Tug leaking fuel into inside passage

[maryjane48]

safe for what ?

[twobits]

safe for what ?

Energy, as in lighting your pipe.

[bob vernon]

It's just a good thing for both Justin and for Christie that this spill is in such a remote area. It's really hard for the media to cover the spill so the political damage is minimized. Plus, it only effects a remote native village and they don't have much standing with any political party. Sure, their shellfish beds are ruined and they'll have to import food into the region this winter, but, again, it's an isolated place that the media will ignore once winter sets in. And it will all blow over by the spring election.

[twobits]

It's just a good thing for both Justin and for Christie that this spill is in such a remote area. It's really hard for the media to cover the spill so the political damage is minimized. Plus, it only effects a remote native village and they don't have much standing with any political party. Sure, their shellfish beds are ruined and they'll have to import food into the region this winter, but, again, it's an isolated place that the media will ignore once winter sets in. And it will all blow over by the spring election.

What a drama queen you are. The shellfish closure is only a temp precautionary one. This is diesel, not crude oil. It will, much to your chagrin, blow over by the spring election because the shellfish beds will not be ruined and the amount of food imported into the area will be the same as last year and the year before.
The only thing blowing here is your over dramatization and bs for partisan purposes over a tugboat accident, of which there are thousands by the way plying coastal waters, into an oil tanker story. Your concern has as much credibility as calling for the shutdown of hwy 97 because some dummy drove their car off the road and into Okanagan Lake.

[ferri]

*don't start making it personal please! thanks!

[maryjane48]

i think the way to look at this is thus .first we can all be thankfull that it was only fuel .second clarks world class responce is fantasy at this point . third regardless of anything pilots on every boat ,its done elsewhere .fourth we should never say well it is only fuel because even that does have a negative effect


we have to make sure with increased tanker traffic this type of spill can only increase and we would be prudent to be ready .because who wants to have to explain to the next generation why we went from pristine to not so much .

[bob vernon]

It just keeps going on and on. The tug sunk on Oct 13. Today, Oct 21 and they're still floundering around. World class?
This is just a tug boat. What if it was an oil tanker? Would we still contract it out to a company from Florida who performs like this?

http://www.castanet.net/news/BC/178878/ ... rt-stalled

[Rosemary1]

Here is bc legislature columnist opinion along with some additional info. to put it all together.

http://www.kamloopsthisweek.com/fletche ... mature/Tom Fletcher is B.C. legislature reporter and columnist for Black Press. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @tomfletcherbc

•Bella Bella, Victoria BC posted Oct 18, 2016 at 9:00 AM— updated Oct 18, 2016 at 10:03 AM

"The village of Bella Bella on B.C.’s remote Central Coast has had more than its share of attention in 2016.
In January, Premier Christy Clark joined forest industry and environmental representatives in Bella Bella to sign the final preservation and resource management agreement for the Great Bear Rainforest, the faux-aboriginal name bestowed by U.S. protesters on this great expanse of temperate forest.

Then in September, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, better known as William and Kate, flew into Bella Bella airstrip in what I’m told was a wild and wet landing. Their Royal Highnesses announced that the forest is included in the Queen’s Commonwealth Canopy, a network of forest conservation programs including all 53 Commonwealth countries.
And then last week, a Texas-owned tugboat pushing a fuel barge south from Alaska ran aground near Bella Bella, and the now-familiar panic and posturing over transport of petroleum products resumed.

This comes as we await the decision of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s cabinet on the expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline across B.C. to its Westridge terminal in Burnaby. This project is likely to be approved, increasing oil tanker traffic from Vancouver to the point where it almost matches the daily Alaska crude tankers sailing past Victoria.

Back to Bella Bella. The Nathan E. Stewart is not a crude tanker, but rather a tugboat and 10,000-tonne barge that transports refined fuel. The barge was empty when it ran aground Oct. 13, and the tugboat sank in shallow water.
The chorus of protest spread as quickly as the one-molecule-thick diesel sheen from the tug’s fuel tanks. A leading voice was Jess Housty, a Bella Bella resident who proudly describes herself as a Heiltsuk tribal councillor and “foreign funded radical.”
Along with Twitter updates about the barge incident, Housty promoted a strident eco-blog report that Heiltsuk leaders are now demanding the Trudeau government formally legislate a ban on oil tankers off the B.C. coast, and extend it to fuel barges.
I had the pleasure of visiting Bella Bella on a sunny day in September, or at least viewing it from the deck of the BC Ferries vessel Northern Adventure. Bella Bella is currently the only stop on the Inside Passage sailing from Port Hardy to Prince Rupert.
With about 1,400 residents, Bella Bella is one of B.C.’s largest aboriginal communities. It has no road access. Private hydro is wired in from the long-defunct Ocean Falls pulp and paper mill, backed up by diesel generators.
Heiltsuk Chief Councillor Marilyn Slett was quoted as saying clam beds at Hartley Bay up the coast have still not recovered from the fuel that escaped when the Queen of the North sank in March 2006.
If that is true, and I would like to see evidence that it is, perhaps it has something to do with another spill that foreign-funded radicals don’t mention. That’s when 15,000 litres of diesel was spilled into Hartley Bay on Dec. 29, 2007 during a transfer from a barge to a large on-shore storage tank that supplies the village’s only power source, diesel generators.
That was a one-day story, barely a blip in the ongoing hand-wringing about fuel still trickling out from the sunken ferry, a year and a half after it went down and two people died.
Day-to-day fuel use is the main risk. If the Heiltsuk protesters get their way, the risk of future fuel spills around Hartley Bay and Bella Bella would soon be reduced substantially.
That’s because both of these villages would soon be deserted."

[bob vernon]

Time for another update:

Tug sunk October 13.
Now it's October 22.
Tug's still leaking diesel. World class spill containment and cleanup is still on the job. They're a company that was hired out of Florida of all places to deal with a spill in the north Pacific. They even had one of their own boats sink during the cleanup. And Enbridge wants to ship out bitumen from the north coast?

Remember the Exxon Valdez. Sunk just south of Anchorage in 1989. Exxon fought in court for more than 20 years before they finally settled for about a third of what the original bill was. The bottom of the ocean up there is still paved with heavy oil creating an area where there just aren't any fish.
And Enbridge wants to ship out bitumen from the north coast?

[maryjane48]

wow what gong show over something that should be easy . and florida company ? and jt is on the verge of allowing piplines to go ahead . well the westcoast will be known as the oilcoast no fish but lots of black oily stuff

[twobits]

wow what gong show over something that should be easy . and florida company ? and jt is on the verge of allowing piplines to go ahead . well the westcoast will be known as the oilcoast no fish but lots of black oily stuff

The difference between BC and Norway? Their fishery is larger and their coastline more rugged. They drill offshore and have tanker traffic.
The biggest difference between Norway and BC is that they have no debt and billions in their kitty from oil revenue. The even bigger difference is they don't have fear mongers like yourself and Bob Vernon spreading Henny Penny garbage.

[bob vernon]

Fear mongering? Exxon wrote the original script for this movie when they paved the floor of Prince William Sound. And then contested the issue for more than 20 years. It might be fear mongering if I had exaggerated the story, but the facts are there....... oil spill, environment disaster, dragging out the case for more than 20 years. Good corporate citizen.

And we should ship out an even heavier pavement?

Maybe the difference between us and Norway is that they have a world class spill response. We can't even clean up a spill from a tug boat's fuel tank. And it's been 9 days.

[hobbyguy]

FYI bashers of the BC Libs, this spill is a federal responsibility!

http://www.ccg-gcc.gc.ca/ccg/er/home

"Canadian law places the onus for responding to pollution incidents on the polluter and the Coast Guard's role, through its Environmental Response program, is to monitor the polluter's efforts. If a polluter is unknown, unwilling, or unable to respond to an incident, Coast Guard will step in and manage the response. However, this does not lessen the polluter's responsibility. Through legislation, the Canadian Coast Guard can seek compensation for costs incurred when managing or monitoring the response to an incident."

So there is a built mess in the legislation, the Coast Guard waits and monitors the polluters efforts, and only if that is failing, takes over. Leads to a lot of "I thought YOU were looking after that..."

Historically, this issue has been made worse by the previous federal government: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/coast-guard-budget-cuts-roil-the-water-in-bc-oil-spill-controversy/article23893361/

"Ms. Clark has repeatedly warned that B.C. is not ready for additional oil tanker traffic, and had demanded that Ottawa reopen the Kitsilano Coast Guard base as a starting point. She was ignored, and the payback was delivered on Friday when she slammed the federal government for its “unacceptable” neglect of marine safety on Canada’s West Coast.

While the Clark government has been raising the alarm, the federal Conservative government continued to trim its marine safety resources."

The federal Libs have really not done enough to fix this mess. And don't forget, there isn't a single salvage tug big enough to handle a decent size modern ship in BC...

[the truth]

http://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/petroleum-barge-runs-aground-near-bella-bella


justv little taste of what we can expect when ships start coming for lng .

I will agree wih you 100% on this one the so called clean up protocols they have for spills are 100% lies, a small spill like this just proves it

[hobbyguy]

The federal Libs need to understand that we are not prepared to accept the current travesty that is spill response on the BC coast. In fact, the whole marine accident response system is pretty much third world class. We don't even have a single tug in BC that can help a large ship in trouble...if you will recall when the Russian ship got in trouble off Haida Gwaii, we had wait for an American tug - and even that one was inadequate.

So we can neither prevent disasters, nor clean them up. That's not good enough.

I have contacted our local MP expressing my dissatisfaction and letting him know that I will oppose any increases in marine traffic, including that from the proposed Kinder-Morgan pipeline expansion, until such time as this situation has been resolved.

We deserve better. Please take the time to write to your MP.