Oil storage tanks dot the shoreline of Burrard Inlet near the Chevron Burnaby Oil Refinery.Andy Clark/Reuters
The witnesses were called to explain what would happen if an oil tanker had a major spill in Burrard Inlet, in what was billed as an information session for Vancouver City Council. But after several industry officials gave presentations about safety precautions, Councillor David Cadman said sarcastically: "You're basically telling us, 'Don't worry, be happy.' Get to what happens if there's a spill."
The unusual council meeting Monday at times looked and sounded like a U.S. congressional hearing into a misbehaving industry. Representatives of Port Metro Vancouver, the Chamber of Shipping, Transport Canada and Burrard Clean Operations, the company that mops up spills on the B.C. coast, got a grilling about the potential risks of increased oil-tanker traffic in Vancouver's main harbour.
Councillor Heather Deal quizzed chamber representative Captain Stephen Brown repeatedly about his assurances of "total safety." Mayor Gregor Robertson wanted to know who would compensate local businesses if a spill affected them. In the end, although many reassurances were offered, they weren't satisfied.
"But we still have some questions," said Councillor Andrea Reimer, who plans to ask for the port committee of Metro Vancouver to take up the issue and get more answers.
Two months after the BP oil disaster began in the Gulf of Mexico, the question of rising oil-tanker traffic in Burrard Inlet blew up suddenly into a news item in mid-June, when a local amateur expert highlighted it.
Peter Baker, a computer and telecommunications specialist who got a master's degree in oceanography in 1992, made his case in person to council, warning that a tanker could go aground and a spill could easily occur in the narrow channel through which tankers have to pass.
"The pilots are on board, but do they have liability?" he said. "No, so there's nobody to go after."
The meeting also attracted representatives from West Coast Environmental Law and the Georgia Strait Alliance, who said there hasn't been enough risk assessment done on B.C.'s increasing tanker traffic.
However, Chris Badger, the chief operating officer of Metro Port Vancouver, said there hasn't been an oil spill caused in the harbour since 1990, when a Polish fishing boat got hit by a freighter. He also said there has never been an oil spill from a double-hulled tanker, which is all that is allowed in the Vancouver harbour. Even if a tanker did go aground because it missed the channel, it would sit on its flat bottom until the tide came in again, as opposed to tipping, drifting and smashing into anything.
He did acknowledge oil-tanker traffic has increased in the inlet, ever since the Americans decided post 9/11 that they would rather get their oil from places like Canada than the Middle East.
Mr. Brown also spelled out the conditions that are put on tankers before they are allowed to come to the B.C. coast, saying they are required to prove they have a contract for any clean-up from a spill and proof of their insurance.
As well, he noted, both the Canadian government and the private international shipping industry have created funds that are available for major oil spills from tankers.
Frances Bula