source of the oil slick and the coast guard responded "very quickly."

"Within 25 minutes of notification, we were on the water. And with [Western Canada Marine Response Corporation], we worked through the night to skim the water and boom the ship."

"That's not a slow response."

Leak in ship identified, contained


Investigators have confirmed the vessel Marathassa was the source of the fuel spill, said Transport Canada Monday.

The agency's marine safety inspectors are still investigating the cause of the leak and owners of the vessel are co-operating fully, said Yvette Myers of Transport Canada.

Oil leaked from the fuel tank to the duct keel of the vessel, said Myers.

"On its own, it would have been a mess in the hull of the ship" and gone no further, she said. But, there was an unidentified "unrelated problem" that caused the oil to spill from the ship.

Investigators are still calculating how much oil was released, but estimate it at 2,700 litres.

The oil is viscous and buoyant, so boom containment on the surface of the water has been effective, said Randy Farrell, a coast guard pollution response officer. Shoreline cleanup continues, he said.

Premier's suggestion in 'the anger of the moment' dismissed

Earlier Monday in an interview on CBC Radio, Thomas also took exception to B.C. Premier Christy Clark's suggestion that the province would be able to do a better job of responding to spills like the one last week.

Clark said she was "very, very disappointed" it took six hours for booms to be placed around the vessel, and said it may be time for the federal government to hand over responsibility.

"Quite frankly, I just don't agree," Thomas told The Early Edition's Rick Cluff.

"Coast guard is mandated to respond. This is not a forest fire, it's a complex, multi-jurisdictional operation. I understand the anger of the moment, but I'm focused on what coast guard is doing and how effective coast guard has been in removing pollutant from the water."

To hear the full story, listen to the audio labelled: Coast guard CEO defends English Bay oil spill response http://www.cbc.ca/news/coast-guard-ceo-defends-english-bay-oil-spill-response-1.3030615