Four hundred plywood drift cards were released Tuesday on the lower Fraser River in an experiment to simulate the dispersion of an oil spill from Kinder Morgan’s planned $5.4-billion pipeline expansion project.
Andy Rosenberger, a biologist with Raincoast Conservation, tossed the yellow cards off a six-metre aluminum boat just downstream from the Port Mann Bridge, close to where the second pipeline would go.
“We don’t know the exact spot,” he told reporters. “They have an allowance — it could be here or 500 metres away.”
Coastal residents who find the cards in the ensuing days and weeks are asked to report the date and location to help researchers calculate where oil from a spill might wind up over what length of time and along what route.
Another 600 cards were released in Burrard Inlet on Tuesday, making for a total of about 4,000 cards released in local waters, including Washington state’s San Juan Islands, since last October.
The recovery rate is about 40 per cent. The rest are probably on beaches “stuck in driftwood, biodegrading,” said Rosenberger, acknowledging the plywood does have resins but that it is certified by the Forest Stewardship Council.
“We realize there is an issue, but we try to be as careful as possible.”
Although past cards have shown Victoria to be especially vulnerable to a spill along the Kinder Morgan tanker route, some have travelled widely along the coast, including to Cape Scott off northern Vancouver Island and farther north to Haida Gwaii.
The City of Vancouver, which is opposed to the Kinder Morgan twinning project, is picking up 10 per cent of the $40,000 cost to date of the drift card study.
“The risks are extremely high and the benefits are low,” said Vancouver councillor Andrea Reimer, who was present for release of the drift cards.
She noted the city is preparing intervener-status submissions, related to safety/risk and economic issues, to the National Energy Board hearings on the Kinder Morgan proposal. The city is also going to the Federal Court of Appeal to challenge the NEB’s decision not to consider climate change, she said.
“They’re looking at wide economic impacts … across the country. We’re asking them to take the same consideration when it comes to the environment.”
Alexandra Woodsworth, energy and shipping campaigner with Georgia Strait Alliance, said the drift cards not only provide valid scientific data but help to engage the public on an important environmental issue.
“It makes it tangible when a card washes up on your beach,” she said.
More drift cards will be dropped in the lower Fraser this winter and during the spring freshet to see how a spill might respond during low and high water levels, respectively.
