A decision regarding the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline is expected soon, and promises have been made for world-class oil-spill response. As an oceanographer and former oil-spill adviser with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, I know very well the practical difficulties of attempting to clean up a big mess of oil in the ocean.
When massive amounts of crude oil or diluted bitumen escape into the open ocean, there is little that can be done to reverse the damage. In 2003, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences panel stated that: “No current cleanup methods remove more than a small fraction of oil spilled in marine waters.”
The latest studies released by the B.C. government reinforce this statement. They confirm that even in near-ideal conditions, and using the very best of equipment and people, the results are poor indeed, with rates of recovery usually less than 10 per cent. The results are much worse in areas where there are frequent storms, large waves and strong currents. Would you be content to permit more than 90 per cent of the cargo from a broken oil supertanker to pollute our beautiful coast?
Imagine that as you drive your car down the road it deposits behind it a trail of bitumen two metres wide and one metre high. Now suppose you have driven 20 kilometres, so that a strip of oil is deposited over the entire distance. This is the volume that leaked from the Exxon Valdez, about 40,000 cubic metres. It could have been much worse, since the Exxon Valdez contained about five times that amount of crude oil.
No matter where such a spill occurs, even on land where there is road access, the amount of work required to deal with the resulting mess is almost unimaginable.
In terms of sheer volume, the Exxon Valdez spill ranks as the 36th worst oil spill in history. Oil washed onto 2,000 km of Alaskan coastline. Today, oil remains a few inches below the surface on many of Alaska’s beaches. Even 25 years after the Exxon Valdez, the herring population in Prince William Sound is classified as an “injured resource” that is not recovering. Many other oil spills have been much larger than that of the Exxon Valdez, and such spills are a very real possibility over the operating lifetime of a pipeline such as the Northern Gateway.
In the open waters of the Salish Sea, it is possible that oil cleanup operations might achieve 10 per cent oil recovery of a relatively small spill, depending when and where the release occurred, depending on the weather and the type of oil, and if there were sufficient equipment and personnel ready to go to work right away.
Whether you call the technology world-class or world-leading, there is no magic bullet when it comes to dealing with massive amounts of oil in open waters.
I have participated in or conducted about a dozen oceanographic cruises to the central coast on ships of 200 to 300 feet, smaller ships and chartered fishing vessels. On two separate cruises in the fall and winter, on a very seaworthy 200-foot research ship, we encountered hurricane-force winds. Winds were over 100 knots on one occasion, and we had to abandon a rescue mission because our own safety was in danger.
On this same ship, another three-week cruise was a complete bust since the winds in Queen Charlotte Sound continued to blow in excess of 45 knots and it was simply too rough to safely do our work. In these conditions, any sort of oil-recovery operation in open water would have to be put on indefinite hold.
The waters of the central coast have been assessed as the fourth most dangerous in the world. Shipping accidents can and do happen — witness the Queen of the North and the Costa Concordia. It is my opinion that operating supertankers on the central coast is a recipe for disaster. No amount of money or human intervention can fix the damage caused by a supertanker-sized crude oil or diluted bitumen spill. Will you speak out to protect our coast, and all its wonderful living things that have no voice?
Michael Woodward is an avid sailor, physicist, retired oceanographer, hydrographer and former oil-spill emergency adviser with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. His oral testimony before the NEB hearings may be found here.
