Oil-spill response fleet starts to build on Island
The group responsible for dealing with oil spills around Vancouver Island, the Strait of Georgia and Metro Vancouver’s coastline is ramping up its Island presence.
Burnaby-based Western Canada Marine Response Corporation is establishing a base in Sidney to ensure it is ready in case of an oil spill amid an expected increase in oil tanker traffic because of the Trans Mountain expansion project.
Kinder Morgan’s $7.4 billion pipeline expansion will twin its existing pipeline between Edmonton and a tank farm and port in Burnaby. The pipeline is slated for completion by December 2019.
To date, the company has established Island bases at Nanaimo, Port Alberni, Ucluelet, Sidney and Beecher Bay as part of a $150-million expansion that will mean more than 100 new jobs and several new vessels.
So far in Sidney, the company has moored two “mini-barges” at Van Isle Marina with plans for significant expansion. “[This is] to prepare for a future response base in Sidney. Our plan is to moor a contingent of vessels at Van Isle Marina and build an office warehouse at the Victoria International Airport,” said company spokesman Michael Lowry. “The two sites will form our Sidney response base, which will operate [24 hours a day and seven days a week] and is part of a $150million spill response enhancement program.”
Lowry said the company plans to eventually moor six other vessels at Van Isle Marina — a 65-foot skimming vessel, a 50-foot landing craft, a 36-foot landing craft, a small workboat and two boom skiffs.
Lowry said they will eventually have 23 employees staffing the Sidney and airport sites. “For the past year we have been using the moorage for our existing fleet. We currently have a base in Duncan and different types of vessels moored around Vancouver Island, including in Victoria, Sidney, Nanaimo and Port Alberni,” he said.
The mini-barges moored at Van Isle are used to transport oil from skimming vessels to larger barges. They have a capacity to hold 40 tonnes of oil (one tonne of oil is equal to about 1,000 litres). Typically the mini-barges are towed behind another Western Canada Marine Response vessel, but can also be towed by a marine contractor.
The company plans to have as many as 16 minibarges and another five larger ones stationed on the coast spread among Port Alberni, Nanaimo, Beecher Bay, Sidney, Victoria, the Fraser River and Vancouver Harbour.