By Alison@Creekside
Say, remember last year when Rachel Maddow was absolutely gob-smacked to learn that Kinder Morgan had included the economic benefits of oil spills in its National Energy Board application to triple the size of the Trans Mountain pipeline?
Well, funny story there . . .
Kinder Morgan-owned company called in to clean up oil spill in English Bay
That would be 2,700 litres of this toxic gunk.
So I guess we owe KM an apology here.
They were right — there are economic benefits, if you’re a KM shareholder.
KM would have liked to get that apology last year, claiming that they were obligated to mention the upside of oil spills in their pitch to NEB.
Unfortunately NEB said that was crap.
Then there’s this: Federal government describes response to fuel spill as “world class”
To which Press Progress replied: On what fucking planet does this look like a “world class” oil spill response? (I might be paraphrasing slightly here)
World assness in progress . . .
- Spill reported at 5 pm by a sailor.
- Nine hours later at 2 am there was a boom in place around the leaking bunker fuel now wending its way to the beaches of Kitsilano and West Van.
- And finally, 12 hours after the leak was first spotted, someone remembered to let the City of Vancouver in on the secret.
So how could it possibly have taken so long to get their shit together?
Ok here’s a clue. The Cons shut down the key responders in 2013.
We had a marine safety response purge when the Kitsilano Coast Guard base — six minutes away from the bunker fuel spill — was shut down to save $700K a year, and the special pollution response boat with its 10,000 meters of oil- containment boom was moth-balled off to Richmond.
Gotta balance that world class ouroboros budget.
On Vimeo: “Like, why are we here first?”
Volunteers were out cleaning up the gunk off the shoreline themselves and putting up home-made signs warning to keep dogs and children out of the oily water. Good on them. Still, sea birds are notoriously poor readers and some had to be rescued when they got soaked in the gunk after not obeying the signs.
CBC reports the leaking vessel was on its maiden voyage after being launched from a Japanese shipyard in February. So — a brand new vessel then.
According to Tanker Free BC, the proposed Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline and tanker project “would see an increase from the current 80 tankers a year to over 400 tankers a year carrying primarily tar sands bitumen which is more likely to sink in the marine environment potentially causing significant harm.”
Too bad we don’t have some kind of ocean traffic control tower to co-ordinate emergency response communications for the next one . . .
Wait for it . . .
Fun fact: “Vancouver will also have to deal without a marine traffic communications centre (the ocean’s equivalent to an air traffic control tower). The Conservatives shut that down last month, consolidating the Pacific Coast’s operations to Victoria and Prince Rupert.”
