Front falls off Fraser Institute tanker argument

In a November 24th opinion piece in the Vancouver Sun, Taylor Jackson and Kenneth Green ask: Ban on oil tankers? What happened to evidence-based policy? I’d love to take them out for a little boat ride from Kitimat through Dixon Entrance some time this month, for a reality check on their views on the science behind the North Coast tanker ban. Only a dedicated policy analyst sitting in the warm, dry confines of the Fraser Institute could have come up with the reality-starved thesis that there is no scientific rationale for banning tankers on B.C.’s North and Central Coast.

I remind readers that tankers were banned from this area following the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989 and that ban, although not legislated, has been in continuous effect since that date. Put simply, we’ve had no oil tanker spills because we’ve had no oil tankers plying these waters. Traffic between Alaska and the Lower 48 states observes not only the ban, but an additional Voluntary Tanker Exclusion Zone off the West Coast, designed to ensure that when the tankers lose power or steerage, they cannot be driven onto rocky shores by wind and waves.
A December excursion through Hecate Strait and Dixon Entrance could be really enlightening for Taylor and Ken. December is the month most likely to see storm-force winds that can build in a matter of hours from nothing to 60 knots or more—which is to say, the wind can come up on a ship that has left port 18 hours earlier in fair weather, leaving it exposed and without a place of refuge.

Those winds often build the seas to heights of 18-20 metres—that’s about a six-storey building’s worth of water crashing down on the decks. The highest waves recorded in Hecate Strait are over 30 metres: more like a 10-storey building. In places along the proposed North Coast tanker route, there are also strong currents and when the wind meets a current going the other way, things get to be what mariners call “chaotic.” It’s a little different from the chaos at the Fraser Institute when a Liberal government gets elected. Things get broken.

Some of the things that could get broken in such seas are the thousands upon thousands of welds that hold double-hulled oil tankers together. A few tankers have gone that way, flexing in nasty seas until they just gave up; the ships broke into pieces and sank, spilling much of their cargo in the process. In 2010, 20 years after that particular design weakness was immortalized by the comedy team Clarke and Dawe in their sketch “The Front Fell Off”, the International Maritime Organization’s working group on oil tanker design came up with “goal based design criteria” to apply to tankers built after July 1, 2016: basically, an agreement that tankers ought to be designed such that their fronts won’t fall off. It is estimated that there are some 2,400 oil tankers in service that predate this breakthrough agreement.

In addition to the sciences behind meteorology and naval architecture, there’s also biology arguing in favour of a tanker ban on the North Coast: large ships are noisy beasts under normal operating conditions and the underwater acoustic disturbance is harmful to whales and other marine mammals. Six species of whales that are listed under the Species at Risk Act frequent the North and Central Coast. To the extent that the Canadian government has proceeded with recovery plans for them, those plans identify acoustic disturbance and ship strikes as threats to the species’ recovery. Adding ship traffic to this region, accidents or not, is bad news for whales.

Against these real-world considerations of navigation on the North and Central Coast, Fraser Institute policy analysts reference only global tanker safety statistics that are conspicuously not derived from traffic on our B.C. coast. I agree entirely with their assertion that tanker safety has improved over the past 30 years with the development of new technology. What I contest is the suggestion that this means oil tankers may safely ply all waters on the globe.

Simushir: Lessons Learned?

By Karen Wristen

I was glued to the computer all weekend, watching the agonizingly slow progress of the tugs steaming out to the west coast of Haida Gwaii, to rescue the disabled container ship Simushir. Early Friday, it was reported that the ship had lost power only 19 nautical miles off the coast of Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve and Haida Cultural Area, in heavy seas with winds gusting up to 75 kph.

The National Park Reserve is one of this coast’s treasures. From an ecological perspective, it is an area of incredible biodiversity. Off the west coast, the ocean floor drops away sharply to depths of over 760 meters, while near shore, the continental shelf is home to rich kelp forests and eelgrass beds. These two, quite different ecosystems existing in such proximity mean the region is home to creatures from the deepest ocean right through to the skies—millions of seabirds either live there or use it as a rest stop in their long migrations.

Map of Haida Gwaii habitats at risk

The sad legacy of past oil spills is that we’re learning more every day about how oil affects different species and the news is not good. The iconic oiled seabird is just the tip of the iceberg: long term and genetic damage has now been linked to oil exposures for species as diverse as birds, otters and whales. There was a lot riding on the wind and waves this weekend; and on the progress of the several tugs headed for the Simushir.

The Simushir was carrying about 400 tonnes of bunker C fuel as well as some diesel. That’s not much, compared with the supertankers that are proposed for this coast; but it was still enough to lay waste to the west coast of Haida Gwaii. Carried along on the Alaska current, the oil would have worked its way northward, oiling steep rocky shores and the innumerable inlets and bays along this rugged coast.

Russian-flagged container ship Simushir was first reported adrift 19 km off Gowgaia Bay, South Moresby Island (Gwaii Haanas). Photo: DND Pacific Maritime Command

“Cleanup” would have been impossible in these conditions—with 4-6 meter seas and high winds, none of the conventional oil spill response equipment could have been deployed effectively. Booms would have been useless against the waves crashing ashore. Most of the oil would come ashore, fouling habitat before anything could be done. The area is far too remote and rugged to contemplate deploying crews to attempt to remove oil from the rocks and beaches.

Against this scenario, the Simushir was helpless. The nearest tug proved, happily, to be just 17 hours away and that was the Coast Guard’s Gordon Reid—a patrol vessel underpowered to tow a vessel the size of Simushir. And remember, Simushir is less than a third the size of a supertanker. The Gordon Reid might have been anywhere on the coast that day; it is pure luck that it was in Hartley Bay.

The Gordon Reid

I have nothing but respect and gratitude for what the crew of the Gordon Reid accomplished, with an underpowered boat and tow lines too light for the job. In that awful weather, they managed to get tow lines aboard the Simushir on three separate occasions, only to see them snap under the enormous strain of wind and waves. Nevertheless, they managed to put a little more sea room between the ship and shore, giving the crew some respite from an experience that was surely harrowing.

Still, the Canadian boats were forced to stand by and watch, waiting for an American commercial tug to put the vessel under tow. It was again pure luck that the tug Barbara Foss was heading into Prince Rupert when the emergency unfolded: the tug is usually stationed in Juan de Fuca Strait. Had it not been for this good fortune, the Simushir would have had to await a rescue tug from Alaska.

The Barbara Foss

Leaving Rupert by mid-day Friday, the Barbara Foss encountered Hecate Strait on one of its bad days: 6-8 meter waves and a southeast wind that blew fitfully in the 30-40 knot range, according to Environment Canada. It took the high-powered tug until Sunday to reach the drifting vessel and during all of that time, the Simushir remained at risk from a change in the wind.

A south or southeast wind was keeping the Simushir offshore for most of Friday, but when storms of this intensity blow through they generally bring changing wind patterns. A shift to westerly was predicted and that would have driven the ship toward shore. Depending on wind speed, the Gordon Reid might, or might not, have been able to keep her off the rocks. The best they’d been able to do when towing with the wind was 1.5-2 knots. It’s unlikely that they’d have made any headway at all towing against the wind.

Tugs like the Barbara Foss are expensive and the crew’s training is highly specialized for ocean rescue and ship salvage. In years past, it may have been good sense for Canada to rely on our neighbour to provide rescue services—they were the ones with the commercial vessel traffic that needed the rescue capacity and so why not let them pay for it, and borrow it when needed? But the volume of shipping passing through Canadian waters has increased dramatically over the past decade and capacity to respond to it has not. If anything, capacity has been decreased by federal cuts to Coast Guard.

To be clear, we have never had towing capacity for ships of the size that now regularly ply our waters. Response times being what they are from the U.S., it is now clear that we need that capacity. It’s also clear that we need some public dialogue on where to locate any new tug. I would vote for Haida Gwaii—it’s right on the shipping route and closest to the worst waters on our coast.

In addition to a salvage tug, we need:

• Agreement on “places of refuge”—protected areas where ships in distress can shelter, potentially putting those areas at risk of a spill;
• A legislated zone of protection, through which ships do not pass—wide enough to ensure that if they lose power like the Simushir did, they cannot drift into shore before a tug can get to them;
• Investment in recruitment and training for coast guard rescue capacity; and
• A ban on oil tankers on the North Coast.

Humpback recovery at risk

By Karen Wristen

I’ve long wondered why, amid the carnage of the omnibus bills we’ve seen since the current federal government took office, the Species at Risk Act was spared. “No appetite to tackle that one,” is the only answer I’ve heard from those who are on speaking terms with Cabinet. Is it the sting we feel when Canada is cited as an international pariah for failing to meet its commitments; or are there a lot of animal enthusiasts among the Conservative support base? I don’t know, but I have been grateful that at least one piece of environmental legislation stood intact.

A humpback breaching in Barclay Sound. Photo: Jeff Reynolds

My gratitude in the case of humpbacks was especially poignant. The need to protect them while their numbers recover from the ravages of whaling had them listed as a “threatened” species and that presented a major legal hurdle to the approval of the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline. So long as they were “threatened”, the government had a legal obligation to identify and protect the habitat that is critical to their survival. And part of that habitat just happens to lie among the network of narrow channels leading to Kitimat.

The Act required a Recovery Plan for humpbacks, due in 2010. When it still hadn’t materialized in 2012, several of our colleagues took the government to court. Long after the Enbridge hearings had closed, in October of 2013, the government issued the Recovery Plan. I was pleased to see that, in the final draft, it continued to identify the approach to Kitimat as the whales’ critical habitat and the tanker traffic as a major threat to their continued recovery.

During the Enbridge hearings, the Joint Review Panel had been spared the impossible task of reconciling the legal protection due to critical habitat with the company’s plans to send hundreds of tankers and tugs through that habitat every year. The habitat had not yet been legally designated as “critical habitat”, so there was no need to address the protection provisions of the Act. Enbridge got away with the suggestion that it would ‘monitor’ the whales, send spotters out to look for them and come up with a ‘marine mammal protection plan.’ The JRP applauded this voluntary undertaking, noting that it was inevitable that some whales would still be struck by tankers; they just couldn’t say how many and didn’t seem to think it would be a problem.

If you’ve ever watched whales or seen a supertanker maneuver, you’ll likely know how unlikely that scheme was to work. Sure, you can send out spotters; but the fact that they see whales in Whale Channel doesn’t mean they won’t pop up in Lewis Pass just after the captain’s altered course. And there’s precious little room up there to change your mind once committed to a course, anyway. The interests of whales and big oil were literally on a collision course.

Vital feeding areas for Humpback Whales around Gill Island are designated as critical habitat. This area is also part of the proposed tanker route. Humpbacks are the species of whale most commonly reported to be struck by ships in B.C.

The solution, for the Canadian government, has just become evident: on Saturday, April 19 it published notice of its intention to change the status of Northern Pacific humpbacks from ‘threatened’ to ‘species of special concern.’ This eliminates the need to protect the richly productive habitat that these whales depend on throughout the summer, to build the reserves of energy that will carry them through their long winter migrations. It puts at particular risk the young whales, whose smaller lungs require them to surface more frequently for air.

To be fair, it is true that humpback recovery is a success story. Hunted nearly to extinction, over the last 50 years they have slowly but steadily rebounded to about half of their estimated pre-hunt population. To be clear, we know so little about them that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans was unable to set a recovery target for them in its Recovery Plan, so we have no idea if their recovery to date is adequate to ensure resilience to future threats and keep the population growing. We cannot say, with any certainty, how many humpback whales is ‘enough.’

If the government thought that releasing this decision on the Easter long weekend would minimize the media coverage it received, it was sorely mistaken. I hadn’t quite finished my breakfast on the Tuesday morning following, when media began calling; it didn’t stop all day long. By Wednesday morning, we found that news of this decision had been reported in the U.S., England, Italy, Germany, Russia, India and Pakistan. Reuters picked up the story, so it’s probable that it was reported elsewhere as well.

The reasons for international interest are no doubt diverse; the politics of whales and whaling on the international stage are byzantine. Most developed-world countries continue to oppose whaling and support the International Whaling Commission ban, so seeing Canada move to reduce protection for humpbacks would be newsworthy in that context. Our lackluster progress on our commitments under the Convention on Biodiversity is also getting the spotlight, so a decision that appears contrary to the purpose of the Species at Risk Act, the main vehicle for delivering our CBD commitments, is bound to attract attention—just not the sort of attention Canada has historically attracted.