Ship dumps 50 tonnes of fuel in spill Chantal Eustace and Emily Chung
Vancouver Sun; With a file from Kim Thompson
Saturday, August 05, 2006
CREDIT: Global National
The Westwood Anette was being escorted out of port by two tugs when it struck the pilings.
Emergency crews were scrambling Friday night to contain a large oil spill on the Squamish waterfront after a large freighter hit pilings and dumped as much as 50 tonnes of fuel.
Bunker fuel gushed from the freighter for at least an hour Friday afternoon, coating wildlife and forcing windsurfers and kiteboarders to flee.
"The fuel spill is being pushed by waves, currents and winds into the Squamish Estuary and is affecting the shorelines, marshes and wildlife," RCMP Cpl. Dave Ritchie said in a written statement Friday night.
Members of the coast guard emergency response team and provincial conservation officers were on the scene Friday night, along with Burrard Clean, a containment and cleanup company based in North Vancouver.
The fuel forced at least 20 people from the water, an eyewitness said.
"It stinks. . . . We all smell. It's slimy," said Chris Glazier, 58, a Vancouver kiteboarder who was covered in oil from the spill.
"We're depressed our day has been ruined and the estuary looks like it will have a serious ecological problem," he added.
At 3 p.m., the Westwood Anette, owned by Gearbulk Shipping Canada, punctured two holes in a fuel tank while leaving Squamish Terminal, said coast guard spokesman Don Bate.
"Estimating the volume of the spill is quite hard until we begin to do cleanup," Bate said.
Catherine Stewart, campaigns director of the Living Oceans Society, said the spill has the potential to cause enormous ecological damage because estuaries are the richest part of the river system, with a high concentration of shellfish, plants, insects and juvenile fish.
Stewart said the spill will be particularly hard on salmon stocks, which were virtually wiped out by a chemical spill in the Cheakamus River, which flows into the Squamish River and then into the estuary.
system, with a high concentration of shellfish, plants, insects and juvenile fish.
Stewart said the spill will be particularly hard on salmon stocks, which were virtually wiped out by a chemical spill in the Cheakamus River, which flows into the Squamish River and then into the estuary.
The Cheakamus River spill happened exactly one year.
"It's like a double-barrelled hit to the fish stocks," said Stewart.
Peter Swanson, a lawyer and spokesman for Gearbulk, said he did not know how much oil had escaped or the size of the tank.
"The real information will come once it is known precisely which tank, how much fuel was in the tank and how much remains," Swanson said. "We're all trying to gather information too."
He said the ship had initiated a "spill response" and began to mobilize cleanup operations within 30 minutes of the spill.
"There's been a fast response," Swanson said.
Stewart, however, said she was concerned by the response time.
"This just illustrates that accidents will happen and they [authorities] don't have the response capacity right now to deal with them," she said, adding that the response proves it would be reckless to lift a moratorium on oil tankers and offshore drilling along B.C.'s coast.
The Westwood Anette was being escorted out of port by two tugs when it struck the pilings.
The vessel was being chartered by Weyerhaeuser and Westwood, said Lawrence Pillon, Weyerhaeuser spokesman.
"The ship identified the leak," Pillon said. "They kicked in the oil spill response plan immediately."
Officials from the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, and the provincial emergency program will be investigating the spill, said police, who provided the 50-tonne estimate. The coast guard will coordinate the cleanup, police said.
Edith Tobe, executive president of the Squamish River Watershed Society, said she feared for the wildlife in the estuary.
On Friday night, Tobe said she could see small fish jumping out of the water in the area of the spill -- "which is really alarming, and it's indicative that there are low oxygen levels in the water."
Tobe said the estuary is home to a diverse list of birds, as well as seals and otters. "These types of species are affected the most because they deal with the surface of the water the most," she said.
ceustace@png.canwest.comechung@png.canwest.com© The Vancouver Sun 2006
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Topic: Squamish oil spill, help needed (Read 3568 times)