Legally, oil spill response appropriate: maritime lawyer

[agentaqua]

For years - Big Oil successfully fought and staved-off the passage of the Oil Pollution Act in the U.S. Congress BEFORE the Valdez accident. Then, it happened. Valdez. All of a sudden the resistance to legislating oil spill response levels, tug escorts, double-bottoms and other safety measures were passed: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exxon_Valdez_oil_spill

Oil Pollution Act of 1990[edit]

In response to the spill, the United States Congress passed the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (OPA). The legislation included a clause that prohibits any vessel that, after March 22, 1989, has caused an oil spill of more than 1 million US gallons (3,800 m3) in any marine area, from operating in Prince William Sound.[50]

In April 1998, the company argued in a legal action against the Federal government that the ship should be allowed back into Alaskan waters. Exxon claimed OPA was effectively a bill of attainder, a regulation that was unfairly directed at Exxon alone.[51] In 2002, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Exxon. As of 2002, OPA had prevented 18 ships from entering Prince William Sound.[52]

OPA also set a schedule for the gradual phase in of a double hull design, providing an additional layer between the oil tanks and the ocean. While a double hull would likely not have prevented the Valdez disaster, a Coast Guard study estimated that it would have cut the amount of oil spilled by 60 percent.[53]

The Exxon Valdez supertanker was towed to San Diego, arriving on July 10. Repairs began on July 30. Approximately 1,600 short tons (1,500 t) of steel were removed and replaced. In June 1990 the tanker, renamed S/R Mediterranean, left harbor after $30 million of repairs.[52] It was still sailing as of January 2010, registered in Panama. The vessel was then owned by a Hong Kong company, who operated it under the name Oriental Nicety. In August 2012, it was beached at Alang, India and dismantled.

Alaska regulations[edit]

In the aftermath of the spill, Alaska governor Steve Cowper issued an executive order requiring two tugboats to escort every loaded tanker from Valdez out through Prince William Sound to Hinchinbrook Entrance. As the plan evolved in the 1990s, one of the two routine tugboats was replaced with a 210-foot (64 m) Escort Response Vehicle (ERV). The majority of tankers at Valdez are no longer single-hulled. Congress has enacted legislation requiring all tankers to be double-hulled by 2015."

 

[GLG]

Seriously they have no backup power for their traffic control station? I find this totally unbelievable! I cannot believe that for example the traffic centre in Victoria goes down with every power outage! While their may not be a backup station, I would be shocked (no pun intended) to find out that the station has no backup power available. Someone tell you this? Should be easy to check!

Sorry if was unclear.... yes they all have backup power but that is not what I meant.
Back up and redundancy of equipment, personal and location.
Putting all your eggs in one basket is not a wise policy.

 

[agentaqua]

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/15-years-after-Exxon-Valdez-oil-spill-prevention-1140325.php

15 years after Exxon Valdez, oil spill prevention efforts still lagging

By ROBERT MCCLURE, SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Published 9:00 pm, Tuesday, March 23, 2004
Fifteen years after the nation's largest oil spill, the amount of petroleum products unleashed into the environment in the Puget Sound region and around the country has declined dramatically, say proud Coast Guard and state officials.

But critics point out that important steps taken to prevent oil spills in Alaska's Prince William Sound, where the Exxon Valdez hit a reef and gushed out 11 million gallons of oil, have not been put into place elsewhere.

In the Puget Sound region, the legacy of the Valdez is felt in ways big and small -- from the establishment of a small army of Coast Guard and state inspectors to the presence at the Seattle Aquarium of two sea otters orphaned by the spill.

When thick, black-brown crude oil spurted from gashes in the tanker's hull into the waters of Prince William Sound 15 years ago today, it launched a series of advancements in oil spill-prevention rules.

"The significant improvements here over the last decade mirror the national picture," said Mike Moore, who worked to prevent spills as a Coast Guard official here and in California before retiring to lobby on behalf of cargo shippers.

"After Exxon Valdez, we moved from the reactive mode into the more proactive mode," he said.

Even though Washington is widely acknowledged to be more vigilant than most states, a 1999 Coast Guard study predicted that the danger of major spills is likely to creep up again here. While a spill of 10,000 gallons or more could be expected about once every five years at the end of the last century, the agency said, one is likely to occur every 3.6 years by 2025.

Legislation passed by Congress in the wake of the Valdez disaster is credited with reducing oil spills. Probably the biggest factor, say those who have followed the shipping industry, is that every company and individual involved in a spill can be held personally liable for the damage it caused.

"If they find negligence on your part, you're susceptible for everything," said Patrick Grennan, who lives in the Seattle area and loads oil-hauling barges for a living. "It's everything you have. It's your 401(k). It's your house."

Criminal penalties can also be imposed in some cases.

It's working. Excluding dams and highways, spills in Washington dropped from about 640,000 gallons in 1991 to 11,000 gallons last year, according to a Seattle Post-Intelligencer analysis of state figures. Similar drops are reported nationally. Vessels in U.S. waters reported spilling 6.4 million gallons in 1990, but only 229,000 gallons in 1999.

But safety advocates point out that precautions now taken for granted in Prince William Sound are ignored elsewhere. One of the most important was setting up the Prince William Sound Regional Citizens' Advisory Council as a watchdog on government and industry.

Washington officials say they rely on several citizens' advisory committees here. But there's a huge difference.

Locally, a ragtag bunch of environmentalists and a few local government officials do the best they can, on a volunteer basis, to influence what the state does to prevent oil spills.

In Prince William Sound, the citizen council is funded by $2 million annually from the oil industry. Maintaining offices in Valdez and Anchorage that employ 16 staffers, the council also has the cash to hire outside technical experts to level the playing field against the oil industry.

"They pay us to nag them," said Stan Jones, a spokesman for the advisory council. "We do battles large and small on a host of issues."

Here in Washington, even the volunteer committees set up to advise the government are heavily weighted toward oil companies and others in industry.

"We're typically given token status -- the token environmentalist or the token member of the public -- in a forum that is dominated by every sector of the maritime community," said Fred Felleman of Ocean Advocates, the most active of the conservation groups working on the issue here.

Even with the backing of four other environmental groups and the San Juan County Commission, Felleman has been kept off a committee advising the state Ecology Department on a key issue -- whether oil tankers should continue to be escorted by tugboats that can keep tankers from running aground if their engines fail or they run into other trouble.

The use of the tugs to escort tankers is another key difference between here and Prince William Sound.

While tankers leaving Valdez are escorted by tugs all the way out of Prince William Sound, those entering Washington waters don't pick up a tug for some 70 miles in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, when they pass Dungeness Spit, near Sequim.

Some other safety measures employed in Prince William Sound will be considered here as Ecology studies oil spill safety, said Dale Jensen, head of the agency's Spill Prevention, Preparedness, and Response unit. They include:

•Requiring oil tankers and other vessels to put out floating curtains to contain any spilled oil when transferring crude or heavy oils onto or off vessels.
•Rules requiring shutdown of oil transport when winds reach a high level that could cause safety problems.

Probably the biggest oil-safety debate here in recent years concerns stationing a tug at Neah Bay, near the entrance to the Strait of Juan de Fuca, to rescue ill-fated ships in danger of running aground. It has been scrambled on a number of occasions to save the day.

But after years of fighting for the tug, environmentalists still are waiting for the time when it's on standby all year. Currently the state pays for it to be kept on hand through the winter months, when weather is more likely to be a factor. However, one of the biggest spills in state history, some 600,000 gallons from the Japanese fishing vessel Tenyo Maru, occurred in summer 1991.

The Valdez spill helped spur the Washington Legislature to set up an agency to regulate oil companies and others who handle oil. In 1997, though, that agency was folded into Ecology.

In 2000, the state lost a crucial court case. The shipping industry challenged the state's tough post-Valdez rules. Under those regulations, ship's crews were held to training and English-proficiency standards, beefed-up navigation-watch requirements and accident reporting.

But shippers and the Clinton administration successfully argued that states don't have the right to regulate shipping, which is governed by national and international rules.

In the most recent large spill to affect Puget Sound, a tank barge being filled at Point Wells near Edmonds overflowed in December, spilling some 4,800 gallons that ended up across the waterway on sealife-rich beaches in Kitsap County.

Recalling that spill and that of the Exxon Valdez, a group of environmentalists and religious leaders from four faiths gathered at the Seattle waterfront yesterday.

As a plane droned overhead and a ferry crossed Puget Sound behind, religious leaders and environmentalists dipped cedar boughs in holy water, then spritzed it on each other in a cleansing ritual.

"Please God, grant us wisdom and compassion. Cleanse us because we have harmed your precious creatures," prayed Barak Gale of Congregation Eitz Or (Tree of Light). (Note: "Eitz Or" was mistranslated when this article was originally published.)

Gale's words were difficult to hear. The cars whizzing by on Alaskan Way nearly drowned him out.

 

[agentaqua]

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/dai...onse-outdated-could-not-handle-200617766.html

Canada’s oil spill response outdated, could not handle Exxon Valdez-sized spill

.By Steve Mertl | Daily Brew – Tue, 4 Jun, 2013..

When the Exxon Valdez ran aground off Alaska in 1989, it spilled roughly 34,600 tonnes of oil into Prince William …
The National Energy Board's Northern Gateway joint review panel isn't expected to issue its findings until late this year but a report on the Canadian Coast Guard's woeful spill-response capability aren't likely to help the massive project's prospects.

The Canadian Press used access-to-information requests to turn up reports suggesting the coast guard is far from ready to cope with a major West Coast spill should a supertanker come to grief a la Exxon Valdez.

According to CP, two 2010 internal audits found the coast guard's capacity to monitor and react to an oil spills was outdated, disorganized and needing an overhaul.

Yet a March 2012 draft report prepared for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, which oversees the coast guard, found recommendations contained in the reports to improve its capacity have not been implemented, CP reported.

Calgary-based Enbridge Inc.'s $5.5-billion project calls for a pipeline more than 1,100 kilometres long to transport Alberta oil sands bitumen across northern British Columbia to an export terminal at Kitimat, on the northern coast.

The marine component calls for double-hulled supertankers to thread their way slowly up and down a coastal inlet escorted by tugboats. Enbridge has promised to boost emergency response capabilities along the main northern shipping routes not just for its tankers but for all marine traffic.

[ Related: Environmentalists celebrate as B.C. rejects controversial Northern Gateway pipeline ]

The West Coast has been subject to a moratorium on tanker traffic since 1972 but if Northern Gateway goes ahead, more than 200 oil tankers would be expected to use the Kitimat terminal each year.

The 2012 report unearthed by CP found about 83 per cent of spill-response equipment across Canada is ready for use but most of it is outdated.

"Although operationally ready to respond, most of the assets held by the [emergency response] program average 25 or more years in service and have either become obsolete or are coming to the end of their useful life," said the report of the Environmental Response Capacity Definition Project.

"Maintenance is increasingly difficult as technical support and availability of parts are compromised."

It's reasonable to assume the energy board's review panel has access to this kind of information as it assesses the viability of Northern Gateway's spill-response plans.

The B.C. government was unimpressed by Enbridge's promises, citing inadequate spill response as a major reason for coming out against the project last week in its final submission to the panel. It's holding fire on a proposed major expansion of Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain pipeline into Vancouver until details are available but that project would increase tanker traffic into the city's Burrard Inlet oil terminal.

CP noted Canadian law requires polluters to pay for cleanup, with the coast guard overseeing the work in marine spills and maintaining its own spill-response capability.

But inadequate funding has allowed its equipment to become outdated, the report found.

"This has eroded response capacities and has raised questions on the current condition and overall effectiveness of [Canadian Coast Guard]'s response equipment," said the report.

The largest tankers can carry 200,000 deadweight metric tonnes of oil, CP reported.

Canadian regulations require shipping companies to have the capacity to clean up as much as 10,000 tonnes of oil. CP said federal briefing notes put the coast guard's Pacific region response capacity at 8,000 tonnes but the audit found the actual capacity to be less than 6,900 tonnes.

When the Exxon Valdez ran aground off Alaska in 1989, it spilled roughly 34,600 tonnes of oil into Prince William Sound.

[ Related: Renowned oil spill expert leaving Canada after cuts ]

Enbridge spokesman Ivan Giesbrecht said the company's spill-response commitments are above those Canadian law requires.

"Our marine spill response plan will improve existing safety and response readiness on British Columbia's coastline," Giesbrecht told CP via email.

"Naturally, this is something we hope can improve confidence and public support for our project."

The federal government, meanwhile, is promising to set up a "world-class tanker safety system" for Canadian coasts and set up a coast guard incident command system.

But opponents of Northern Gateway and Kinder Morgan's expansion who believe a major spill is a matter not of if, but when, aren't reassured.

"Even a 'world-class' system doesn't prevent the kind of risks that British Columbians are concerned about," Will Horter of the Dogwood Initiative told CP. "British Columbians would bear the burden."

 

[agentaqua]

http://www.cknw.com/2015/04/20/coast-guard-brass-not-being-honest-about-kits-base/

Coast Guard brass accused of lying about Kits base

Vancouver, BC, Canada / (CKNW AM) AM980

Shane Woodford

April 20, 2015 08:19 pm

Coast Guard brass accused of lying about Kits base

Even as Conservative MPs vote down a motion to re-open Kits Coast Guard base the General Manager of the Jericho Sailing Centre is hoping BC’s senior Tory cabinet minister will reconsider.

Mike Cotter says James Moore and other BC Tory MPs are being fed misinformation from Coast Guard brass who say Kits Base wouldn’t have been a factor in the English Bay fuel spill response.

“I know it to be absolutely false. I witnessed them responding to spills. I was familiarized with the environmental emergency response equipment they had. I was onboard there vessel. They had a dedicated pollution response vessel.”

Cotter says the logs and records from Kits Base should be made public.

“They will clearly show that, that vessel was based there. They will clearly show the crews had training. The ships logs will also show they responded to spills.”

Cotter says The Department of Fisheries and Oceans, the Coast Guard Commissioner and Assistant Commissioner are lying when they say Kits Base had no pollution response equipment and would not have been a factor in the fuel spill response.

“It is clearly false information that the government is being fed by the Coast Guard commissioner and assistant commissioner. It should be easily proven. It is very disappointing to see that James Moore and the BC Conservative caucus have turned their backs on us.”

Cotter adds the spill would have been a different story with Kits Base.

“There is no reason this spill should have ever touched our shoreline. … Kits station would have responded immediately. They would have had a boat on scene directly communicating with that boater who said he waited around for three hours. He said they could easily tell the spill was emanating from the aft section of the ship. This thing should have been nipped in the bud.”

Cotter has written BC’s MP Minister James Moore asking him to advocate for Kits Base to be re-opened.

Below is a picture of the pollution response boat that was stationed at Kits base and the letter Cotter wrote to James Moore in full.

Dear Mr. Moore:

Since the April 8 bunker C fuel spill in English Bay, 3km directly north of the Jericho Sailing Centre, I have heard various reports from Canadian Coast Guard officials stating that the Kitsilano Coast Guard Station was not equipped with pollution response equipment. I know this not to be true, having been familiarized with the Station, and having witnessed their environmental response to several incidents over the 25 years I managed the Jericho Sailing Centre while the Kits Station was open(1988-2013).

I enclose 2 photos of the PRV (Pollution Response Vessel CGE-735) taken in May, 2012 at the Kitsilano Coast Guard Station when I had the opportunity to go on board. This vessel, which has been on station at the source ship in English Bay since April 11, (3 days after the spill) is equipped with 2 skimmers, dual pollution containment tanks and 300m of floating containment boom. Further to this, the Station’s all-weather cutter Osprey was equipped with a skimmer, spill boom and a containment tank.

Had the Kitsilano Coast Guard Station remained open, the Osprey could have been on scene within 10 minutes in direct contact with the boater who originally reported the spill just after 5 pm on April 8. Her crew would’ve assessed the scene (the boater says he could tell the fuel was coming from the aft section of the source ship) and activated the PRV crew who would’ve been on scene and commenced spill containment within an hour of the report. The Osprey and her crew, adept at containing smaller spills, could have commenced clean-up operations immediately. The suggestion by Canadian Coast Guard management that the response of the Kitsilano Coast Guard Station would not have made a difference from the containment 12 hours later, after 2 tidal flow changes, is beyond believable and simply not credible.

An examination of Kitsilano Coast Guard Station and ship logs will clearly reveal that the station responded to many spills over the years, as former Commander Fred Moxey has stated; and that, indeed, the CGE-735 Pollution Response Vessel, seen in these photos, was based at the station.

On behalf of Vancouver’s ocean community I would like to join others in respectfully asking the Canadian government to re-open the Kitsilano Coast Guard Station immediately.

Fair winds,
Mike Cotter, General Manager
Jericho Sailing Centre Association

 

[steelmadness]

Sorry if was unclear.... yes they all have backup power but that is not what I meant.
Back up and redundancy of equipment, personal and location.
Putting all your eggs in one basket is not a wise policy.

LOL, now that's as clear as mud ! Isn't a team of North Sea experts implementing the safety protocol ? Arguably the most treacherous shipping and refining areas in the world.....Our do I take the word of some dude from the Internet, that they don't know what to do if the power goes out ?!

 

[agentaqua]

Nobody actually expects anyone to "take the word" of "some dude from the internet" on here, SM. Personally, I expect people to check things out - if they are interested enough in a topic - which is why I give links, reports, and science where they exist. The expectations of blind belief are from the Ezra Levant converts it seems.

 

[agentaqua]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/04/150420130721.htm

Let it snow: Intricacies of marine snow formation in the Gulf of Mexico following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill

Date: April 20, 2015

Source: University of California - Santa Barbara

Summary: Before Deepwater Horizon, scientists didn't know that oil and marine snow had anything to do with each other. "Marine snow is like dust bunnies in the house," explained a research scientist who has studied the phenomenon for a long time. "All the gunk and little pieces in the ocean stick together, and underwater it looks like a snow-storm. The little particles aren't heavy enough to sink, but marine snow is big enough to sink very fast, 100 meters or more per day. It's the only way in which material that grows on the surface, where there is light, goes to depth.

This is an example of marine snow formed in roller table experiments designed to investigate conditions that induce its formation.

Credit: UCSB
[Click to enlarge image]

Five years ago today, the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico. Since then, scientists have continued to study the effects of the largest environmental disaster in the history of the petroleum industry.

UC Santa Barbara research oceanographer Uta Passow has been investigating the formation of aggregated oil and organic matter, commonly called marine snow. "Marine snow is like dust bunnies in the house," explained Passow, a research scientist at UCSB's Marine Science Institute who has studied the phenomenon for a long time. "All the gunk and little pieces in the ocean stick together, and underwater it looks like a snow-storm. The little particles aren't heavy enough to sink, but marine snow is big enough to sink very fast, 100 meters or more per day. It's the only way in which material that grows on the surface, where there is light, goes to depth.

"Before Deepwater Horizon, we didn't even know that oil and marine snow had anything to do with each other," she added.

Passow's latest research demonstrates that microbes and plankton have distinct interactions with oil, which subsequently provide alternate ways for marine snow to develop. She also found that the presence of the dispersant Corexit used after the explosion likely inhibited the formation of microbial-generated marine snow. Her findings appear online through ScienceDirect and will be published in Deep Sea Research II -- Topical Studies in Oceanography in June.

The formation of marine snow, which consists of sinking composite particles greater than 0.5 millimeters, is a common ocean process. In fact, the topography of the northern Gulf of Mexico's continental shelf facilitates a suspended sediment zone. The area is also home to particle inputs from rivers, runoff and coastal erosion. These conditions along with natural hydrocarbon seafloor seeps provide an environment favorable to the formation and sinking of the oiled mineral aggregates that constitute marine snow.

Thanks to the gulf's natural oil seeps, the flora and fauna of the area's marine ecosystem have adapted to small amounts of oil in the water column. However, scientists did not know how they would react to a prolonged release of oil.

After the DWH explosion, oil accumulated at the sea surface and in subsurface plumes. Prior research has documented observations of large marine snow near surface slicks from the spill as well as flaky, oily material coating coral reefs near the spill site.

"The impact of the oil on the open ocean ecosystem when it's disbursed and diluted at the top of the water column is very different from the impacts it has when it sinks and accumulates on the seafloor," Passow said. "We need to know where the oil is to learn how to keep the damage to a minimum for the whole ecosystem, and for that we need to understand all of the pathways involved."

To learn more, Passow used roller table experiments to investigate conditions that induce marine snow formation. She also examined the effects of different types of oil (Louisiana light crude, Macondo oil and bucket-collected spill oil), photochemical weathering and the presence of phytoplankton and dispersant on marine snow formation.

She used seawater treatments containing no particles greater than a millimeter. When incubated with collected DWH spill oil, large centimeter-sized marine snow formed. When the seawater was incubated with weathered crude oil, smaller yet similar marine snow formed. "Even when spill oil was added to artificial seawater, marine snow formed," Passow said. "This suggests that the oil included microbes capable of creating marine snow."

Passow's research demonstrates the potential of microbial-mediated or plankton-aggregate snow to transport oil carbon to the seafloor. "It is widely believed among scientists that anywhere from 3 to 25 percent of the oil released during the spill was deposited on the seafloor as a result of marine snow sedimentation," she explained. "However, this pathway was not considered in response strategies, nor was it included in the calculations for the DWH spill."

She recommended that future modeling efforts and oil spill calculations include marine snow as an oil distribution mechanism and that scientists re-evaluate dispersants as a mediating measure. "This study contributed a central piece toward the understanding of the mechanisms that lead to oil-sinking products," Passow said.

Story Source: The above story is based on materials provided by University of California - Santa Barbara. The original article was written by Julie Cohen. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Journal Reference: 1.Uta Passow. Formation of rapidly-sinking, oil-associated marine snow. Deep Sea Research Part II: Topical Studies in Oceanography, 2014; DOI: 10.1016/j.dsr2.2014.10.001 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.dsr2.2014.10.001

 

[agentaqua]

m/v Marathassa's Anchor - as she was leaving.

Guess what is on that anchor?

The leaky ship was Ok'ed to head back into the inlet/port at Cascadia Grain terminal and fill up the rest of the load with Canadian Wheat. This is only one of a few anchors on the ship. Would be interesting to compare bottom here with elsewhere in the port.

 

[GLG]

LOL, now that's as clear as mud ! Isn't a team of North Sea experts implementing the safety protocol ? Arguably the most treacherous shipping and refining areas in the world.....Our do I take the word of some dude from the Internet, that they don't know what to do if the power goes out ?!

Perhaps you could provide us a link on this North Sea experts safety protocol. If you know something the rest us us don't speak up. When new evidence comes out, I change my mind, what do you do?

And again I was not talking about just the backup power. It's the redundancy in the whole system. Being a angler on the salt you must be able to understand that, I hope or maybe your new.

 

[triplenickel]

When new evidence comes out, I change my mind, what do you do?

No you don't even when it's evidence you've provided which is contrary to your stance.

 

[GLG]

No you don't even when it's evidence you've provided which is contrary to your stance.

Are you sure about that or are you just assuming it.

 

[triplenickel]

I've seen you do it, you did it in the big Climate Change thread. You posted a link that you had either misread or didn't read at all that you thought showed the life cycle emissions of coal being lower than LNG. When I read it and pointed out that you were claiming the opposite of what your link showed your response was to let Asia deal with their own problems. No acknowledgement of the facts, just a deflection. The denial of a reliable supply on LNG shackles them to coal which makes the whole planet a loser in the battle even if BC can claim to be greener as a result.

 

[agentaqua]

http://nationalobserver.com/2015/04/21/news/redacted-diary-reveals-oils-hidden-route-harper

Redacted diary reveals oil's hidden route to Harper

By Mychaylo Prystupa & Sandy Garossino in News, Politics | April 22nd 2015

Senator Mike Duffy and Prime Minister Stephen Harper

Redacted entries in Mike Duffy’s diary suggest he was in regular undisclosed contact with pipeline giant Enbridge during the height of the federal government's scorching attacks on environmental activists and charities in 2012.

The suspended senator’s journal shows a flurry of conversations and emails with or about top-level Enbridge executives, Nigel Wright and the Prime Minister between January and June of 2012, just as the National Energy Board started its hearings on the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline proposal.

During this period, the federal government launched three parliamentary hearings, a senate inquiry and a major Canada Revenue Agency audit initiative focused on the activities of environmental charities, many of which opposed Northern Gateway.

None of the apparent contacts with Duffy were reported by Enbridge to the federal lobbyist registry, and Duffy's office redacted several key mentions of them.

The redacted entries include two exchanges between Prime Minister Harper and Duffy about Enbridge pipeline issues.

Duffy and his assistant, Mary McQuaid, made the redactions a year later before couriering the calendar pages to the PMO for a Senate probe into his expenses, said RCMP investigator Cpl. Greg Horton.

“Mary and I copied and redacted my four years of diaries,” Duffy wrote in an 2013 email obtained by police.

But the suspended Senator’s entries are still legible. The black marks on his journal suggest a poor attempt to cover up, says Canada’s lobbying watchdog.

“It’s the worst case of redacting that I’ve seen in a long time,” reacted René Leblanc, Deputy Commissioner of Lobbying on Monday, when shown the diary.

From late 2009 to the end of 2011, there are no redactions in the diary. Duffy redacted entries during the period from January through June, 2012, and the most frequent redactions concern Enbridge or environmental charities — over a dozen in all.

Enbridge did not disclose to lobbying registry

None of Enbridge’s calendared calls with Duffy were declared by the company to the federal lobbyist registry. The Lobbying Act requires firms to make detailed reporting of its contacts with public office holders, including senators.

Duffy’s diary details his phone calls and emails with Steve Wuori, then-president of Enbridge Liquids Pipelines (five mentions), Enbridge board of director Jim Blanchard (two mentions), then-Prime Minister chief of staff Nigel Wright, public opinion pollster Dave Crapper (six mentions), and his long-time associate Bill Rodgers (nine mentions).

Rodgers is Duffy’s former CTV colleague turned cabinet communications director. According to Le Devoir, Rodgers lost his government post in May 2011, and Duffy put him to work in early 2012 using an alleged taxpayer-paid scheme now under scrutiny at Duffy’s bribery and breach of trust trial.

Before hiring him, Duffy’s wrote of Rodgers' “future career plan (Pipelines)" in late 2011. And Le Devoir reports that Duffy used another long-time friend — Gerald Donohue and his two firms “Maple Ridge Media” and “Ottawa ICF” — to flow taxpayer dollars to Rodgers for raising “energy issues” in the public eye.

Crucially, Duffy’s telephone conversations with Enbridge executives occurred before two national Conservative Party caucus meetings in February and April 2012, where exchanges about Enbridge were made with Prime Minister Harper about the company’s pipelines. His entries read:

•Jan.6, 2012, 6 p.m. “Telcon Steve Wuori, Dave Crapper, Vivian Krause + Bill Rodgers” (with strike outs)


•Jan.11, 2012, 4:30 p.m. “Telcon Bill Rodgers re: Enbridge” (with strike outs)


•Jan.11, 2012 - 7:35 p.m. "More Bill call back from Enbridge” (with strike outs)


•Feb. 9, 2012, 5:00p.m. "Telcon Bill Rodgers re: Enbridge" (with strike outs)


•Feb. 9. 2012, 6:30pm “Dinner @ Eastside Mario’s emails Nigel Wright on CTV, Bob Fife etc + Telcons Steve Wuori & Bill Rodgers re pipeline” (with strike outs)


Mike Duffy, Duffy diaries, Duffy trial, Enbridge, Harper, Senate Scandal, Northern Gateway, Enbridge Northern Gateway
Redacted entries regarding Enbridge from Senator Mike Duffy's diary

Then, two days after the Feb.15 Conservative caucus meeting, the diary suggests Stephen Harper told Duffy:

“PM asks “Send me a note on Enbridge Line #9 problems” (with strike outs).

Duffy then worked the phone and emails to Enbridge and the PMO:

•Feb.20, 2012 - “Send note to Jim Blanchard & Steve Wuori + Nigel Wright re: Enbridge” (not struck out)


•Feb.21, 2012 - “Telcon - Jim Blanchard re: Enbridge” (not struck out, marker bleedthrough from previous page)


•Apr. 2, 2012 - "Telcons - Steve Wuori, Bill Rodgers & Dave Crapper” (not struck out)


Duffy diaries, Enbridge, Stephen Harper, Mike Duffy, Senator Duffy
Entries regarding Enbridge from Mike Duffy's diary


After his communications wtih Enbridge, Duffy speaks to the Prime Minister and the entire Conservative caucus about its multi-billion-dollar pipelines.

•Apr. 4, 2012 - “National caucus - MD speaks to PM re: Enbridge Gateway pipelines” (strike outs)”


•Apr. 4, 2012 - 6 p.m. "Telcons Steve Wuori, Bill Rodgers & Dave Crapper"


Later that same evening, Duffy's journal says he also calls Enbridge’s Steve Wuori “re: Bill Rodgers & Dave Crapper.”

All of Duffy’s calls with Enbridge followed a Prime Ministerial directive in late 2011 to find “creative solutions” to get Alberta oil to tidal waters.

Harper had just received an urgent phone call with bad news from the White House: U.S. President Barack Obama said he would delay his decision on Canada’s Keystone XL pipeline into the U.S. in late 2011.

Enbridge’s Northern Gateway was then seen to be the “most imminent option” by cabinet to pump oil to the West coast according to a source who attended a subsequent Harper strategy meeting, the National Post reported.

The Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying of Canada confirmed Monday that Enbridge did not register any of these early 2012 communications with Senator Mike Duffy. The office is now looking into the matter.

Reached for comment in Ottawa, veteran Senator Larry Campbell was critical of Enbridge’s failure to report its contact with Duffy.

“It would seem to me... that this is a reportable lobbying event,” he said.

As for the reasons behind Duffy’s redactions, Campbell was reluctant to speculate.

However, he ventured: “It confounds me how intelligent people can somehow alter an electronic diary or even a written (one). It’s like getting a redacted document under Freedom of Information. What the hell did they black out, and why?… It could be caucus confidentiality, it could be confidentiality between the PM and Duffy.

"Duffy is going to have to explain it, that’s all there is to it."

Enbridge has registered 215 monthly lobbying reports — but none of them mention Senator Duffy. Another oil sands firm, Laricina Energy, did disclose its lobbying communications with Senator Duffy in 2012.

Enbridge’s manager of communications Ivan Giesbrecht was reached Monday, and was then emailed a list of questions. The company did not respond before a Tuesday noon deadline.

The Prime Minister's office was also contacted Tuesday morning for comment, but did not respond.

Duffy’s diary also shows he was in regular touch with former Sun News Network host Ezra Levant. Levant is expected to testify imminently in Duffy’s bribery and breach of trust trial.

Duffy's numerous social contacts with cabinet ministers and senior bureaucrats, and cocktail parties at 24 Sussex, suggest he was one of the ultimate insiders in the Conservative Party.

He was appointed to the Senate by Prime Minister Harper in 2009, following a long career in broadcasting on federal politics.

 

[GLG]

I've seen you do it, you did it in the big Climate Change thread. You posted a link that you had either misread or didn't read at all that you thought showed the life cycle emissions of coal being lower than LNG. When I read it and pointed out that you were claiming the opposite of what your link showed your response was to let Asia deal with their own problems. No acknowledgement of the facts, just a deflection. The denial of a reliable supply on LNG shackles them to coal which makes the whole planet a loser in the battle even if BC can claim to be greener as a result.

Well there you go .... must have been a trick I learned from the climate denial crowd.
Are you aware of some new information since our last discussion?

For the record I'm against LNG because it will increase our (BC/Canada) CO2 when we are committed to lowering it.
Maybe I'm wrong but I have not seen plans for a green Northern LNG. So China will have to get their house in order and by all accounts they are doing just that. To argue that we are doing them a favor is not something I could support unless the UN asked us to do so to reduce their CO2. To argue that we should, is just looking for an excuse for Business as Usual.
I also think that the community should have the ability to veto it if their citizens don't want it. I'm not in favor of forcing it down peoples throats like the current system. The community should want this, not the other way around.
I'm also opposed because of all the subsides that this industry has been promised by BC and the feds. The people own the NG and the BC government is suppose to manage it for the benefit of the people, not for the industry's benefit and those that work there.
I'm for Nat Gas to replace coal fired electric plants as a transition to clean energy as long as there is a transition plan to do so.
I'm also in favor of projects that pump CO2 back into the ground that the NG industry has here in BC but that's something that should be paid for by industry and there customers, not taxpayers. I'm all so interested in CNG / LNG for transportation if it can be shown to be a plan to transition to clean energy or in the case of heavy equipment no other choice. With that there will still need to be an offset like cap and trade. In short put a price on CO2 and let the market work without the fossil fuel industry constantly trying to rig the game in their favor.

Must add this.... I'm also in favor of a transition for people that work in the fossil fuel industry to the clean energy industry. That's important as it's a path that we are morally obliged to do. If I worked there (I don't) I would expect no less.

This is getting off topic so I'm not sure we should continue.... I do appreciate your input 3X5 and the value of your comments on this important discussion. I also appreciate you trying to keep it civil as we both know that's not easy to do sometimes.

Here is a link you might be interested in and has some information on LNG and cargo shipping. I'm sure there will be more thoughts on this in the future.
http://www.lowcarbonshipping.co.uk/...arbon_Dioxide_Constrained_Future_2014_JNC.pdf

 

[steelmadness]

Perhaps you could provide us a link on this North Sea experts safety protocol. If you know something the rest us us don't speak up. When new evidence comes out, I change my mind, what do you do?

And again I was not talking about just the backup power. It's the redundancy in the whole system. Being a angler on the salt you must be able to understand that, I hope or maybe your new.

I'm not going to post any links. All links posted just seem to be some cherry picked science with a fancy web design. What's the point ? Call it what you will, if your curious you look for it. It's not new evidence. I just like both sides of a story. We always hear one side. What does industry have to say ? Who are the people involved ? I also like to see first hand, when I can. Who's done a farm tour ,either agricultural or aquaculture ? Usually free with a clever phone call Next on my list is a real tar sands tour, helicopter fly over.

 

[GLG]

Ok then.... back on topic. Here is something that I ran across today... couple of old farts from the past.

http://rafeonline.com/2015/04/otto-langer-on-the-oil-spill/

A must read from my hero in thefishing field and hugely respected former DFO officer Otto Langer. – Rafe

<o></o>
Q1. Didthe government response to this spill in an ‘exceptional way with an immediatemeasured response and with knowledgeable people and the equipment necessary forthe clean-up’. This is near the exact press lines used by the head of theCanadian Coast Guard and two Conservative cabinet ministers in the past fewdays.<o></o>
OttoLanger: I feelthe CCG Commissioner and butt. Commissioner and federal MPs (eg. Moore andPritchard) have done a great deal of spin doctoring to try and show that thefeds and the CCG did respond in a responsible and effective manner. As Iunderstand it the sailor that reported the spill did not see a CCG boast onsite for at least 3 hours after the spill and the clean-up company was not onsite until 6 hours later. In that this is in the middle of a large west coastcity and in the middle of Canada`s busiest port this is quite sad. If you livein a more remote area of our large coast and you are concerned about spillresponse time and effectiveness you have every legitimate reason to be totallydoubtful of corporate and government response times and abilities. If theKitsilano Coast Guard Station was still in existence (the busiest in Canadaprior to its closure by the Harper Government) it could have responded to thespill within 20 minutes (my estimate). The retired commander of that stationsays they could have responded in just 10 minutes and had booms around theleaking ship in 30 minutes.<o></o>

Q2. Is afew hours of delay “an immediate and exceptional response”?<o></o>
OL: Once oil is in the water in almost anyspill in almost any circumstance, it is gone and the challenge to gather it updeceases by a geometric or exponential scale depending on fuel t type, weatherand water conditions. In the recent Lemon Creek spill the booms were not putinto place for a reported 10 hours. In a river that is outrageous in that in 10hours (more like 10 minutes) 95% of all the fuel spilled will be long lostdownstream and absorbed into the banks of a river. Here you spend a vastfortune in time and money to catch just the last 5% of the fuel! In English Bayor in Lemon Creek the clean-up equipment and clean-up staff must be on sitewithing minutes of a spill to be most effective. With each passing hour aneffective clean-up becomes a much greater and often an impossible task. Topretend that the response to this spill in the middle of a harbour was“immediate” and “exceptional” is nothing more than propaganda to make thegovernment look good.<o></o>

Q3. Whatcould or will be the environmental impacts of the spill into English Bay –Burrard Inlet?<o></o>
OL: (not a short and simple story but here itis in lay terms) Bunker fuel is thick oil that is left over product of therefining process. The thick residual product of the refinery is used in asphaltor to run large endurance motors such as on ships since it is cheap fuel. It isoften so thick it has to be heated or diluted with a light oil to be pipedaround i.e. made to flow. It in some ways is similar to bitumen (tar sands oilwhich has to be diluted with light oil like kerosene or naptha to allow it toflow – often in a 3:1 bitumen to kerosene ratio and then called ‘dilbit’).<o></o>
Bunker fuels are especially difficult to handle or cleanup. Itis toxic and smells like fresh asphalt and sticks to everything and covers andsmothers everything it reaches including inter-tidal life (Fucus, eel grass,marshes, clams, limpets, etc) in the marine environment. It will even coat theskin and the gills of animals frequenting the spill site causing a toxic andsmothering effect i.e. lethal impact. Once marine life from crustaceans, clamsto seaweed is coated with such oil it will most often suffer a slow death. Thisis due to smothering and a direct toxic effect.<o></o>
In addition to the direct coating impact Bunker fuel is toxicand can have other negative impacts on other aquatic life including bird andmarine mammal life. Bunker oil has most of the smaller molecules stripped outof it by the refining process so as to produce gasoline, jet fuel, diesel etc.The lighter or smaller molecules are often the most toxic. The larger moleculeswith a high paraffin wax like component in it is less toxic gram for gram butsuch heavy fuels do also have persistent carbon ring (benzine rings) compoundsin them and they are very toxic and can accumulate in marine life and have anacutely toxic or sub-lethal effect. Also as noted above, to make bunker fuelflow the lighter fuels like more toxic diesel is added into it for commercialuse. The sub-lethal effects are hard to demonstrate in that they can laterimpact survival of that organism or impact its growth, reproduction etc.Sub-lethal impacts are most often the more significant impacts that we do notsee and unfortunately do not get overly concerned about. Such impacts will notbe noted by any ordinary monitoring but more so in the research lab or possiblyby a conclusion that the offspring of that impacted generation did not matureand return to complete the life cycle. That is also difficult to prove in thatall stocks / populations from different areas are mixed in any multi-waterwayarea.

Cont....[FONT=&quot]<o></o>[/FONT]

 

[GLG]

The lighter fractions of oil inthe bunker fuel (including any diluent to make it flow) will disperse andevaporate most readily within days to weeks or if in sediments, months later.These more toxic impacts of the lighter oils will therefore last a shortertime. The larger molecules largely making up the bulk of the bunker fuel willpersist much longer in the environment and can be found from months to manyyears after a spill. Their cumulative impact can be greater than the shorterterm impact of the more toxic lighter fractions found in that spilled oil. Ofcourse both impacts occur at the spill site and have an at least additiveimpact.<o></o>
When I covered the Cherry Point oil refinery spill in 1972 theAlaska crude oil covered the sandy beaches at Crescent Beach, left deposits onthe mud flats in Mud Bay and well coated the rubble beaches at White Rock. Inmany ways heavy crude and bitumen oil has similar impacts to bunker fuelsespecially as related to the coating and smothering of shorelines, marine lifeand in their clean-up difficulties. The chemistry will of course vary fromdifferent bunker fuels to bitumen to other more heavy crude oils. Above all,they will all break into droplets in the water and often form a water in oilemulsion and sink.<o></o>
In the 1972 White Rock spill (from Cherry Point terminal) areathe impact of the coating of the marine life on the rocks was relatively rapidwith many forms of rock life succumbing to the oils smothering and toxiceffects and falling off the rocks. When I checked the same rocks a year laterit was obvious that a wax like coating persisted on the rocks and marine life(eg. barnacles) that had recovered could or would not adhere to those waxyrocks. That fraction of the crude oil or the bunker fuel would persist foryears. Bunker would have more of the wax like fractions in it than most crudeoils. I observed the same on the Islands around Alert Bay in 1972 when theIrish Starduct ran into an island and lost many tonnes of its Bunker C oil intothe surrounding waters. Coated marine life like barnacles, clams, limpets,abalone and chitons held onto their habitat rock for a few days but within aweek or so after the spill they were dead and most had dropped off of theirhost rocks.<o></o>
The impact of an oil spill into an estuary (English Bay is partof the Fraser River estuary) of the worlds largest salmon river should not beunderestimated. As the oil mixes with the water oil globules will appear in thewater column and lumps of oil will entrain water and form a brown mousse andcan sink. This allows more of the oil to dissolve into the water where it candirectly affect fish life from zooplankton to young salmon. Also I have seenyoung salmon that will feed or attack almost any particle in the water frompaint chips off a bridge being sand blasted to oil droplets. This ingestion isvery harmful to their survival. If one closely observes False Creek dock areasat this time of the year you will see many schools of chum salmon fry swimmingaround and feeding on the surface of the water. This behavior is of greatconcern when oil in on and in the water in that it will bring such feeding fishinto direct contact with the oil. Fish do not simply swim below an oil slickand can ignore its impacts.<o></o>
The English Bay spill indeed occurred at the worst time of theyear considering many criteria for assessing ecosystem impacts. This time ofthe year we have billions of young fish in our coastal areas including EnglishBay, Burrard Inlet and False Creek. These fish will include young newly hatchedherring, eulachon and other smelt as well as millions of juvenile salmon comingout of Indian Arm and the Fraser River.<o></o>

Q4.Should government not be monitoring the effects of the oil spill on theecosystem?<o></o>
OL: Yes they should but its easier said thandone if you want a more compete picture of the impacts of that oil spill.Unless the impacts are very direct and lethal one often cannot see overallecosystem impacts and sub-lethal effects. To determine if chum fry will be affected(millions inthis area at this time of the year) one would have to be out on thewater with boast, nets and collect fish under the slick area and in anunaffected areas and examine the survivability of those animals over severaldays or examine their gut contents to see if they are feeding on oil droplets.If they are, they would suffer greatly and proably not survive. They wouldbecome moribund and be then eaten by other fish or sea gulls. One wouldprobably not see a open water fish kill in such a circumstance. Its much easierto see if birds have their feathers coated with oil or is the fur of seals, sealions or otters contaminated with oil. That alone my be lethal but if they are‘self cleaning’ themselves (licking off the oil) they will probably poisonthemselves. To leave the oil on thier feathers or fur is also lethal! They aremore or less doomed once their covering is coated with oil. In such acircumstance one has to do good monitoring but determining impact will mostoften be done by relating to other oil spill experiences and well controlledlaboratory work e.g. biosssays, growth studies, etc.<o></o>

cont.....

 

[GLG]

Q5. What should we expect from the government as to monitoring. protection and clean-up and prevention?
OL: How can we expect government to do anything of this sort when government has laid off most scientists and habtiat biologists that used to do this work as I did over the past many decades while with DFO? Now one has to expect volunteer groups like the Vancouver Aquarium to do this work – its very shameful especially when we downgrade environmental protection and neuter environmental laws and push oil pipelines, tankers, new fossil fuel finds and port development at any and all costs.
In terms of response the CCG has shut down offices and cut staff in Vancouver – Canada’s largest port! The response from the Kitsilano Coast Guard Station would have been immediate and more responsible than what we did see in the past week. For the present CCG to state otherwise is a cruel public hoax. There is absolutely no doubt that the federal representatives did exaggerate the federal response as “immediate and exceptional”. Who do they think they are fooling with this propaganda? They were slow to respond to a spill in the middle of a large coastal Canadian city and in the middle of Canada’s largest port. While this is happening we have the same port i.e. PMV doing everything to expand the port and accept such high risk commodities as jet fuel tanker imports into the Fraser River and daily exports of bitumen out of PMV via English Bay. What should one now expect of the CCG response to a spill on our North Coast or almost anywhere on our non-urban coastline or even again in Port Metro Vancouver’s harbour if a storm was brewing at the time of the spill?

Q6. What should our spill prevention and clean-up expectations be?
OL: The government, Enbridge, Kinder Morgan, Vancouver Arport Fuel Facilities Corporation and others would have you believe that once we have more tankers and oil shipment we will have better clean-up capability and prevention is now state of the art i.e. “world class”. This is crass propaganda and the public must be wise enough to see that once you have more freighters and more tankers and more oil handling on our waters their is still a great chance of spills despite new and better ways of preventing spills. Once any oil is in the a water you will have confusion in terms of communications, spill response, who is in charge and within hours finger pointing will be the political activity of the day. Anarchy often rules in the first several hours or days of most significant spills.
Once the oil is in the water, the battle for good and effective environmental protection is largely lost. With each passing minute (in storms, fast moving water) or in each passing hour the probability of containing the oil and getting it out of the water is greatly diminished – often by at least a geometric or in worse scenarios by an exponential factor. In spills such as involving lighter (that are often more toxic – vegetable oils being an exception to that toxicity rule) the oil will spread more rapidly but can also evaporate more quickly especially condensate, naptha, gasoline and jet fuel. Diesel will be more persistent and then the larger molecule fuels will be very resistant to breakdown or evaporation but will spread a bit more slowly unless driven by wind or water currents.
The public has to appreciate that when the Premier Clark tried to gain some public relations advantage by documenting world class pipeline and marine prevention and clean-up standards it should not give you much comfort. Those stands will rarely be met and if even exceeded, once the oil is in the water, the battle is largely lost. In most significant spills (the English Bay spill was a less significant spill) most of the oil will never be recovered. Some will evaporate and much will end upon the shoreline and even sink as an water in oil emulsion or adhere to sediments and sink. Once the oil is on the beach the less viscous fraction it will get into the beach gravel, sand, under the rocks and into the windrows of logs and seaweed. Here it is near impossible to clean -up and the cleanup can be as destructive as the spill itself. I have seen bulldozers used to clean up gravel and and contaminated beaches. This is destructive and a crude method of clean-up. Also in the Alaska spill (Exxon Valdez) hot water and steam was used to get oil off the rocks. The debate has to be – do we leave the oil to nature in a ‘wild’ area or do we scald the beach and cook everything on it to get the beach clean.
In the Crescent Beach area spill in 1972 straw probably was one of the then more effective agents to get oil off the beaches – with many volunteers and rakes, forks etc. In the rubble areas at White Rock Surrey staff wanted the thick oil off the rocks before people made contact with it. They even tried to use naptha and talcum powder to dissolve sthe oil and then absorb it onto the powder. This added a very toxic light oil to the beach that would kill everything that the crude oil had not killed and the absorbed crude oil on the talcum powder would then float off to contaminate the food web in the bay. Putting the oil out of sight is not putting it out of mind if you are concerned about the living creatures in our waterways.
Spill prevention is the only alternative and as we are constantly reminded – despite the world class standards etc. we will always have oil spills! There is no safe oil spill clean-up method other than physical clean up which often is less than highly effective in most cases.

cont....

 

[GLG]

At times one would just like tobe able to burn the oil if possible at the spill site or use oil dispersant tobreak the oil into minute droplets and they would then just disappear from viewand off the boats, booms and surface of the beaches. This method of oildispersal has been very controversial for over 40 years due to dispersanttoxicity and the act of putting surface oil slicks into the water column.Dispersants should not be considered as a comprise solution. One has to just lookat the devastating impacts of the massive of oil dispersant use at the BP DeepWater Horizon spill just a few years ago. In the recent English Bay case – thedispersed oil would all get into the water column and be available to thebillions of young fish (salmon, smelt, herring, etc) in the bay at this time ofthe year. Dispersed oil may help protect bird life (disperse the oil beforethey get coated) but the oil then has the most toxic impact on the food theydepend upon. There are no highly effective clean-up methods and no simplesolutions or good compromises.<o></o>

Q6. CanChristy Clark and the Province do a better job than the Coast Guard?<o></o>
OL: Premier Clark was playing political gamesand if you are in the provincial government many feel you can do no wrong byattacking the federal government. Christy Clark’s claims are similar to that ofthe NDP Premier Clark of some 20 years ago when he a demanded that BC take overthe fishery in BC. BC is desperate to have an LNG industry to just support coreservices eg. health and education. Where will they now get the resources andexpertise to build and staff a fleet of ships and boats to protect ourcoastline? Will she next take over marine rescue and then the navy and theComox airforce base?<o></o>
If Premier Clark is so concerned about oil spills and wanting totake the lead role in spill prevention and clean-up we must remind her that itwas her government that partly allowed the spilling of a giant amount of jetfuel into Lemon Creek two years ago and then was totally ineffective indirecting any proper cleanup response and then refused to take any legal actionagainst those that caused this highly preventable spill that destroyed all lifein a part of a river. Also was it not the Premier Clark government that justapproved the entry of tankers of highly toxic and flammable jet fuel intotheFraser River despite predictions by the proponent of certain spill probabilityand against the wishes of local government and the public. Here the federalgovernment indeed rejected a similar project to import jet fuel into the FraserRiver some 25 years ago because it was too great of a hazard. Such politicalposturing is indeed very shameful when it is so contradictory.<o></o>

A7. Insummary – what can we say about this spill?<o></o>
OL: In retrospect the English Bay spill was agood learning experience or maybe another lesson we must learn from. It was ina very sensitive environment for aquatic life, a socially sensitive area andabove all we were lucky – it was a small spill by spill standards with limitedimpact in an area where we should be best equipped to set so called ‘worldclass standards. In my my 45 years in is type of work each spill post mortemreview usually concludes that some things did go wrong such as response time,communications, ineffective clean-up equipment, techniques etc. After eachspill government agencies conclude that we have learned a great deal and thiswill not happen again! However it does happen again and again. Advances havebeen made to address oil spill risk and spill clean-up. However, government hasmade many changes in the past few years that will not improve upon thesituation due to staff cuts, loss of will to do the job, office closures andabove all the cutting of environmental legislation that could be used to buildupon our experiences if government will was there to protect the environment asthey say they are doing. The will to protect the environment is plainly at amuch lower priority level than the will to promote the economy at nearly anyenvironmental and social cost. This of course does include the industries thatfind, develop and transport oil.<o></o>
The bottom line is – as long as we promote the use and exportand import of such hazardous commodities there will be spills. Once the productis spilled there most often is no safe and effective clean-up method. Thesespills are simply an unfortunate cost of our life-style and in government’s andindustry’s less than diligent approach to set and meet the so called worldclass standard in prevention and mitigation when all goes wrong. If the oil isnot spilled and safely gets to its end user, it will still have a great andongoing and cumulative negative impact our climate and environment. We arestill living in denial of the overall cumulative negative impacts of theexcessive transport and use of oil.<o></o>

Otto E.Langer MSc
Fisheries Biologist and Aquatic Ecologist
Richmond BC[FONT=&quot]<o></o>[/FONT]