Activist sounds alarm over grounded tugs
Vessel submerged near Bella Bella not the first to strike shore this year, FOI documents reveal
An environmental activist says a tugboat leaking diesel fuel into the ocean near Bella Bella isn’t the first American-owned tug to run aground in the Inside Passage this year — and it won’t be the last.
“This is starting to look like a pattern,” said Denny Island resident Ingmar Lee, pointing to a similar incident near Campbell River in March. “It’s so eerily similar. It calls into question the idea that these are isolated incidents.”
Last week, a U.S.-owned articulated tug and barge an aground near Bella Bella. Although the barge was empty after dropping its cargo in Alaska, the tugboat Nathan E. Stewart began leaking fuel into the water, threatening the traditional clam fisheries of the Heiltsuk First Nation.
Cleanup crews remained on scene over the weekend.
In March, the Ocean Eagle, an American-owned tug carrying 80,000 gallons of diesel and a barge stacked with containers bound for Alaska, ran aground east of Rock Point in the Johnstone Strait.
According to documents obtained in a Freedom of Information request filed by Lee, the tug refloated itself, but the barge remained stuck in shallow water. Crews could hear air hissing from the barge and smelled diesel, but eventually determined no fuel was leaking into the water.
Lee said the response to the March incident — revealed in the FOI documents — was “disturbing.”
The tug and barge were towed to Menzies Bay to be examined for damage, where a Transport Canada marine inspector noted the tug was a “contract hauler” owned by Brusco Tug & Barge. Its documentation was “a mess, not well-maintained,” with the tug master reporting it was his first voyage on the boat.
Meanwhile, the barge’s owner was “very insistent” that the barge be allowed to continue on to Alaska under the power of a different tug boat after a damage assessment. The company sent divers to inspect the barge for damage, but they wouldn’t share their findings with the Canadian Coast Guard.
Eventually the damaged barge was inspected by a local company and, after small repairs and load tightening, approved for a voyage to a repair facility in Alaska.
Lee said the current situation near Bella Bella shouldn’t come as a shock, given the March incident.
“One mistake and these barges land on shore,” he said. “This was a close call. It’s going to keep happening.”
Lee wants shipments rerouted away from the Inside Passage and hauled offshore by ocean-going tankers. He also wants the “special waiver” that exempts certain U.S. tug companies from having Canadian pilots aboard revoked for the Ocean Eagle, just as the waiver was revoked for the Nathan E. Stewart earlier this week.