The recent appearance of large oil tankers in B.C. inside coastal waters is raising questions about whether a 34-year-old federal moratorium on offshore oil and gas development applies to new tanker traffic linked to the Alberta oil sands.
On June 24, a tanker carried 350,000 barrels of petroleum-based condensate, a product used to dilute bitumen mined in tar sands, travelling north through Caamano Sound into Douglas Channel and on to the deep-sea port at Kitimat, where the condensate was offloaded to a CN rail line.
The vessel was the second in two months to make the trip with such cargo, destined for EnCana's oil-sands operation in Alberta.
Critics say the tankers have no business carrying such cargo in those waters. At issue is whether the 1972 moratorium applies to tankers plying the 400-kilometre stretch of coastal waters between the northern tip of Vancouver Island and the Queen Charlotte Islands.
Environmentalists and most northern coastal native communities say it does -- but governments and industry insist the moratorium refers only to exploration and drilling in those waters, not to tanker traffic.
"The moratorium was never designed to eliminate business into our ports on the West Coast," said Rich Neufeld, the provincial Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources.
"B.C. has been shipping crude oil out of our ports for years. It's been happening before, it's picking up now, and there's no doubt about it, there will be more."
But environmentalists say the tankers now coming into use are much larger than the ones that have plied the waters in years past.
"The federal moratorium applies to these tankers, and until there is overt recognition by the federal government that it is lifting the moratorium, those tankers should not go through," said Karen Campbell, legal counsel for the Pembina Institute, an Alberta-based environmental-policy research organization.
"As it stands now, there's no penalty for these ships because there's no written law with enforcement provisions."
The original moratorium restricted oil and gas exploration and development of millions of hectares of inside-coastal seabed.
In response to fears of accidents, it also barred Alaska-bound oil tankers from the Dixon Entrance, Hecate Strait and Queen Charlotte Sound.
Natural Resources Canada says the 1972 moratorium is still in place but applies only to offshore oil and gas exploration and drilling. Transport Canada, the federal agency that oversees the transport and safety of dangerous goods by water, agrees.
Environmentalists argue that spill risks remain and that the federal government has quietly changed its stand on tanker traffic.
"Federal agencies have spent millions of taxpayer dollars on three separate panels regarding the moratorium since 2003," said Will Horter, executive director of a Victoria-based environmental group, the Dogwood Initiative. "All three refer very specifically to the moratorium applying to tankers through Hecate Strait, Queen Charlotte Sound and the Dixon Entrance."
Concerns have also been heightened by accidents involving tankers and large vessels, such as a February oil spill in Alaska's Cooke Inlet and the March sinking of a B.C. Ferries vessel, which has leaked up to 250,000 litres of diesel and lubrication oil off Hartley Bay.
"The sinking of the Queen of the North proves that a big ship can sink on the coast," said Walker Brown, a councillor with the Skidegate Band Council on the Queen Charlotte Islands. "We want to see as few tankers as possible here."
The federal and provincial governments say that the only restriction on tanker traffic now is a voluntary "tanker exclusion zone" established in a 1988 agreement between the U.S. and Canadian coast guards, governing vessels travelling down from Alaska to California and up through Juan de Fuca Strait.
"It was adopted to keep tankers outside of a boundary protecting the B.C. coastline in case something went amiss. It wouldn't apply to vessels coming in to Canadian ports like Kitimat," said Don Rodden, superintendent of environmental response for the Canadian Coast Guard's Pacific region.
The growing importance of Kitimat for tanker traffic was highlighted this month, when Premier Gordon Campbell announced $200,000 for a feasibility study on an additional port at Kitimat that could handle construction materials for oil-sands projects such as pipelines and refining facilities.
"The economic spinoffs [from shipping]will have a cascading effect in terms of new industry that will be attracted to the community," said Roger Harris, executive director of the Kitimat Port Development Society.
"Companies have lined up and told the Premier, 'We're about to make investments in your province, and if this infrastructure is not here, those investments will either be delayed or put at risk.' "