Legally, oil spill response appropriate: maritime lawyer

[agentaqua]

If a homeowner has to pay $55K for a leak of 600L - what should a tanker pay? Nothing?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/iqaluit-woman-to-pay-55k-for-home-heating-fuel-spill-1.3030609

Iqaluit woman to pay $55K for home heating fuel spill

Oil leak at Rannva Simonsen's home in Apex cost territory almost $200K to clean up

CBC News Posted: Apr 13, 2015 11:30 AM CT| Last Updated: Apr 13, 2015 11:30 AM CT

A leak in a tank spilled 600 litres of oil at a home in Apex in 2011. (CBC)

Rannva Simonsen of Iqaluit has been ordered to pay the Government of Nunavut $55,000 after her home heating oil tank leaked fuel.

Government officials says it's the first time in Nunavut that a homeowner has been fined for a leaky fuel tank.

In January 2011, Simonsen's tank leaked about 600 litres of fuel. Oil from the leak flowed right up to the edge of Apex Creek, which flows into Koojessee Inlet.

Crown prosecutor Myriam Girard argued the fuel could have hurt fish and mammals in the bay.

Rannva Simonsen
Rannva Simonsen of Iqaluit has pleaded guilty to a fuel leak at her home in Apex in 2011 that cost the Government of Nunavut $200,000 to clean up. (CBC)

The Nunavut government ordered Simonsen to clean up the spill but ended up carrying out the cleanup on its own, at a cost of almost $200,000.

Today, Simonsen pleaded guilty to a charge under Nunavut's Environmental Protection Act. The maximum fine is $300,000, but that's typically for companies, not individuals.

Girard asked for Simonsen to pay $60,000 in restitution as a general deterrent, saying, "There's a need for people in Iqaluit to know it can happen to you."

With Nunavut's harsh weather, Girard said fuel tanks can break at any moment, which is why homeowner diligence is important.

"In this case it turned out that her heating fuel tank was damaged or in a poor state of repair and just leaked."

Justice Nancy Mossip said Simonsen is not a wealthy woman and the spill was not deliberate. She ruled Simonsen pay $55,000, which will go back to the Nunavut government, and a $500 court fine.

Simonsen's insurance did not cover the spill. She will have two years to pay the $55,000 restitution and 30 days to pay the $500 fine.

 

[cuttlefish]

To me, 12 hours to get a containment boom around a ship at anchor in English Bay seems hard to defend as "World Class". Even if it was night.

 

[agentaqua]

To me, 12 hours to get a containment boom around a ship at anchor in English Bay seems hard to defend as "World Class". Even if it was night.

And that only a "~2700 L" (000,002.7 T) non-bitumen spill in a nice safe harbour - with the booming equipment, personnel and transport sitting right there (with people to watch and pressure regulators in the media).

Now imagine if a 300,000 DWT VLCC tanker goes on the rocks in Whales Channel in the winter - with the outflows coming down Douglas howling at 55 gusting 65 knots.

Enbridge's assertions about channel widths to tanker widths mean absolutely nothing then - as they do right now.

 

[agentaqua]

http://livingoceanssociety.blogspot.ca/2015/04/english-bay-oil-spill-response-is.html

Tuesday, April 14, 2015English Bay Oil Spill Response is Instructive

The grain freighter Marathassa at anchor in English Bay, surrounded by a boom the day after it leaked an estimated 2,700 litres of bunker fuel into the ocean.

If you ever wondered what the federal government really meant by “World Class” oil spill response, now you know. The English Bay spill on April 8 proved out a lot of the criticisms that Living Oceans has been making about spill preparedness in B.C, yet to listen to federal government pronouncements, you’d think the response was perfection itself. This, then, is a world class spill response.

The Coast Guard has spared no effort to praise its own efforts and those of Western Canada Marine Response Corporation, the oil-company owned outfit contracted to pick up the oil. Commissioner Jody Thomas in “enormously pleased”; Assistant Commissioner Roger Girouard says the response was by the book and advised the CBC on April 11 that only about six litres of oil remained in English Bay. Girouard maintained that 80% of the oil had been cleaned up by skimmers working the water’s surface. "You don't contain 80 per cent of a spill inside 36 hours and call that inadequate," he said. "I will not accept that definition of my team."

On the response time, Commissioner Thomas was very specific: "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."

The only statement above that is entirely correct and complete is that the response was by the book, which is to say that the WCMRC was on the scene with recovery equipment within the time prescribed by Transport Canada. From the handbook: “n Port Metro Vancouver it is required that WCMRC maintain a dedicated package of equipment that is capable of responding to a 150 tonne spill within 6 hours.” The fact that they didn’t actually deploy their booms until somewhere between midnight and 2:00 a.m. takes them a little outside that response time, but hey, they couldn’t figure out where the oil was coming from.

Clearly, a textbook spill response will result in the oiling of Vancouver’s beaches, as it has here. This was said to be a two-tonne spill (2700 litres); Kinder Morgan’s idea of a “credible worst case” spill is 10,000 tonnes, just to put the question of beach oiling in perspective.

But what about the size of the spill and the “80% cleanup”? By April 13, Coast Guard was admitting that the spill size estimate they were using was a conservative estimate made by flying over the area to determine the spill’s visible dimensions and multiplying that by estimated spill thickness. That sounds quite reasonable, unless you knew from the time of the initial report at 5:05 p.m. on Wednesday that much of the oil was already under water and thus invisible from the air.

Rob O’Dea, a sailor who reported the spill, said, “… it was an oil slick about ½ km long and 250 m wide. The surface was covered with a blue sheen and just beneath the surface there were globules of oil by the thousands per square metre. They were within the top few inches of the water… Some were the size of a pea, many were the size of a fist.”

And where was it coming from? Rob apparently had no difficulty figuring that out: “When we passed by the stern of the offending freighter there were larger, sticky globs of black goo a meter long and as thick as your arm. Oil was everywhere at and below the surface. The crew of the ship were madly trying to load 50 gallon drums from a small boat onto the ship while at the same time they were dropping small pails over the side of the ship and hauling up water. It was a keystone cops kind of scene and the Port Metro boat passed by in close proximity but did not intervene.” (That Port Metro boat is apparently the one that “we” had on the water “within 25 minutes”; Rob says it showed up about 6 pm. WCMRC wasn’t there at 8 pm when he decided to go in.)

Unconfined oil will spread to a thickness of about 0.4 mm. Sticky globs of black goo a metre long and as thick as your arm don’t. Yet there was Girouard, insisting that “physics tells us that it will float” (a direct quote, by the way, from one of Enbridge’s experts at the hearings on the Northern Gateway Pipeline hearings) and reporting on the reductions in surface oil as if it were all that required response.

The truth is that nobody will ever accurately estimate how much oil spilled, given that within a very short time after the spill, so much of it submerged beneath the water’s surface. The water in English Bay right now will be low in salinity and high in suspended particles because of the plume coming out of the Fraser River and those are the ideal conditions for sinking the oil into the water column, perhaps even to the bottom. We may be finding tarballs from this spill washing ashore for years to come.

As recently as two years ago, Coast Guard had a dedicated spill response vessel and a trained crew at the [former] Kitsilano base who, according to retired Coast Guard Capt. Tony Toxopeus, could have responded within an hour and perhaps contained the surface spill before it hit the beaches. “They’re downplaying it to such a degree it’s shameful, it’s terrible, it’s dishonest,” Toxopeus said.

“There was a 40-foot boat that was purpose built for oil pollution response,” said Toxopeus, adding the base also had 150 metres of Kepner self-inflating boom, 150 metres of 24-inch fence boom, 30 metres of oil absorbant boom, a skimmer and absorbant pads. “That was probably the best equipped station on the B.C. coast.”

Even that equipment would have been inadequate to respond to submerged oil, which could pass under the floating booms and travel with the current. Note that this was bunker C oil, carried by nearly every vessel in the Port. It’s much like the bitumen that Kinder Morgan wants to ship—a heavy oil, given to forming dense, sticky mats and globs, rather than just spreading on the surface.

In summary, “World Class” oil spill response apparently means critically disabling the ability of Coast Guard to respond to spills in the harbour of the B.C. city most liable to experience an oil spill and denying that you did so; handing the task over to a corporation owned by the oil companies themselves; and legislating response times that are clearly inadequate to protect the Greenest City from beach oiling. Add in the power of the federal government’s communications machine to spin the facts—80% recovery, 25 minutes to have “a boat in the water” and “physics tells us it will float”—and repeat ad nauseum that you’re doing an excellent job.

I don’t buy it and judging by the public response, neither do most in Vancouver.

 

[agentaqua]

http://thetyee.ca/News/2015/04/14/V...ce=daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=140415

Private Clean-up Firm Defends Oil Spill Response

'There was no delay in our response,' spokesman says.

By David P. Ball, Today, TheTyee.ca

Jogger observing Vancouver oil spill

A pedestrian looks at Vancouver's English Bay the day after an April 9 oil spill. Photo by Ken Lins in Your BC: The Tyee's Photo Pool.

The private firm which spent an entire night attempting to contain a heavy oil spill in English Bay last week has defended the length of time it took to arrive at the accident -- about 80 minutes -- as "an incredible response time."

However, Michael Lowry, a spokesman for Western Canada Marine Response Corporation (WCMRC), suggested the longer delay came after the Canadian Coast Guard alerted British Columbia's network of emergency management partners that a spill had occurred.

It took that group nearly three hours -- from 5:14 p.m. to 8:06 p.m. -- to notify WCMRC that a serious spill had occurred. WCMRC is the oil-industry owned consortium responsible for spill clean up on the West Coast.

Under B.C.'s emergency protocols, those partners are a network of agencies that include "local, shore-side authorities" such as municipal governments and First Nations as well as relevant government bodies, according to a Coast Guard news release.

The spill was spotted last Wednesday just after 5 p.m. when a boater reported a slick surrounding the bulk grain carrier Marathassa.

"There was no delay in our response," Lowry said. "The time between when we were officially activated by the Coast Guard and when our first boat arrived was one hour and 19 minutes, which is an incredible response time."

Anchored near Stanley Park

In a phone interview, Lowry said his firm's clean up crews arrived at the scene at 9:25 p.m., more than four hours after the boaters first called in the slick. The MV Marathassa's owners initially denied responsibility, but by Thursday admitted the fuel came from their bulk grain ship anchored near Stanley Park.

Lowry confirmed that the owners of the ship were paying members of the WCMRC -- meaning there would be an established process to ensure that the ship owner paid for the clean up. That's a requirement of visiting a Canadian port, Lowry said. A ship without such an arrangement must first sign an 11-page "third-party agreement" to get spill help. Luckily, last week that wasn't needed.

There has been controversy about the lag time between when the spill was spotted and when the clean up crews arrived.

But Lowry defended the consortium's response.

"I want to dispel any notion there was a delay because we didn't know who the responsible party was," Lowry said. "There was no interruption."

He explained that the company operates on a "polluter pay" model. "We recover our costs from the responsible party," Lowry added. "We're a contractor of the responsible party -- the ship owners."

WCMRC, formerly known as Burrard Clean, is owned by a consortium of oil companies including pipeline operator Kinder Morgan and several others, which Transport Canada has authorized to respond to spills on B.C.'s coast.

But the former commander of the nearby Kitsilano Coast Guard base -- shuttered two years ago – blamed the response delay on years of cutbacks and "outsourcing" of federal spill responsibilities to the private sector.

"Originally, going way back, it was all completely our responsibility," said Fred Moxey. "The government wanted to get out of it, it was costing too much money.

Reduced costs

"They chipped away at it [and] gradually downsized and handed off responsibilities to these private companies. These private companies like Burrard Clean were very professional, but I think they've gone too far and should back up a bit and have a look at this again."

Meanwhile, fellow former Coast Guard officer Capt. Tony Toxopeus -- who worked for several decades in the agency before leaving in 2012 -- slammed assistant Coast Guard commissioner Roger Girouard's claim Thursday that "Kits base would not have made an iota of difference" to the clean up speed.

Toxopeus said the base had thousands of feet of oil-containing booms and a pollution boat. Reopening that base, and reversing cuts to Coast Guard staffing would mean federal responders ready to hit the water 24/7 from full-time, dedicated stations, not needing to be called in from afar.

Meanwhile, Lowry said WCMRC has exceptional response capability and adequate staffing, and challenged the notion that Vancouver's clean up was in any way hampered by private sector involvement.

"It's not at all outsourcing," he argued. "It's how the regime was set up in Canada."

That system emerged following a government inquiry following the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill. The inquiry called for improved oil disaster response plans, including tasking response organizations to deal with major accidents while meeting "high standards" set by Canada.

"They're not farming out this operation," Lowry said. "It's actually a way to hold industry accountable while making sure the government is regulating the whole regime."

Current Coast Guard officer Allan Hughes, who's also regional director for the union representing Coast Guard members, said the federal government should reverse its cuts to Coast Guard offices on the West Coast, including impending office closures that will consolidate operations to Victoria.

"You're cutting the very basics of the prevention aspect and the response," Hughes said. "Really, the Coast Guard's been cut so thin resource-wise, they can't find enough people to staff the vital positions now. The government's moving way faster than the Coast Guard can respond."

The Coast Guard did not respond to interview requests

 

[agentaqua]

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Co...+delay+cuts+marine+safety/10962874/story.html

Conservatives hammered over oil spill cleanup delay, cuts to marine safety

Poor response time to leak raises questions about increasing tanker traffic
By Matthew Robinson and Peter O'Neil, Vancouver Sun April 11, 2015

Officials have slammed response times in the wake of an oil spill in English Bay this week. While the impact is being felt on the shores as volunteers come to the rescue of birds that have been soiled by the spill.

The political fallout from Wednesday's English Bay oil spill may prove as hard to contain as the toxic fuel that outpaced and eluded Canada’s sluggish cleanup response.

The political finger pointing was fierce Friday as Premier Christy Clark criticized the federal government for its “totally inadequate” response and opposition MPs hammered Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservatives for federal cuts they say undermine the ability to deal with spills on the west coast.

The stakes are high. The Harper Government has been busy touting Canada’s oil response capabilities as “world class” while aligning itself with major pipeline projects that would see supertankers filled with oil become regular fixtures in English Bay, Burrard Inlet and northern coastal waters.

The spill comes in an election year, and experts say it could harden resistance to Kinder Morgan’s proposed Trans Mountain pipeline expansion and damage the Conservatives in some south coast ridings.

Clark criticized the Canadian Coast Guard for the six hours it took to get an oil-absorbing boom around the leaking bulk grain carrier Marathassa. In fact, it wasn’t the coast guard doing the work but a private company Ottawa called in to help.

Clark said in a Friday news conference she had contacted the prime minister’s office to demand changes.

“Somebody needs to do a better job of protecting this coast, and the coast guard hasn’t done it,” she said. “It is totally unacceptable that we don’t have the spill response that we require here and the federal government needs to step up.”

Clark went so far as to suggest the province could have done a better job if it had been in charge.

“And if that means that in the future the coast guard is relieved of its lead in this and starts taking direction from the province, then perhaps that’s a better way to do it,” she said.

Opposition MPs took aim at Tories they say will be punished in the scheduled October election for keeping silent over federal cuts to West Coast marine safety and the closure of the Kitsilano Canadian Coast Guard station in 2013.

Liberal leader Justin Trudeau said Harper’s cuts undermined the spill response.

“I used to live in this neighbourhood, and I know that any spills of this nature are of serious concern to British Columbians and all Canadians,” Trudeau, a former teacher at the West Point Grey Academy, said in a statement.

New Democratic Party MP Kennedy Stewart said problems managing a relatively minor spill underscore concerns about Kinder Morgan’s proposed expansion and raises doubts about the federal government’s long-standing pledge to create a “world class” tanker safety system.

“When the public health authorities are saying ‘don’t touch this stuff because it’s toxic, don’t go to the beaches,’ it’s a wake-up call for folks here,” said Stewart, the MP for Burnaby Douglas.

“If you want to become a major industrial oil export port like Rotterdam, you’re not going to be able to enjoy your beaches, and that’s a choice the region is going to have to make.”

Industry Minister James Moore said Friday afternoon that 80 per cent of the spill was contained and cleaned up within 36 hours. “I think that’s very impressive.”

He said the cleanup costs won’t be shouldered by taxpayers and the ship’s owners will be held responsible.

Moore said it was “highly inappropriate” for politicians to point fingers while the cleanup is underway and all the facts are unknown. Such talk promotes “anxiety and fear,” he said.

“To have people with only a half or a quarter of the information coming before the media and asserting with certainty exactly what happened and why it happened and why the response could have been different ... I think is unhelpful.”

Moore stuck to his party’s line that Canada has a “world class system” for oil spills, but that the country can learn from this one. He also said there were no plans to reopen the Kitsilano coast guard station.

Clark’s harsh criticism of Ottawa is unlikely to further strain “already pretty tense” federal-provincial relations with respect to pipelines, said Kathryn Harrison, a political-science professor at the University of B.C.

“I think no federal government likes it when a provincial premier publicly criticizes them,” she said. “My guess is Mr. Harper and his government shouldn’t be surprised in this case because the fact is there seem to be some pretty serious problems with spill response.”

The oil spill could lead some wavering Lower Mainland voters to back Liberal, NDP or Green candidates, Harrison said, but it may not overturn any strong Conservative ridings.

“The polling has indicated for a few years now that the thing British Columbians are most concerned about when it comes to these pipelines is tankers on the coast, and I think for many British Columbians what happened in Vancouver was a wake-up call,” she said.

Liberal MP Joyce Murray, representing Vancouver Quadra in Ottawa said Lower Mainland Tory MPs like Industry Minister James Moore (Port Moody-Westwood-Port Coquitlam), Minister of State (seniors) Alice Wong (Richmond), John Weston (West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country) and Andrew Saxton (North Vancouver) will be targeted for not speaking out against the cuts. She cited Transport Canada documents indicating that marine safety spending went from $82 million in 2009-10 to $57.5 million in 2015-16.

The Green party issued a statement criticizing cuts to coast guard facilities, marine science and emergency response.

“No wonder spill response time was slow and communications with the City of Vancouver unacceptably slow. The key responders have been shut down,” said Claire Martin, the party’s North Vancouver candidate and former meteorologist with Environment Canada.

Mayor Gregor Robertson said he cut a vacation short to return to Vancouver after he heard about the spill. He said when he asked Moore why it took so long for the Coast Guard to launch a response to the spill and then notify the city, Moore “reflected back to me having some of those same questions.”

“But that’s not good enough when we’re in the middle of an oil spill.”

He said residents and volunteer corps are on hand to help, but city staff need direction from the provincial and federal ministries of environment “to notify us, first of all, what the substance is and how toxic it is” before launching any cleanup of local beaches.

“They are responsible for this (and) at this point, we don’t seem to have any clear guidance on our next step,” Robertson said.

poneil@postmedia.commrobinson@vancouversun.comWith files from Brian Morton and Derrick Penner, Vancouver Sun, and Canadian Press

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Co...rine+safety/10962874/story.html#ixzz3XJmm0q91

 

[agentaqua]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/briti...-small-but-nasty-and-spread-quickly-1.3032385

Vancouver oil spill was small but 'nasty' and spread quickly

Expect oil to continue washing up on Vancouver beaches, warns city manager

By Lisa Johnson, CBC News Posted: Apr 14, 2015 11:39 AM PT| Last Updated: Apr 14, 2015 12:43 PM PT

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

The oil spill in Vancouver's English Bay last week was relatively small, but the highly toxic bunker fuel spread quickly, and will keep washing up on beaches, said city manager Penny Ballem in an update to council.

■Oil spill alert needed in 'real time' says Vancouver's mayor
■Vancouver oil spill: Coast Guard defends cleanup response time
■Dramatic photos of Vancouver oil spill spark pipeline outrage

Ballem said it's still not clear exactly how much Bunker C fuel oil spilled from the grain ship Marathassa on April 8, despite estimates from the coast guard that approximately 2,700 litres were released.

But Ballem said the fuel is highly toxic and very viscose or thick, so it forms globs that are carried to distant beaches, including some 12 kilometres away from the spill site at New Brighton Park in East Vancouver.

Vancouver fuel spill 20150409 Marathassa April 9 2015
People sit on the shore at Sunset Beach after bunker fuel leaked from the cargo ship Marathassa, upper right, anchored on Burrard Inlet in Vancouver, B.C., on Thursday April 9, 2015. (Darryl Dyck/Canadian Press)

"It's a nasty kind of fuel," she told council Tuesday morning.

Ninety per cent of the fuel released has been cleaned up, according to a coast guard update Tuesday.

However, Ballem said, there is still bunker fuel stuck below the ship, that crews are working to surface and contain with the booms, and cleanup continues on beaches and the hull of the ship.

"There's a bathtub ring around the ship that's very significant and it's quite toxic," said Ballem.

Vancouver Coastal Health said there is no timeline for when closed beaches will be reopened and considered safe for people and pets.

Oil globs will continue to wash up

The city expects that oil globs of the toxic bunker fuel will continue to wash up on city beaches, and Ballem said there needs to be a plan to deal with ongoing contamination.

Oil globules have been found on the shore in the following locations, as far as 12 kilometres from the original source said Ballem:
■English Bay Beach
■Sunset Beach
■Second Beach
■Third Beach
■Siwash Rock
■Crab Park
■New Brighton Park
■Inner Coal Harbour

False Creek itself is safe for boating and paddling activity, said Dr. James Lu of Vancouver Coastal Health, but beaches north of False Creek remain closed.

Lu encouraged the public to obey signage urging them to stay off beaches.

Beach signs
Vancouver Coastal Health is urging the public to observe and obey signs like this on city beaches. (CBC)

 

[tubber]

"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"

I read this as the leak was internal. Reading between the lines, someone pumped it overboard on purpose.

 

[steelmadness]

Leaked into the bilge, ship illegally emptied bilge. Although a dirty, ****** thing to do, dumping polluted bilge is nothing new... It's not a conspiracy,wasn't a "leak"....wasn't even a tanker !

 

[cuttlefish]

Leaked into the bilge, ship illegally emptied bilge. Although a dirty, ****** thing to do, dumping polluted bilge is nothing new... It's not a conspiracy,wasn't a "leak"....wasn't even a tanker !

You left out; "illegal" and; "stupid".

 

[agentaqua]

http://www.shd.ca/vancouver_coastguard

On April 8th, 2015 a malfunctioning tanker spilled a still undetermined amount of bunker fuel into Vancouver’s English Bay. A coast guard station located in nearby Kitsilano “would have been able to respond to the incident in six minutes and with the proper equipment to contain a spill from spreading across the water and onto the shoreline.” However, it was closed in 2013 by the Conservative government. As a result the spill response took six hours and the spill washed up on beaches and shorelines across the greater Vancouver area.

The Conservatives saved $700,000 per year by closing this coast guard station. Here is a list of several ridiculous things they could have cut instead:

1.Ads about how safe Canadian oil is. The Conservatives have spent $22 million and counting on ads that promote “safe” and “responsible” tarsands oil overseas.

2.Limos. Each Conservative Cabinet Minister has a personal limo driver who makes an average of $48,000/year (for a grand total of nearly $2 million per year). We already pay these cabinet ministers an income that is higher than 99% of us. Seems like they could afford to pay for their own limos.

3.Hockey jerseys and pucks. The Harper Conservatives have spent $530,000 on personalized hockey pucks and jerseys.

4.Overtime for limo drivers. In a single year Conservative Minister’s paid their limo drivers over $600,000 to wait around for them.

5.Fancy jets. In a two year period Conservative Minister Peter Mackay spent over $3 million using Challenger jets. One of the flights cost $200,000 alone.

6. Fighter jets. The Conservatives bought a fleet of F-35 jets but underestimated the cost by $12-$81 billion dollars. Yes, billion.

7.Tax cuts for people who don't need them. The $2.2 billion dollar Family Tax Cut announced in 2014 will benefit fewer than 1 in 6 households, plus "middle and middle-high income households benefit most”. It is clearly not designed to help low-income families. Instead of handing this money out to people who don’t really need it, the lost tax revenue from just one year could have paid to keep the coast guard station open until the year 3729 -- and we’d still have $1 billion left to spend on social services like education and health care or private jets and hockey pucks (though we don’t condone that).

8.Financial handouts for the world's wealthiest corporations. “The International Monetary Fund estimates that energy subsidies in Canada top an incredible $34 billion each year in direct support to producers and uncollected tax on externalized costs.” That’s a lot of money being handed over to oil companies.

9.A $90,000/day consultant who helps the government save money. The Conservatives paid a consultant 90k a day (for a total of $19.8 million) to help save money and balance the budget by 2014. Apparently their expert advice included cutting the coast guard and keeping all this other ****. Oh and also, the budget wasn’t balanced in 2014.

TAKE ACTION:

Sign the petition to protect Vancouver from oil spills

Let's unite against austerity.

Austerity is sacrificing the common good for corporate profits.

It affects everyone.

Austerity keeps migrant workers from exercising their rights, rolls back environmental regulations, muzzles scientists, undermines unions, keeps women earning less than men, and prevents Indigenous people from taking care of their lands, all while spending billions on war.

Learn more @ UnitedAgainstAusterity.ca

 

[agentaqua]

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/...vancouver-oil-spill-worse-than-estimated.html

Officials hint Vancouver oil spill worse than estimated
An official with Environment Canada suggested that early statements pegging the size of the spill at 2,700 litres were conservative.

Crews on spill response boats work around the bulk carrier cargo ship MV Marathassa after a bunker fuel spill on Burrard Inlet in Vancouver on April 9, 2015.

DARRYL DYCK / THE CANADIAN PRESS

Crews on spill response boats work around the bulk carrier cargo ship MV Marathassa after a bunker fuel spill on Burrard Inlet in Vancouver on April 9, 2015.

By: The Canadian Press, Published on Mon Apr 13 2015

VANCOUVER—Officials in charge of cleaning up a bunker fuel spill in Vancouver’s English Bay now say the estimate of what leaked from a grain carrier was a conservative figure.

Owen Rusticus with Environment Canada says the 2,700-litre spill estimate wasn’t based on gauges, but was gathered using sensors on the thickness of the oil in combination with the size of the spill on the water.

Coast Guard commissioner Jody Thomas says 80 per cent of that estimated spill had been cleaned up by the first day and what’s left is “a negligible amount.”

Yvette Myers of Transport Canada says the spill appears to have been caused by mechanical problems with the ship’s pumping system combined with an unrelated issue that sent the fuel into the water instead of being contained in the ship.

Thomas added that cleanup of the spill has cost “a lot of money” and will be the responsibility of the ship’s owners, but she would not provide any estimate on the cost.

The MV Marathassa began spewing bunker fuel off Vancouver’s harbour on Wednesday and soiled several beaches along English Bay and Burrard Inlet.

 

[agentaqua]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/briti...al-shellfish-and-groundfish-fishing-1.3033197

Vancouver oil spill stops recreational shellfish and groundfish fishing

Fisheries and Oceans Canada closes fisheries as a 'precautionary measure' until further notice

By Lisa Johnson, CBC News Posted: Apr 14, 2015 5:47 PM PT| Last Updated: Apr 14, 2015 5:47 PM PT

The closure includes Jericho Beach, a popular spot on Vancouver's West Side for people to catch Dungeness crabs like this one. (Jerry Kirkhart/Flickr)

Fisheries and Oceans Canada has closed Burrard Inlet in Vancouver to all recreational fishing for shellfish and groundfish, due to the English Bay oil spill last week.
■Expect oil to continue washing up on beaches, warns city manager
■Coast guard fires back at criticism of oil spill response

The closure is a "precautionary measure" and effective immediately until further notice, according to a notice issued Tuesday by DFO, six days after the spill.

It covers all waters of Burrard Inlet from Lions Gate Bridge to the mouth of the Georgia Strait, as defined by the line between Point Atkinson in West Vancouver and Point Grey in Vancouver.

That would include Jericho Beach, a popular spot on Vancouver's West Side for people to catch crabs recreationally.

Recreational fishing is already closed year round east of that, between Lions Gate Bridge and the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge at Second Narrows, wrote DFO.

MAP: Fisheries closure and locations of oil on beaches
https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=zCJWDDUbphaM.kLhZJmYNTDb8

 

[agentaqua]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/neb-spill-map-takes-a-step-toward-pipeline-transparency-1.3032260

NEB spill map takes a step toward pipeline transparency

Canada still lags behind U.S. in making complete spill data public

By Amber Hildebrandt, CBC News Posted: Apr 15, 2015 12:32 PM ET| Last Updated: Apr 15, 2015 12:33 PM ET

The NEB says the interactive map of pipeline incidents is part of its effort to be more transparent with the public. (Courtesy of NEB)

■NEB pipeline incident map http://www.neb-one.gc.ca/sftnvrnmnt/sft/dshbrd/mp/index-eng.html

(Note: CBC does not endorse and is not responsible for the content of external links.)

Canada's pipeline regulator took a "big step forward" on a promise to be more transparent with the release of a map of spills and other incidents. But gaps in the data still exist.

On Monday, the National Energy Board launched the interactive pipeline incident map to showcase 692 spills, fires, injuries and other events over the past eight years.

The incident map comes a year and a half after CBC News mapped the data — using data obtained under the Access to Information Act that contained numerous blank fields — and nearly two years after a Senate report called for the NEB to create such a tool for Canadians.

"The NEB developed the map because Canadians deserve to have access to information about incidents where they live and work," said NEB spokesman Darin Barter. "It reflects the NEB's new direction, and a commitment to openness and transparency."

Nathan Lemphers, a former senior policy analyst with the Alberta-based Pembina Institute and a specialist in pipeline safety, commended the national regulator for creating the tool.

"It's very encouraging to see that the National Energy Board is wanting to disclose this information in a format that's easily accessible by the public," said Lemphers. "That's a big step forward."

"But there's still more we can do when it comes to quality of the data and how accessible it is," he said.

For example, Lemphers noted that a number of incidents lack details on the type of substance or volume leaked, some figures in the map don't reflect previously published data and the descriptions of the terminology used are still mired in jargon.

The map is also missing a description of what happened in each incident — something the regulator does collect and can be "pretty important for understanding context," said Lemphers.

The Calgary-based NEB says some data is missing in the map because it won't include any information that they haven't investigated and verified.

Canada still lags behind U.S.

A U.S. pipeline transparency advocacy group also applauded the Canadian effort to be more transparent with the public.

But, Carl Weimer, executive director of the Washington State-based Pipeline Safety Trust, said "the NEB still lags well behind the federal regulator in the United States that makes easily available a good deal more information about individual incidents."

hi-pipeline-oil-yellow-flag
In 2012, the pipeline regulator got an infusion of money to improve safety and security, but that funding is soon coming to an end. (John Rieti/CBC)

South of the border, citizens have access to such details as the cause of the incident, information on property damage, the age of the component that failed, pressure the pipeline was operating at and other information that "help tell the full story of the failure," said Weimer.'
■Canada lags behind U.S. on making pipeline safety data public

The NEB said it does plan to refine its map based on feedback. "If we can improve the system or increase the amount of data, we will do so," said Barter. Also, new incident data will be uploaded on a quarterly basis, with the next round slated for July.

However, the board is also planning a 15 per cent cutback of its workforce in the next two years as a temporary pool of money dedicated in 2012 to safety oversight runs out, according to a report released earlier this month.

Those cuts come despite increased public scrutiny of pipeline safety and a rise in large projects set to get underway.

"If we want the data to be reliable, we need people who can give it a critical eye on behalf of our public regulator," said Lemphers.

The federal regulator oversees 73,000 kilometres of pipeline that cross international and provincial borders and are operated by more than 100 companies. Together, these companies ship more than $160 billion worth of crude oil, petroleum products, natural gas and natural gas liquids through these federally regulated conduits.

The Canadian Energy Pipeline Association, which represents some of the country's largest operators of both federally and provincially regulated pipelines, says NEB's mapping effort "responds to the public's call for greater transparency," according to vice-president of external relations Philippe Reicher.

The industry group says it, too, plans to heed that call — with a similar tool to showcase its own members' data.
■Premiers told to rethink pipelines as they meet on climate

 

[agentaqua]

http://ottawacitizen.com/news/natio...d?hootPostID=26cf905cddb8ddcb6f0c6ed0e0765bf4


DND search and rescue project on hold
David Pugliese, Ottawa Citizen
More from David Pugliese, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: April 12, 2015
Last Updated: April 12, 2015 5:18 PM EDT

A project to significantly boost Canada’s search and rescue capabilities has been put on hold by the Conservative government.
Andrew Vaughan / THE CANADIAN PRESS ​

A project to significantly boost Canada’s search and rescue capabilities, announced with great fanfare in 2013 by then-defence minister Peter MacKay, has been quietly put on hold by the Conservative government.

Canadian space company Com Dev was selected to design and build search-and-rescue transponders that were going to be installed on U.S. military satellites.

The transponders would allow search and rescue teams to better locate signals transmitted by distress beacons. They would reduce from 60 minutes to five minutes the time it would take for rescuers to detect and locate a distress signal.

The project was announced in May 2013 by MacKay, just days after a scathing report by the auditor general on the problems with Canada’s search-and- rescue system.

Work on the transponders had been ongoing at Com Dev’s facilities in Ottawa and Cambridge, Ont.

But earlier this year Mike Pley, Com Dev’s chief executive officer, told investment analysts the project had been suspended by the Department of National Defence. He did not provide a reason.

DND confirmed changes have been made to the project, known are Medium Earth Orbit Search and Rescue, or MEOSAR.

DND spokeswoman Ashley Lemire noted in an email the U.S. military added addition requirements to the project but later removed those. “The Government of Canada took a prudent decision to proceed with a de-scoped work package that would address costs, risk and schedule implications of both the initial requirement and the additional, while suspending all other work as it was no longer required,” she stated.

But military and industry sources say the problem is with finding enough money to proceed with the project at a time of cuts ordered by the Conservative government. DND officials have put a halt to MEOSAR work as they try to convince other federal departments to contribute money to it, sources said.

Although the initial contract with Com Dev was less than $5 million, DND procurement guide lists the total cost for the system as being between $100 million and $249 million.

Lemire stated the government is still committed to MEOSAR. But DND could not provide any details on when money would be made available for moving ahead and building the transponders.

Like all government departments, DND is dealing with government-ordered cuts. In addition, the Conservative government has removed $3.1 billion from the department’s budget for buying new equipment in the future.

The development of the first U.S. satellite had fallen behind schedule but is now expected to be ready for launch in 2016. Additional satellites will be launched in the coming years.

In April 2013, Auditor General Michael Ferguson warned that some elements of Canada’s search and rescue system were near the “breaking point.”

In response, the Conservatives quickly unveiled a number of new initiatives, with then associate minister of defence Kerry-Lynne Findlay predicting MEOSAR “will be a real game changer for search and rescue operations” because of the speed it could locate distress signals.

“As the lead minister for search and rescue activities, I firmly believe there is no such thing as ‘good enough’ when it comes to saving the lives of our fellow Canadians,” added MacKay.

Besides the building of 24 transponders, the MEOSAR project was also to include the establishment of ground stations to receive the data from space.

In his audit, Ferguson also noted Canada didn’t have the right type of or enough search-and-rescue aircraft.

The plan to replace the military’s aging search-and-rescue planes has been foundering for more than a decade.

A request for bids was recently released to aerospace firms, but the government cannot say when it expects new aircraft to be on the flight line.

dpugliese@ottawacitizen.com

Twitter.com/davidpugliese

 

[tincan]

FYI, here's the link to DFO with the shellfish closure in the Vancouver area related to the fuel spill - http://www.pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/fm-gp/rec/season-saison/index-eng.html#0339

 

[agentaqua]

http://www.vancouverobserver.com/na...er-casts-doubt-claims-excellent-spill-cleanup

Former Coast Guard commander casts doubt on 'excellent' spill cleanup claim

Danny Kresnyak

|Apr 13th, 2015
Photo by Danny Kresnyak

Retired Commander Frederick E. Moxey said based on his experience, government claims of having contained "80 per cent" of the English Bay spill were likely false.

“I’ve been in hundreds of spills and never seen an 80 per cent recovery," Moxey said. "Usually you recover 30 per cent at most, more like 10, and that’s with an immediate response and a trained crew with sponges and straw pulling the oil out by hand.”

The "80 per cent" figure was repeated at a press conference by the coordinated response team today at Canada Place.

Moxey, a 35-year Coast Guard veteran and former commander of the now-closed Kitsilano Coast Guard station, said the numbers reported by government are likely based on observation and aerial photography which fails to show the full reality in the water.

“They need to send cameras to the bottom of the bay to see what made it down there.”

Despite ongoing criticism, the current federal Canadian Coast Guard head reiterated today that the response has been "excellent."

Amalgamation of spill response a "horrible practice"

Despite the coordinated response team and Premier Clark's suggestion that in the future the province should take the lead, the federal government remains the authority in charge of coastal clean-up. Moxey said that under the Harper government, coastal and marine response services has been amalgamated.

He called this "a horrible practice," meant to cut costs and push capacity away from the Coast Guard and onto partnered private enterprises.

The 2013 closure of the Kitsilano station has been under scrutiny since the spill. Moxey said before the closure the station was the busiest on the west coast, responding to over 300 calls per year. He sent hundreds of pages of documents to prove this to Conservative MP Andrew Saxton through official channels, he said, but received no response at the time.

Reached for comment on Monday, Saxton initially evaded the question, giving a generic answer about "regular updates on this important issue."

When pressed for a direct response, he said:

"I have received correspondence from Moxey regarding the Kitsilano Coast Guard station. I acknowledged these messages in detail more than once with our government's position on the importance of maintaining our world class search and rescue (SAR) capabilities, as well as the nature of this operational decision made by the Canadian Coast Guard."

Moxey said he has never received correspondence from Saxton's office, although Saxton stated he has sent numerous responses explaining the federal government's decision.

Not prepared for large oil spills?

Moxey said this spill was small – less than 2,900 litres of fuel, likely dumped from the ship’s bilge. He was visibly disturbed as he spoke about his lack of confidence in the cash-strapped Coast Guard's ability to deal with a larger incident.

"You can't remove the possibility of human error. They are in no way prepared for a catastrophe," he said. "It'd be years to clean it up."

From the lookout point on the west side of the Burrard Bridge, the blue two-storey station at Kitsilano can be seen with English Bay as its backdrop. Anchorage 12, occupied by the Marathassa, is in view and according to Moxey the response time from the former station would have been six minutes.

Kitsilano Coast Guard base

At the press conference on Monday, which officials said was "day four" of the spill response (the spill occurred on April 9), Commissioner of the Coast Guard Jody Thomas stated that the Kitsilano point station was mainly a search-and-rescue facility. She prefaced her comments by saying she monitors the entire Coast Guard operation across Canada from her office in Ottawa. She said the closed facility has been used for storage after the spill, but said having the Kitsilano station open would not have made any difference in the spill response.

Moxey contradicted this, stating that the Kitsilano base responded to oil spills as well as search and rescue before it was shut down.

"It was a 24-hour-a-day operation," he said. "All the officers and crew at Kitsilano were trained and had responded to oil spills as well as search and rescue. For her to say that is just false and I will sign an affidavit declaring the fact we were and had been called to respond to spills often."

When questioned about differing reports on the performance of coordinated response to the English Bay spill, Thomas refused to be involved in a "comparison of adjectives" with reporters and stated the station at Kitsilano would have made no difference in the treatment of the English Bay spill. Thomas continued to say the response was adequate and well within the 10 hour time-frame legislated by the federal authorities.

 

[agentaqua]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/briti...hering-oil-samples-from-ocean-floor-1.3035148

Vancouver oil spill: Vancouver Aquarium gathering oil samples from ocean floor

Scientists from the aquarium are attempting to determine the impact of a recent oil spill

By Maryse Zeidler, CBC News Posted: Apr 16, 2015 5:35 AM PT| Last Updated: Apr 16, 2015 6:12 AM PT

Scientists from the Vancouver Aquarium are currently analyzing oil, water, sediment and shellfish samples from the shoreline to determine the recent impact of an oil spill from the bunker of a grain ship near English Bay.
■Vancouver oil spill stops recreational shellfish and groundfish fishing
■​Vancouver oil spill was small but 'nasty' and spread quickly

"It is critical to obtain results from these preliminary analyses as quickly as possible," said Dr. Peter Ross, director of the aquarium's Ocean Pollution Research Program in a statement.

"Results will be used to fingerprint the source of the spill, the spread of this fuel throughout coastal waters, and immediate risks to sea life."

According to the Aquarium, its analysis is taking place independently, alongside the work being completed by government agencies.

The aquarium's CEO, Dr. John Nightingale, said it's difficult to separate the impact of the spill against the cumulative effort of other activities like industry, agriculture and waste water on the coastal environment.

"If the goal of cleanup efforts is to return our harbour to the state it was in before the leak, we can't because we don't have good baseline information," said Nightingale in a statement.

The aquarium's recently launched its PollutionWatch Project, which will work with First Nations and community organizations to monitor the ongoing impact of pollution on B.C.'s coast. https://www.vanaqua.org/act/research/ocean-pollution-research-program

 

[Pippen]

Aqua.....you've posted a bunch of articles up on here. I had to chuckle at this one tearing one out of our Mayor.....who I CANNOT STAND!!! I am not saying boo either way with respect to the response but thought this was a good one.


http://beaconenergynews.ca/markham/...s-a-world-class-oil-spill-response-look-like/

 

[agentaqua]

some facebook posts pics: