The really stunning aspect of the announcement was that the media largely fell for it – as though something serious was being announced.  The event that went unreported at the time, that one of the emergency response vessels for tanker spills, scheduled to be part of the press conference backdrop, ran aground on its way.  It is the perfect metaphor for a large non-event.

The March 2012 budget had actually included almost everything re-announced a year later in March 2013.  It included pipeline inspections and new tanker regulations.  Not only was the announcement duplicated in the 2012 budget the new measures were repeatedly cited as though they were part of the budget omnibus bill C-38.  Since C-38 was over 400 pages long, perhaps they did not expect anyone to read it. Maybe they never read it themselves, as Minister Oliver trumpeted then, “Mr. Speaker, the bill will do a great deal to protect the environment… As I mentioned in my remarks, tankers will have to be double-hulled, there will be mandatory pilotage, there will be enhanced navigation, there will be aerial surveillance and additional measures will be taken in particular cases when necessary.”

None of this was in C-38.  It is, in fact, what he announced in Vancouver on March 18, 2013.  I imagine he wondered why he had such a strong sense of déjà-vu.

The only new aspect of the announcement was of an expert panel to review tanker safety and to study the specific risks of a spill involving bitumen and diluents.  As the entire Enbridge Joint Review Panel hearing has been dealing with a product it does not plan to ship  — crude oil – it is certainly worthwhile finding out how bitumen and diluents will behave.

At the Vancouver press conference, Oliver and Lebel trumpeted that they had tabled for First Reading  the Safeguarding Canada’s Seas and Skies Act.  I sought it out to read it.  Its introduction for First Reading had been splashless. Once again, I was underwhelmed.  The bill is merely a series of housekeeping measures. The “safeguarding skies” piece deals with aviation and aeronautics, through changes to inspections of aviation accidents and aeronautic indemnities.  There is no environmental aspect to the “skies” component.  Then there are the amendments related to “seas.”  The Marine Act is amended to change the date for the approval of a new director of a port authority. The only oil-spill related components are in the Marine Liability Act.  The act is brought into compliance with the 2010 International Convention on Liability and Compensation for Damage in connection with the Carriage and Noxious Substances by Sea.   So, nothing about double-hulled tankers.

The reality is that since 1993, all new tankers are required, by international agreement, to be double-hulled. According to a great summary on the issue by Mitch Anderson in September 27, 2010 The Tyee, (“No, Double Hull Tankers Do Not Ensure ‘Total Safety,’”) there were only 50 single-hulled tankers operating anywhere on the planet that year.  None were allowed in North American waters.

Do double hulls eliminate the risk of oil spills?  Not actually.  Despite the exuberance of Joe Oliver’s rhetoric, double-hulls possess no magical powers.  Their use has not ended the risk of accidents and oil spills.  Collisions with barges and freighters have caused oil spills of millions of litres in ports around the world.  Double hulls can be sliced open and oil spills out.

The Transport Canada website was prettied up for the announcement, with a “fact sheet” transparently designed to create the impression the British Columbia coast is routinely plied by hundreds of super-tankers.

Here are some of the claims from the Transport Canada website:

• Oil tankers have been moving safely and regularly along Canada’s West Coast since the 1930’s.
• In 2009-2010, there were about 1500 tanker movements on the West Coast….
• A federal moratorium off the coast of BC applies strictly to oil and natural gas exploitation and development, not to tanker storage or movement.

In fact, the 1972 moratorium was precisely against oil tanker traffic along BC’s north coast.  That was a federal-provincial moratorium.  Most readers will not notice the subtlety of the website reference to the “federal moratorium.”   Moreover, the 1500 tanker “movements” refers to what Transport Canada defines as “every time a ship (or vessel) commences or ceases to be underway. Underway is defined as a vessel that is not at anchor, or made fast to the shore, or aground.”  And by tanker, they mean “a cargo ship fitted with tanks for carrying liquid in bulk.” Not oil tankers.   In 2011, the total number of oil tankers in and out of the Port of Vancouver was 82.  None of them were super-tankers and none of them operate without risk.

In the on-going war of words to get super-tankers carrying bitumen crude into our waters, it is amazing any media covered Joe Oliver’s announcement as if anything meaningful had been added to the discussion.

Originally printed in the Hill Times.

The post Reality check on Transport Canada’s claims for tanker safety appeared first on Elizabeth May.

Spin: Joe Oliver will step up inspections to ensure that no single-hulled tankers sneak into Canadian waters.

Reality: Only about 50 large single-hulled tankers still exist in the world, and are already banned in North American waters.  Despite a 1993 international agreement mandating that all new tankers be double-hulled, and the International Maritime Organization’s global ban on all single-hulled tankers taking effect in 2015, the Harper Conservatives laughably claim to be “leaders” with our domestic, single-hulled ban for 2014.  Not a moment too soon, Mr. Oliver.

Spin: The Exxon Valdez was single-hulled.  Subtext: double-hulled tankers are inherently safe.

Reality: There are MANY instances of oil being spilled from double-hulled tankers.  A few: May, 2010, the Bunga Kelana spilled 2.9 million litres in the waters off Singapore; January, 2009, the Eagle Otome spilled 1.7 million litres at Port Arthur, Texas; in December, 1992, the Aegean Sea spilled 76 million litres off Northern Spain.

Spin: “The government will conduct scientific research on non-conventional petroleum products, such as diluted bitumen, to enhance understanding of these substances and how they behave when spilled in the marine environment.”

Reality: One would hope that well before we actually begin sending bitumen offshore, we would have some idea of how to clean it up in the event of a spill.  Wrong.  Current plans are to begin loading and shipping bitumen on supertankers before ANY spill response technology or strategies exist.

Spin: What is the big deal adding a few more tanker trips each year when, according to the Current situation backgrounder issued with Mr. Oliver’s announcement, “In 2009-2010, there were about 1,500 tanker movements on the West Coast, among 475,000 vessel movements in the area.”

Reality: According to Transport Canada’s own website, a tanker is defined as any “cargo ship fitted with tanks for carrying liquid in bulk,” and there are NO supertankers currently plying the BC coast.  Further, the same site explains that, “’movements’ refer to every time a ship (or vessel) commences and ceases to be underway.”  Every single time a tanker, any tanker, stops or starts, a “movement” is logged.  Of the 1,500 “tanker movements”, how many were empty? Probably half?  According to Budget 2012, only 82 oil tankers actually arrived in Port Metro Vancouver in 2011.

Spin: Yesterday, Ministers Oliver and Lebel tabled Bill C-57, the Safeguarding Canada’s Seas and Skies Act, touting it as yet another indication of the Harper Conservatives’ supposed commitment to all things environmental.

Reality: 100% of the Bill’s title is spin, and 99% of its content is simply departmental housekeeping, with little-to-no genuine impact on the safety of anything, never mind our seas and skies.

The post Oliver’s spin fails to cover a negligent record on tanker safety appeared first on Elizabeth May.

Elizabeth May, MP for Saanich-Gulf Islands and Leader of the Green Party of Canada, hoped to spark interest in the anniversary of the Exxon Valdez oil spill with a picturesque press conference Friday morning.

On March 24, 23 years ago, the Exxon Valdez, an oil tanker bound for Long Beach, Calif. struck the Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound and spilled 260,000 to 750,000 barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Alaska.

“The life of that ecosystem has not yet recovered,” May said Friday at the Shaw Ocean Discovery Centre in Sidney. “There is still damage. It is being monitored by scientists that the bird life has not returned, that the life of the ocean waters have not been restored to the condition which they were 23 years ago today, on the eve of the Exxon Valdez spill.”

View the full original article >>

The post May says Exxon Valdez spill calls for legislation against oil tankers appeared first on Elizabeth May.

A moratorium on crude-oil supertankers on B.C.’s coast should be expanded and enshrined in legislation, Green Party leader Elizabeth May said on the eve of the 23rd anniversary of the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

“We know oil and water don’t mix,” said May, who was at the Shaw Ocean Discovery Centre in Sidney Friday.

After the Exxon Valdez was grounded on a reef in Prince William Sound in Alaska in 1989, it spewed 40 million litres of crude oil across approximately 2,000 kilometres of shoreline. The area has not yet recovered, May said.

View the full original article >>

The post May calls for tanker ban on oil-spill anniversary appeared first on Elizabeth May.

“The 1989 Exxon Valdez spill taught us some tragic lessons,” said Elizabeth May, MP for Saanich-Gulf Islands and Leader of the Green Party of Canada.  “We learned how difficult it is to clean up a remote shoreline, how widespread and long-lasting the damage can be, and how costly such accidents are in ecological, social, and economic terms.

“Most Canadians realize that this must not be allowed to happen again, and yet the continued push to develop the oil sands at a breakneck pace brings the very real risk that it probably will,” said May.

After the Exxon Valdez grounded on a reef, the resulting spill of 40-million litres of heavy crude oil spread across nearly 2,000 kilometres of shoreline. It was responsible for the deaths of up to 700,000 birds, marine life, billions of herring and salmon eggs, and the continuing contamination of an entire ecosystem.

The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council estimates that almost 80 000 litres of crude oil still remain in the subsurface and, at the current rate, “the remaining oil will take decades and possibly centuries to disappear entirely.” Oil is still found as surface puddles and pockets in the sand of some beaches.

For this and other reasons, the Green Party is calling for a legislated ban on crude oil tankers along BC’s coast.  This ban would include the busy south coast, as well as the more pristine and rugged north coast area.

In the south, since 2007, the federal government has allowed up to 1.2 million barrels of tar sands crude oil to be shipped from Kinder-Morgan’s Burrard Inlet terminal in Vancouver each week to California and China.

In the north, Enbridge has proposed a 1,170 km Northern Gateway pipeline to carry 525,000 barrels per day of Alberta tar sands crude oil westward to a new oil-tanker port at Kitimat.  If these projects succeed, oil tanker traffic through the region could increase by five-fold in coming years – up to 200 supertankers annually.

“The proposal to build a pipeline from a tar sands terminal near Edmonton, across the Rocky Mountains, over 1000 rivers and streams, and through First Nations territories –and then allow supertankers, which are as long as the Eiffel Tower is high, to transport this oil along an incredibly winding and rock-filled route through an ecologically-significant region sounds like another Exxon Valdez in the making,” said May.

According to one of Enbridge’s own studies, a spill of 36,000 cubic metres of bitumen — on the order of the Exxon Valdez spill — in Wright Sound near Kitimat would contaminate 240 kilometres of shoreline in 15 days.  The Environmental Commissioner in the Office of the Auditor General has warned that Canada has no ability to respond to such a devastating oil spill.

“With such clear warnings, why should we allow this pipeline-tanker extract-and-export scheme to happen? Canadians must speak out against such oil industry and Conservative recklessness.”

The post Lesson of Exxon Valdez Oil Spill More Relevant Than Ever appeared first on Elizabeth May.