Prince Rupert ship grounding highlights risk of oil spill, critics warn Read more: http://www.vanco
The grounding of a bulk carrier ship near Prince Rupert this week highlights the grave risk of an oil spill if tanker traffic is allowed to increase dramatically on the North Coast, environmentalists and First Nations warn.
The 228-metre Amakusa Island ran aground Monday night in Prince Rupert’s outer harbour while it moved to an assigned anchorage from a berth at the Ridley Terminals coal terminal. The incident ripped a gash in the ship’s hull and caused the flooding of two ballast tanks.
Although the cause of the grounding is still under investigation, Coastal First Nations executive director Art Sterritt pointed out that weather conditions at the time were “very, very, very, very good.” Human error, on the other hand, is unpredictable.
“Mistakes happen, and no matter what kind of technology you have or how good your pilots are or anything else — all the stuff that Northern Gateway has been throwing at us — at the end of the day, people are fallible and accidents happen,” Sterritt said.
One defence Enbridge has used to counter safety concerns about tankers carrying oil from the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline is that those ships would be guided by local pilots familiar with the curves of the coast.
However, a licensed B.C. pilot was on board the Amakusa Island at the time it grounded.
Although B.C.’s pilots are “some of the finest mariners on the coast,” they can’t be expected to prevent every accident, said Brian Falconer, marine operations coordinator for Raincoast Conservation Society.
“When they claim that 99.6-per-cent success rate, they’re doing thousands of movements a year, so that’s three or four incidents per year. It’s inevitable. If you’re going to have this kind of traffic you’re going to have these incidents involving big ships,” he said.
The port authority and Canadian Coast Guard have both assessed the ship and determined that there has been no environmental impact from the incident. Investigators from the Transportation Safety Board (TSB) made the trip to Prince Rupert on Tuesday and are now trying to determine the cause and contributing factors of the grounding.
The carrier took on water when it ran aground and is still listing after being refloated and anchored.
Groundings are very infrequent at the port, according to Michael Gurney, spokesman for the Prince Rupert Port Authority.
From 2004 to 2013, there were 31 shipping accidents involving bulk carriers and oil/ore carriers on the west coast of Canada, according to TSB statistics. That includes four major incidents in the second half of 2012, one of which was the last grounding seen at the Prince Rupert port before this week.
In that case, the container ship’s captain was forced to manoeuvre suddenly in order to avoid a fishing vessel that wasn’t responding to radio calls.
“These are the same situations that pilots on oil tankers will face on the northern B.C. coast,” Falconer said.
“Whether it’s the Exxon Valdez, or the Costa Concordia, or the Queen of the North or this, it’s always human error that causes these issues.”
Enbridge has said that it will install land-based radar along the North Coast as well as new lights, beacons and buoys in Douglas Channel to help guide tankers to and from Northern Gateway’s terminal at Kitimat. The company also says all tankers will be double-hulled, less than 20 years old and certified by the International Maritime Association.
But Falconer believes Enbridge is underestimating the inherent hazards of shipping oil by tanker. One big concern is the region’s weather — particularly, fog.
Raincoast Conservation Society was an official intervener in the National Energy Board hearings into the Northern Gateway proposal, and Falconer cross-examined Enbridge experts.
“They said fog is well forecast on the coast, and periods of fog only last a couple of hours at a time,” he said.
“I spent 35 years on the north coast of B.C. sailing and I’ve seen two, three days at a time of zero visibility.”
Enbridge representatives did not respond by press time Wednesday to requests for comment about concerns raised by the Prince Rupert grounding.